It’s not like we were using it.

Readers may have noticed (or not, which would show a perfectly healthy lack of interest in my opinion) that, even though I’m in North Carolina and have a family and marriage focused blog, I’ve neglected to mention anything about the vote on Amendment 1, the ballot item for which was worded thusly:

Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.

Not only did I not mention it here, I didn’t mention it on Facebook, on Twitter, to my friends, or, Lord help me, to my extended family. I didn’t even discuss it very much with Get Along Husband. Nor did I bother expressing my preference at the polls last Tuesday. You’d think I’d be more interested, wouldn’t you? The truth is, I didn’t spend very much time thinking about Amendment One at all.

I was going to go vote, since my mother strongly suggested I should, but when the time came to venture out into the rain, four kids in tow, I couldn’t muster enough interest to leave the house. I doubt this amendment will do anything to change the trajectory of our culture. I’m not really sure what legal value it will have, either, though I don’t object to it on any principle except that I fear the Law of Unintended Consequences. The definition of “marriage” just doesn’t seem particularly votable to me, is all.

(Before you get started on that “if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain” thing, answer me this: If two wolves and a sheep are holding a vote on what to have for dinner, does the sheep have no right to complain about the outcome when he declines to vote so he can spend his time doing something he hopes will prove more productive, like praying for deliverance?)

If I’d made it to the polls, it is possible that I would have voted “yes”, along with 61% of other NC voters, since I do believe that words mean something, and the word “marriage” means “one man wed to one woman, for life.”

It’s equally likely that I’d have left that item blank, though, because I didn’t see anything in the wording of that amendment to reassure me that the people of North Carolina have any intention of returning to a protective attitude toward straight marriage. In spite of the surprising fact that large majorities of people are somehow still aware that marriage has some social function worth protecting, it seems to me that we still don’t have a solid definition of marriage in this state—or in this nation. If we did, there’d be no need for such amendments in the first place.

As long as we’ve still got easy, no-fault divorce, and a culture that excuses and applauds all sorts of “straight” perversion, I’m afraid I just can’t get myself all worked up about a mere one or two percent of the population wishing to do what the rest of us have been doing for a couple of generations now—have a temporarily monogamous life with the person of their choosing, along with all the privileges that the State has chosen to attach to that temporarily monogamous lifestyle.

Let’s face it, Christians, we’re not having this conversation because homosexuals pose some kind of threat to our way of life. (They don’t.) We’re having this conversation because we’re finally at the bottom of a slippery slope that we polished to a glossy finish for ourselves when we separated marriage, sex, and procreation from each other, making the union of matrimony about our own happiness rather than about familial and social stability. Now we’re just trying to stop the slide before we fall off the cliff entirely. But we’re not much interested in doing the hard work of climbing back up to marital sanctity ourselves!

Modern marriage is about being allowed to live in a long-term sexual relationship with whomever you please, for as long as you wish, as long as you both love each other.

If you don’t believe me, ask any kid who watches Sesame Street: a family is just a group of people who love one another. That’s what our culture has decided on, and I don’t see any sign that we wish to return to the days when marriage and family meant more than that. Why should gay people be legally excluded from this selfish, individualistic definition of marriage, if straight people are going to insist on keeping it for themselves?

This amendment seems to me to be nothing more than a far-too-late moral panic, with very little thinking behind it at all. Our culture is in a state of sexual anarchy, and most of us—I’ll wager even most of those who voted yes on Amendment One—kinda like it that way! But gay marriage is where we draw our arbitrary line, because the majority of people don’t like that sin the way we like our own.

We seem to hold the superstitious belief that stopping gay marriage at the ballot box will appease the wrath of the God whose opinion we stopped consulting on these matters generations ago.

Wake me up when we’re interested in using marriage for its intended purpose. Until then, I don’t think this amendment is going to amount to a hill of beans, and I’m not going to waste a lot of breath trying to defend it.

                          

We’re 37 weeks along, now! Want to see a picture? Tough. I’m huge. That’s all you need to know. I’ll be happy to post pics when I get back down to 120 lbs–a weight I haven’t seen since I was 23 and not yet pregnant with my first, so don’t hold your breath.

