Typical Tuesday...Far from Perfect

It's a typical Tuesday at our house. Our counter usually looks like this with infusion supplies and a sharps container strewn about. Sometimes, it is worse!  It's the story of our life.

My middle son and I watched a homeschooling video this morning and I laughed and cried. It portrays the perfect homeschooling adventure. Our family's homeschooling video would be completely different. We are somewhere in the middle. Maybe. Just a little.

It is a struggle, trying to accept God's will for your life when you compare yourself to others. When our children were born, we had hopes and dreams..... we saw the homeschooling adventure in the video before us. It's wonderful for those families who live that dream. Sometimes, God has other plans. Yet, His will is perfect and while the adventure we've had isn't exactly what we dreamt it would be, I wouldn't change it for the world. God's version IS perfect. We've learned how to truly offer up our joys, works and sufferings to him. Most days, anyway.

Somewhere between the medications, infusions and hospital visits, we manage to homeschool. Our oldest graduated from Seton last year, never having been to regular school, and did well his first year at Belmont Abbey. Two more to go. God willing S will graduate next year and J the following year. Part of our homeschooling is transitioning them to adulthood with the ability to take care of all their own medical needs. This is proving to be the hardest part of our journey so far.

While our homeschool adventure is only a tad bit like the video below, this is an awesome video. Something I truly always dreamt ours would be. I am ever thankful that God makes up for where we are lacking..... and feel blessed that while not the best example of homeschooling, God called us to this way of life. He knew what He was doing when He put it on our hearts to homeschool our kids.



Seton Home Study School - Catholic Homeschooling from Two Sense Films on Vimeo.

Praise the Lord for Abnormal Marrow .... Back to Nornal life

A lot has been happening since I last blogged about our lives. We've started back to school and life is returning to normal after their bone marrow biopsies.  We head out for two hospital trips later this month. Is it just me, or are we at the hospital a lot? My oldest can't go, so he will be holding down the fort and taking care of the pets...and we've added a new rescue kitty (picture to follow). We've named her Cupid and Valentine is not too happy about the new addition to our family. After four days, Valentine is still hissing and growling at poor little Cupid. She must have forgotten she was rescued, too!es.

I've been trying to recover from the last hospital trip and at the same time, prepare for a really long week of trips. We will drive to New Orleans to see our Mito specialist and the pain doctor he works with, then drive straight from there to Cincy's pain clinic. With bone marrow failure, we need to have the bone marrow doctors at Cincy involved in medications and since Cincy doesn't have a Mito specialist (he left a few months ago), this is a way we can get the teams to work together. Our doctors here say they don't have anything like what Cincy has, so..... we travel.

It is a constant struggle to find God in all of this... why we don't have doctors closer to us that can help with their chronic pain and other issues.  I guess it is His will that we travel.  Their  bone marrow biopsies still showed myelodysplasia (Dysgranulopoiesis), but they compared them to slides from 2009 and 2010 and it has stayed the same. 20% of their granulocytes (neutrophils) in the marrow showed dysgranulopoiesis. They also had changes in their peripheral blood.   So... life goes on and we get another year before we have bone marrow biopsies. I never thought when they were born that I'd be rejoicing that they had pre-leukemic bone marrow! Stable is good.... staying the same is good.  A miracle cure would be better.... but in His time, I suppose. I Also found a great video, which was an inspiration to me (Below Cupid's picture)

My youngest turns 14 this week and he saved his money to rescue Cupid. How cute is that? His birthday present is that we will buy her food and litter for the next year. She won't go outside like Valentine does. Valentine was already an outdoor kitty for over a year before she found us! Cupid is 6 months old and seems very content staying inside.

Here's Cupid:

Cupid, the Cutest Kitty Ever

There is a really wonderful video that I watched the other day-- We are Catholic. Wow....

Post Crossing

Post Crossing is a neat site where you can send post cards and receive post cards from around the world. I thought this would be a great project for homeschoolers.

Homeschooling Changes

Homeschooling changes as the kids get older.  Mom becomes more and more bored! I guess once you teach them to read and write, they just don't need you as often.  When we don't have a lot of medical adventures going on, I can become quite bored.  It isn't as easy as one might think. I can't turn on the radio or TV, can't talk on the phone or disappear.  If you are a fellow homeschooler, you know the drill.  Any noise distracts them from doing their school work, and if you leave their sight for even a few minutes, they start to wander and play.

It is still a fun adventure and I really am thankful for the days they can work on their own (with a bit of prodding from mom here and there).  I've got a list of things to do on these quiet sort of days. Update my contacts, create a recipe book with the huge Ziploc of collected recipes from the last 18 years, garden, read all of the books I wanted to read in high school, college and their earlier years and never got to, and work in the garden.

My oldest is looking into colleges and preparing for the SAT.  Hard to believe he will be in college soon.  He has several on his list, but right now would like to go to Belmont Abbey.  We visited last weekend for the Bishop's Lenten retreat that was held there. The campus is small, but gorgeous.  

Just when I complain that life is boring, something pops up!  For now I am enjoying it.

An Ordinary Day

People often ask me what homeschooling is "like" or where do you "do it"? is another question that always comes up.  Over the years and as houses have changed, our  homeschooling space has changed. When the kids were smaller, we could get away with less space.   Our first house had no room for homeschooling other than at the kitchen table.  Matthew did his Kindergarten work there.  Our second house had a great classroom! I really miss that classroom! The previous owners had finished a room in their basement complete with storage space, closets and a wet bar, which became our science bar. Our current house doesn't have a finished basement and we've had dreams of having a classroom down there for years.  We started out doing school work in a spare bedroom here in this house, but after a year, I was going stir crazy!  Now, our classroom consists of a den turned library work room and a formal dining room turned craft and school room.

An ordinary day consists of getting up, doing a few chores, eating and hopefully brushing teeth.  Some mornings are better than others with only a few reminders to take their pills and bring down their dirty clothes.   I've given up on fighting with them to keep their desks organized. Warning: this pictures show a messy school area!

Matthew looking up at me instead of doing his work

Sean at his MESSY desk

Joseph Taking a Test at the small station in the kitchen. Above, you can see his salt and pepper shaker collection (he loves to collect these!) and some of their art work, too....

Joseph Reading with his Bunny

This is pretty much an ordinary day in our house. Most days, we manage to get all of their school work done!