Gigi's Blog » Tales of the Mortician's Wife

“As a parent you must live out your faith in your own life.
It is impossible to give away something you don’t have.
Kids can spot a phony from a mile away. They’re looking for the real deal from their parents.

Living your faith can start with simple things, like showing love, kindness, and generosity.
If your kids see you finding ways to “be a blessing,” it will become a natural and normal way of life for them too.”
-Mary Fairchild

A super sweet e-mail hit my inbox the other morning … it was from a dear friend of mine congratulating me on completing our first half year of homeschooling.

Wow.

I never thought about it until then, but yes …

… we’ve been officially homeschooling for half of the school year … and so far, it’s working!!!   I’m so happy (and relieved) to know we can actually *DO* this and not go crazy.  [Not every day is easy or fun but it’s still absolutely amazing!] I kind of see homeschooling like a great diet plan – it’s awesome,  it’s soooo good for me (and my family), but it’s a lot of work and some days you just don’t want to work out … you just want to eat cake and skip the treadmill, but you KNOW how amazing you feel after you work out and you can see the results happening  … so you stick with it … it’s also shown me where I need to improve in my parenting and where I can ease back.

This week, we’ve been taking it a bit easier and enjoying all the awesomeness Christmas has to offer. (Okay, so I know ‘awesomeness’ is not a word, but just give that one to me … k?)

Like decorating gingerbread houses.

This photo was taken right as we started. Little did I know the work cut out for me in that next hour (or four)… four kids, two who can’t actually decorate yet and one who is a perfectionist and one wee baby who decided it was time to be held the entire decorating session … made for a tricky-icing-covered-house-afternoon. The joy (ignorance) on my face was soon replaced with “Okay, we can DO this!! We CAN decorate THREE gingerbread houses, bounce a baby in in the sling and keep everyone from eating so much candy that they will be throwing it all up this afternoon …” oh yeah …..

I’m nuts like that.
Oh, and did I mention all the walls caved in on all three gingerbread houses? Thanks to some super glue and crafty-thinking, I managed to get the houses to stand … and decorated (using the term loosely).

But we had fun.

I think.

… even though the perfectionist-child had to wait 1/2 an hour for me to actually assist her …

And today, we went caroling at a local nursing home. Guys, I almost cried …. looking around the room at the group of about 20 or more senior citizens, listening to our small group of {home schooled} kids sing Christmas carols, read poems, play games with them and hand out homemade chocolate cookies and Christmas ornaments. One sweet resident, who was sitting amongst the rows of elderly, leaned down from her wheelchair and grasped at my two year old, Lucia’s hand, smiled a huge smile and I said, “I love you, I love you, I love ….” and Lucia just smiled back, in that impish way that she does, with her chin leaning down towards her shoulder in a shy, cute way … Lucia didn’t pull away … she just smiled and let the woman hold her hand … I wish I had my camera, but I didn’t want to be invasive.

But it was beautiful.

And I knew in that moment that my girls were indeed learning so much about compassion. And love. And sharing the Christmas cheer with others.

I’m so thankful for this opportunity to school my girls in this way … let’s see where it takes us.