Our second child had his fifth birthday last week, and one of his gifts was a nifty ant farm. I’m thinking these Ant Activities and Nature Journal will be perfect for getting him excited about preschool science!How about a couple of scripture memorization things? We’ve been using the Charlotte Mason method for memorizing everything from poems to Bible verses. Amanda Pelser’s scripture memory box printables are fantastic, and gave me a chance to really break in my laminator!

Mama Learning also has some good tips and printables for scripture memorization for kids.

Finding Joy wrote a sweet post that I loved: There is Never Just a Mom. I wish I could be as sweet as Rachel. Just don’t have it in me, I’m afraid.

I’m sure you’ve heard enough about the Time Magazine breastfeeding cover kerfuffle by now, right? No? Well here’s some more. The Head Girl says the media fails all parents when they pull stunts like this. Dr. Melissa Clouthier has some good thoughts about attachment parenting and the media, too. Personally, I’m a little miffed at the mother on the cover for letting herself be treated this way. As I said in the comments at Baby Center:

If breastfeeding women don’t want to be treated like exhibitionists just for breastfeeding, perhaps it would be better if they didn’t allow people to take pictures of them wherein they look like they’re breastfeeding just for the shock value of it.

If you’re interested in anthropology or environmental issues, or just in seeing Jared Diamond humiliated (and who in her right mind wouldn’t be?) here’s a pdf of From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui about what really happened to Easter Island.

I found that link at The Other McCain, which blog I swore I was going to stop reading because of some of the ads and content. You’ve heard of missionary dating, where you date a boy in the hope that you can convert him? I guess this is missionary linking. I expect missionary linking to be about as effective as missionary dating.

Yes, I’m ashamed of myself.

And finally, another link to The Common Room, because The Weeds of Convenience in the Garden of Frugality got me back on track after a couple of weeks of reaching for the corndogs just a little too often. (Shocked that I can call myself frugal and still buy corndogs instead of making my own? You ought to see my Koolaid packet collection!)

                          

Congratulations to our winner, Karen W!

We just finished up our required 180 days this week! I haven’t actually quit schooling anybody, since there’s still plenty to do, but it’s getting close to the end of the official school year for most of us. We’ll take a few weeks when the baby comes, I suppose, and call that our summer. I’m really looking forward to planning the next year.  Are you? Or maybe you’re just tired from this one. How about a giveaway to make it all better?

Adventurez In Child’rearing, Gricefully Homeschooling, Kathys Cluttered Mind, Lady of the Barn, Our Good Life and I have all pitched in some of our favorite books and resources to give away to one lucky reader from one of our blogs! My contributions are marked with an asterisk and are used, but quite readable.:

• Educating the WholeHearted Child – by Sally Clarkson
• Seasons of a Mother’s Heart – by Sally Clarkson*
• Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning – by Douglas Wilson*
• The Fruit of Her Hands – by Nancy Wilson* (I really, really loved this one!)
• School is Where the Home is: 180 Devotionals for Parents – by Anita Mellott
• A is for Adam: The Gospel of Genesis – by Ken & Mally Ham
  
• Reading Strands (Understanding Fiction) – by National Writing Institute
• Andi’s Pony Trouble Circle C – by Susan K. Marlow
• Wildflowers Unit Study and “Heavens” Unit Study on Clouds – {emailed}

And of course, you’re going to need a little money to buy school books for the next year, right? So here ya go:

How to enter: Complete as many of the entry options as you like! There are 20 possible entries, and they’re all easy, so grab ‘em!

This is a Rafflecopter giveaway, so you’ll need to click through to the post to enter if you’re reading by RSS or email. Just be sure to confirm your subscriptions and all that stuff so you won’t be disqualified if your name is drawn!

(By the way, if you’re entering this giveaway and you’re not a homeschooler or at least a mommy (or the husband of a mommy!), we can’t legally not give you the prize should you win. But it wouldn’t be very nice of you to take our stuff if you don’t need it just to get the money.)

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

                          

Or maybe it’s your neighbor whose family size has you worried. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days. Just yesterday an older lady—the greeter at Walmart, actually—stopped me and asked me how “all these young mothers” thought they were going to pay for their kids. (I’d have borne the insult gracefully if I’d thought she meant I looked too young to know what I was getting into. Alas, she didn’t seem to be including me in her definition of “young mothers”.)

