In which I write about everything else I do

Today I went to a homeschool conference. I have four children -- monozygotic ("identical") twin boys who are 6 years old, a 4 year old girl who is very sneaky, and a 2 year old girl with ringlets -- and we're going to start homeschooling this year. Or we already are, I guess. Of course the day wouldn't be complete if upon parking at the conference location I hadn't immediately run in one of my sister student midwives and had a quick discussion about recent births we've attended. But mostly my morning focused on learning more about homeschooling.

My biggest concern used to be spending 24/7 with my children; but as I've been doing it all summer and we've all survived, now I'm mostly concerned about finding the time to homeschool, do my own school, attend prenatals and births and postpartums, and keep the house clean enough that CPS isn't called to our house based on reports of squallor. Did I mention we also have three dogs who all shed profusely? Oh, and also keep everyone fed at regular intervals.

I think in my heart, I'm an unschooler. I'm really not looking forward to sitting down with my kids for a specific amount of time and teaching a specific... thing. I'd really rather just kind of let them learn about laundry piles and how to maintain them, and why keeping the door shut to the least insulated room in the house keeps our upstairs somewhat cooler, and how to get dog hair out of the corners where it all seems to converge, daily. I'd rather just let them count their Cheerios and learn the left side of the sink from the right side of the sink for putting their bowls on the proper side, and learn to read by watching TV with Closed Captioning -- because I can't watch TV without using Closed Captioning. I like to see exactly what everyone is saying.

However, that all said, I would like them to read -- at least so they can stop bugging me about "what does this say? what does that say?" -- and write and learn a foreign language and maybe an instrument. Math, I don't really care about, and science is more of Dustin's thing. He's a chemist; I don't even know why the sky is blue.

So, I'm dutifully looking into "curriculum," and have decided that it will consist of Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Handwriting Without Tears, and Math-U-See. Also, Sing Song Latin -- one of the only useful lessons from high school was learning Latin and Greek root words and prefixes and suffixes; thank you, Mrs. Taft -- art supplies including Stockmar Crayons, some kids' music, and playing outside.

I'm tired just thinking about it. And this does not even account for time to do laundry!

Seriously, we might be living in squallor! I cannot procrastinate my own school work, I cannot skip prenatals or births or postpartums; something's gotta give. And it will probably be the house.

I'm wildly lucky to be married to Dustin, who is totally impervious to filth. Totally impervious. He has many good qualities, but that may be his best. Of course, when I'm actually ready to strap on my shoulder-length rubber gloves and tackle the bathrooms, he seems totally miffed, but I'd rather have someone who doesn't mind the mess than someone anal-retentive. Or COD, as my bff Emily calls it. That's OCD properly alphabetized, of course.

I have hobbies other than laundry and wasting time online. I love to read. I love to write. I want to show Maizey and get her titled so that she can be bred in a few years. I want to get back into running -- I ran two 5K races several years ago and I felt like a rockstar although at the time I looked more like a Clydesdale.

You know, those giant horses that clop-clop-clop really loudly? That's how people on the coolrunning.com website describe overweight runners. There's even a group called Lady Clydes. Lovely. I have tons of extra skin since my surgery, and my sister swears that running will help. However, my broken toe still hurts, so the treadmill will probably maintain it's usefulness as a towel-holder for another month til I feel 100%.

Sleeping in my bed is another hobby. I miss sleeping late, and I miss my bed. I used to get into bed on Saturday nights and read People magazine; now I leave it in the bathroom and thanks to my weight-loss surgery and its effect on my intestines, I usually get it all read within a week.