If it were just one lady whose age appeared not to have fostered wisdom, I probably wouldn’t bother blogging about it. But it’s not just her. Daily, I get internet searchers wondering why Christian families are having children they can’t afford, along with Christians who are wondering how they’re going to afford the blessings God is sending their way. Strangers on the street tell me that they don’t understand how I can afford my kids. My own grandmother wants me to stop having kids because they cost too much!

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a fattened ox and hatred with it.--Proverbs 15:17

What these questioners overlook is the fact that a) we’re talking about Christian families and b) children, Christian or not, don’t cost a dime.

Children are not consumer goods. Let’s take the second point first, since I know that’s the one that is really killing you. It’s simple enough: If you think you can’t afford your next child, would you mind telling me which store you plan to buy him from? Is there a discount for bulk purchases that I’ve been missing out on? And who is going to repossess him, should you need a few extra months to pay off the midwife? You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I’ll touch on this much more in a later post, but I am one hundred percent serious when I say that children don’t cost a dime.

Christianity is the key. Searchers who ask why Christian families think they can afford so many children answer their own question. I propose that the reason that they can afford the large family lifestyle is because they are Christians.

Stay with me for a moment. I am not saying that Christians are wealthier, smarter, or somehow less expensive to feed and clothe than non-Christians. We come from all walks of life, after all. However, the Bible does provide a great deal of financial wisdom for those who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to take advantage of it. The rest of the world kinda-sorta knows these things, as the large number of personal finance blogs indicates, but Christians often literally take their faith to the bank.

People who take God’s word seriously concerning family structure and His love for their offspring are equally likely to believe biblical truths about earning, spending, borrowing, giving, and saving. Believing these things, they are more likely to live by them, however imperfectly, than those who haven’t heard the word of God. Not every large family has the best grasp on these principles, it’s true, but it has been my experience that larger Christian families are much more likely to be debt-free and financially independent than even most smaller Christian families or childless couples.

In fact, what looks like scarcity to our credit-driven culture is often just a different set of values. My shoes aren’t always in the best condition, we live in a less well-appointed home than many would think acceptable, and our cars are beaters, but we’re debt free and building our savings. And yet, our neighbors seem to think we’re broke!

Some of my large-family friends are (by my lights, anyway) filthy rich, and others are struggling to keep the lights on, but none of them show any bitterness toward their children when the bills come due. This is because they know that the mere presence of children hasn’t done anything to change their true financial situation. They don’t measure people in dollars and cents.

God provides. For all Christian families, whether large or small, it always comes down to this: God provides for His children.

My father often used to talk in his sermons about a time when his daughters had no shoes, and he had no work boots. He cried out to God for help, and what do you know? My grandmother dropped by with shoes for both kids (note that our family was a “manageable” size, and yet we were poor), and he found by the side of the road a new, unworn pair of boots that were the size he needed. My father was working as hard as he could, but it was a bad economy, and he came from a poor family himself. He was doing his part in trying to provide, and it still wasn’t enough for our family’s needs at the time.

But God had enough for us!

I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.—Psalm 37:25

                          

You may recall that back in January, a whole bunch of you lost a flexi-clip giveaway on this blog. I’m sorry. We can’t all be winners, can we? Well, maybe not, but surely we can come up with more winners than just one this time! Gail, our Lilla Rose consultant, must have sensed your pressing need for easy-to-wear hair fashion, because she’s now offering three more flexi-clips for Get Along Home readers to win! How neat is that?

Read my first flexi-clip review, if you missed it. I loved my clips until I cut my hair. Now I want my hair back so I can wear my clips. I’ve always been a little flakey that way. Fortunately, hair grows back, so I’m not too heartbroken. Lesson learned: no more short haircuts for me.

I’ll have to live vicariously through my 3 year-old’s hair for a while. We just bought a couple of minis for Miss Audrey. I wasn’t sure they would work, but this one stayed in all morning!:

Buy one!: If you don’t have the patience to wait and see if you won, you can buy Lilla Rose flexi-clips online. There’s a Buy 3, Get One Free sale until Mother’s Day, May 13, so now is a great time to buy.

Win: 3 Get Along Home readers will each win a Lilla Rose flexi-clip!

How to enter: Just leave a comment on this post. I don’t care what you say. Just say something!

Extra entries: For extra chances to win, you may do any or all of the following. Leave one comment for each extra entry, please:

• Watch the size and styling video and tell me what size you’ll need, or what your favorite style is.
• Stop by Gail’s Lilla Rose Facebook page and tell her Get Along Home sent you.
• Go to the Lilla Rose website and check out the line of flexi-clips available. Then come back here and tell me which clip you’d like to have. Don’t worry. You can change your mind later.
• Share this giveaway via social media using the handy buttons at the bottom of this post.

Click here to go straight to the comment form.

Become a consultant: Becoming a Lilla Rose consultant is a breeze, and the start-up cost is very low. I’ve seen several women (and young girls) get a fair return on their investment selling these pretty things. I can’t offer an extra entry for signing up, but I thought I’d let you know how easy it is to do.

Details: This giveaway is open to anyone in the US. This giveaway will be open until midnight, May 6, 2012. The winner will be chosen by And the Winner Is… WordPress plugin. The winner will have 72 hours to respond to my email. If there is no response after 72 hours, I’ll have to choose another winner. Please use a valid email address in your comments so that I can contact you if you win! Please use one email address per entrant, per household, per IP address. The giveaway provider (not Get Along Home) will be responsible for prize fulfillment. Good luck!

Disclosure: Lilla Rose consultant Gail Harris is a Get Along Home advertiser. Read my disclosure here.

                          

I’m swamped, over here! My 35-week pregnant body is slowing down and my brain along with it. No matter how sluggish I am, the school must be done. And for some reason these children insist on being fed, clothed, and hugged every single day, no matter how I’m feeling. I’m putting up a few extra meals for the freezer, sorting baby clothes, and doing all that other nesty stuff, as well. All of this means blogging will be pretty light for the next few weeks. I’ll be around, I’m sure, but I make no promises about the quality of the content. (Like I ever did, right?) Enjoy some of these links over the weekend. See ya Monday!

The oldest boy has been doing Apologia Botany, and I really can’t brag about it enough. We love it! Win your own copy of the Exploring Creation with Botany (textbook and notebooking journal) by linking up a gardening post of your own at The Homeschool Village.

We just happened to be reading and notebooking about pollination this week, and the internet was kind enough to drop this link to The Xerces society in my lap just as we were wrapping up this morning. There’s lots to learn here about pollination, pollinators, and pesticides. Take the pledge and save some species!

Live Real, Now explains a few things about flash mobs in Thug-cenomics.

Free Homeschool Deals is a new daily stop for me. Jamerrill digs up lots of free Kindle books, mostly educational or motherhood related, along with other great finds. The Kindle freebies tend to expire quickly, so make sure you check back daily for new links!

My morning would probably have gone a lot more smoothly if I’d taken this advice on what to do with little ones during school hours. We got plenty done, but by the end of it, the toddler was covered in…well, everything. Maybe we’ll just give him some stacking cups next time.

Homeschool Freebie of the Day is giving away a Megabundle of Homeschooling Goodies! (Is it just me, or does that “mega” make it sound like it ought to have a million things in it? Well, it doesn’t, but it is a big prize: $400+ value, so go enter.

Lilla Rose (Gail is a GAH advertiser and friend) is offering free shipping on orders over $20 until tomorrow. Now would be a great time to get that flexi-clip you’ve been wanting. Or the beautiful hair stick things. I just ordered two minis for my little girl, which means I’ve spent my sponsor’s ad money on my sponsor’s product. Funny old world. Stay tuned for a really generous giveaway next week!

Today is the last day to enter for the Premium Pass to the Homeschool How-To Conference. That prize includes a HUGE goodie bag of downloadables, including a full year Bible Curriculum from Foundations Press. Don’t miss your chance to participate!

If that isn’t enough links and things to keep you busy, visit Biblical Christianity for the regular Friday amusements. It wouldn’t feel like Friday without Hither and Thither!

                          

I’m over at Mom’s Mustard Seeds today, talking about Ruling Your Curriculum.

Click over and let us know what you do when your curriculum tries to run roughshod over your homeschool. Do you know when to throw in the towel?

                          

Homeschool conferences and conventions are a lot of fun, but if you’re like me, attending them is exhausting. Between paying for travel and accommodations, finding the time, keeping up with the kids, and the massive temptation to drag home something from every curriculum booth you visit, you might be just as well off staying home. There’s an information-age remedy to all those problems, thankfully. The Homeschool How-To Conference, a webinar for Christian homeschoolers, is coming up May 1-3, and you’re invited!

This is why I love living in the future. We don’t even have to get out of our pajamas to attend these things! Of course, we always get out of our pj’s around here, but I hear some homeschoolers don’t.

An online conference is a new thing to me, and I’m really excited about it. You can listen to each session on your computer or toll-free by phone, participate in the conversations live with the speakers during Q&A sessions, visit in the Café, and tour the Exhibit Hall to visit sponsors and vendors, just like with a real conference. Since it is also completely FREE, I’d suggest you just register right after you enter this giveaway.

There is, of course, a Premium Pass upgrade that will give you access to a really neat Goodie Bag full of hundreds of dollars’ worth of ebooks, audio downloads, lesson plans, and more (and what’s a conference without swag?), in addition to the ability to download each recorded session so you can listen at your leisure.

Kelli, who will be speaking about Exploring God's Creation (left), and some crazy mommy blogger (right)

Speakers include Foundations Press owners Kraig and Anne Elliot, Davis Carman, Kelli Becton, and many more. View the Speaker Schedule on pdf for full details. I can’t wait to hear what they all have to say!

Register: Register for the Homeschool How-To Conference for free, or get a Premium Pass, which includes a Goodie Bag and downloads, for only $49. Let’s see you get to a real-life conference for that price! Use the code adventurez at checkout for a 10% discount.

Win!: One Get Along Home reader will win a Homeschool How-To Conference Premium Pass.

How to enter: Just leave a related comment on this post to enter. Do you love conferences? I think this one will be very encouraging!

Details: This giveaway is open to anyone in the US. This giveaway will be open until midnight, April 27, 2012. The winner will be chosen by And the Winner Is… WordPress plugin. The winner will have 48 hours to respond to my email. If there is no response after 48 hours, I’ll have to choose another winner. Please use a valid email address in your comments so that I can contact you if you win! Please use one email address per entrant, per household, per IP address. If you cheat, I will most likely catch you, then spank you thoroughly and send you to bed ban your IP. The giveaway provider (not Get Along Home) will be responsible for prize fulfillment. Good luck!

Disclosure: I didn’t receive any compensation for this post. I do get a Goody Bag, though, and that’s neat. This post is absolutely stuffed with affiliate links. If you buy a premium pass through these links, you’re supporting this blog, at no extra cost to yourself. Thank you! Don’t forget to use the code adventurez to get a 10% discount!

                          

I had a dream the other night that I thought I’d share with you.  In it, I find myself sitting in a chair, facing very bright lights.  My eyes adjust as I feel the heat from their unyielding beams cooking me slowly like an apple turnover in a fast food heat lamp.

Behind and flanking me are large upright panels, which are covered with a thin yellow carpet along with the floor.  The carpet is a pale shade of yellow, a gradient getting ever lighter as the eye moves to the center of the panel behind me.  Hung upon this center are the words “The Parent Game” in a pale shade of yellow.

Somehow, I have been sucked into a late seventies game show.

The crowd makes excited noises as a man in a pale blue suit sans tie, shirt unbuttoned on the top three buttons, revealing a forest of long curly hair, which is in turn doing its best to hide the large gold medallion with the symbol for Taurus emblazoned upon it.  He’s a white guy with a huge afro. Is it Chuck Barris?  I can’t tell.

“Wwwwwwelcome to The Parent Game!” he says, revealing a set of choppers as bright as an arc lamp.  My pupils are probably the size of a pinpoint by now.

The crowd, which I cannot see due to the studio lights, claps.  I wonder for a moment why; I mean, have you ever walked into someone’s home, and upon their initial greeting, started clapping like a trained seal?

“Who’s our first contestant?” Afro-guy asks the ether.

Apparently the ether is populated by a booming baritone voice that says, “Meet Jesse Dyer!  He’s a computer programmer from North Carolina, who enjoys reading, music, and pretending to engage in other hobbies!”

This gets another applause.

“Let’s go over the rules.” Afro-guy says. He turns to me, his 10,000-watt smile dimming down to a somber, funereal expression. “We will be showing several moments in Jesse’s career as a father, and ask him to rate his performance, from one to ten–ten being ‘on par with Solomon the wise’, and one being ‘someone call the cops’ territory.  We have also provided our studio audience with an electronic voting system, asking them to vote on the same scale.  If Jesse’s idea of his parenting meshes with the crowd’s average votes, he gets the number of points that he scored himself on his performance.  If Jesse can reach forty points before the time is up, he’ll win today’s prize.  What’s today’s prize, Van?”

“Jesse will win an all expenses paid trip to EgoTown!”

Must be a nice place, judging by the crowd’s reaction.  Again, why cheer for stuff that someone else is getting?

“He’ll spend five glorious days and nights basking in the light of his own self-aggrandizement!  A net package worth four thousand dollars!”

Afro-guy picks up his cue perfectly, teeth blazing as he grins around, “If Jesse fails to reach twenty points, he has to pay a penalty. What’s this week’s penalty, Van?”

I want to say, hang on a sec, I didn’t sign up for this, but I can’t seem to find my voice.  I mean, yeah, I had my children voluntarily, but I don’t recall having agreed to a penalty based on the crowd’s opinion of my fatherhood.

“He’ll be forced not only to suffer the shame and castigation of the crowd, but the guilt of having been a lousy father.”

The crowd boos and hisses, a little too eagerly.  Nothing like the polite applause for Egotown.  Could it be that, while they don’t get anything from my win, they do get something for my loss?

“Let’s show Jesse his first example of fatherhood.”

A large white screen rolls down from the lights and catwalks above the set, and the studio lights dim as, of all things, a projector starts clacking away above, projecting down onto the screen.

On the screen (sometimes blurred and jumpy), we see me, sitting in a chair, reading, while two of my kids are playing in front of me.  It is incredibly obvious that they are trying very hard to get my attention, and equally obvious that they aren’t getting it.  They’re acting out something or other that they’ve cooked up, and laughing at their own performance; the crowd gets a bit of a chuckle, because it really is pretty clever, but mostly cute.  I don’t smile, though, because I’m watching me ignore them.

In the darkened studio, I hear the sounds of buttons being pushed on the voting panels.

The lights come back up, and Afro-guy says, “OK, Jesse, how many points would you rate yourself there?”

I can’t manage to look at him.  “Two.”

“And the crowd said..” says Afro-guy, making a sweeping gesture towards a huge seven-segment LCD on the wall beside him.  A bell rings as it flashes “1″.

“That’s two points for Jesse!”

He smiles like the audience ought to be clapping, but they don’t.

Again, the lights dim, and this time, we see me in the grocery store, pushing a racecar-shaped grocery cart full of kids.  It’s obvious, judging by the way that I’m having to maneuver this thing with upper body strength, that it’s like pushing a contrary mule through the store.  It’s equally obvious that the little ones inside the cart, spinning their dual side steering wheels and laughing like loons, are having a great time.

The lights come up, and Afro-guy looks at me expectantly. “I’m gonna say a five.”

The board lights up; 8.  ”Eight?  For that?  Are you kidding me?” I ask the crowd, which I still can’t see.

“Sorry, no points for you.” says Afro-guy, and the next section plays out.  In this one, I’m spanking a child.  Click click click, goes the crowd.

“Now hang on a second!” I say, “There’s no context here.  I don’t remember that; what was I spanking him for?”

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to give an answer, or forfeit.”

“Eight.” I say.  Ding, goes the bell, and crowd has spoken: 2

“Now wait a second!  You think I like doing that?  You think I do it for fun?  I hate spanking them.  I hate being the heavy, and I hate it when they cry, but you have to understand…”

“I’m sorry,” says Afro-guy, “We have to move on.”

“No,” I say as the lights dim; I don’t even see what’s on the screen, “we certainly don’t; we need to stop right here.”

I stand up.  ”I didn’t have my children to play some ridiculous game show, nor do I raise them as I do to earn you people’s respect, nor to avoid my own shame.  I raise them the way that I do because I love them, and I know that if I don’t teach them the fear of consequence for wrong doing, they won’t learn it until it’s the state’s job to administer punishment, and a few spankings are a love tap compared to what they’ll get there.

“And while I’m at it, that first segment didn’t rate a two.  Sometimes, every now and then, there are things in my life that I need to pay attention to that are not my children.  I’m fed up with the constant guilt we’re told we’re certainly going to eventually feel if we didn’t spend every waking moment in rapturous attention to our kids.  I love them, and I play with them, and I spend time with them in lots of ways that I’m certain you people would ignore.  That day in the grocery store, I had people coming up and praising me out of the blue.  For what?  For taking my kids to the store?  For pushing them around in a cart that they like?  That’s not exceptional, that’s every day, common place. I guess the point I’m trying to make is, everything’s relative.  Sometimes they have my attention, and sometimes I spend time at other things.  The ratio between the two is my problem, my responsibility, not yours, and I won’t make the mistake of guilt tripping over isolated incidents again.

“I don’t need this.  I don’t need to behave in a way that makes you people happy.  If you don’t agree with how I handle these situations, that’s your own business, but don’t think I’m going to sit here and tremble at your opinion on the matter.  This game is over.  I’m going home.”

Afro-guy stares at me as if I’ve crawled up from the bottom of the sea, and as the lights even out, I look out into the studio seats.

There’s nobody there at all.

                          

I’ll bet you’d like to hear about that sometime.

Last month, I spent an amazing weekend in Atlanta at the Apologia Live Retreat with a group of home educating moms from all over the country. The speakers and attendees alike were devoted, Godly women with a burden and a vision for educating the next generation of Christians. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time in one room with that many other estrogen-producing humans and come away from the experience feeling so clean. There is no guile in these women!

Besides being dazzled by the brilliance and authenticity of the speakers—I hope you caught some of our tweets from the sessions–I was blessed to finally meet several bloggers whom I’d only gotten to chat with online before now. It’s a wonderful thing to come home with a larger number of real friends than you had when you left. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of several ladies, I’d have probably starved to death while I was there!

I’m kidding, of course. Sort of. I neglected to bring my own food, thinking I wouldn’t need much, but the hotel didn’t have the best options for dining. I’m sure I’d have been fine ordering pizzas or going out to restaurants, but Kelli, Rebecca, and Mary Jo saved me having to do those things with their donations of food and water. I’m in their debt for a couple of meals. Guess I’d better start baking some cookies to send them or something. I wish I could drop the names of every person I met, but we’d be here all day.

[If I’d had the presence of mind to take pictures, here is where my best picture would be. ]

Anyway, you don’t want to hear about the hobnobbing! You want to know what went on there, right? Well, the speakers were all just as wonderful as I thought they’d be.  I was especially impressed with Zan Tyler and Jeannie Fulbright! They managed somehow to convict and encourage at the same time.

The lengthy prayer sessions were a surprise. I really didn’t expect to be given so much space to just pray, especially since there was so much more busy-ness the planners could have packed into that time. But busy-ness is often the enemy of holiness, and these dear ladies knew it. I can’t think of anything more powerful than 150+ Christian moms on their knees in an extended time of worship and supplication, can you? It was truly a precious time for us.

Apologia Live isn’t a name you’ll be seeing anymore. They’ll be re-branding with a different, less sciencey name the next time around. Apparently there was some confusion amongst attendees, and people were showing up with their children and science projects to share. Be on the lookout for the Real Refreshment retreat in the future!

That’s a perfectly appropriate name for it, too. Unlike most traveling I’ve done, I came home from this retreat feeling truly refreshed (except for the angst a radio preacher caused me, but that’s not Apologia’s fault) and ready to take on homeschooling my kids with renewed purpose.

I can’t wait for the next one! Lord willing, I’ll be there, baby and all. I hope you’ll be able to join me!