Worth the Effort

Not everything is worth doing. I know this. After watching Mr. Visionary and the children perusing the Guiness Book Of World Records website and rehashing for me the idiotic stunts marvels they have witnessed, I am more confident than ever. These are people that have too much free time.

Often folks remark upon my choices with disdain. Once they ascertain that I indeed "know what causes this", they are baffled as to why one would willingly have "so many children". The stress, headache and financial burden are the only pieces they can see in the homeschool puzzle. Growing tomatoes from seed, making our own bread, milking our own cows, stump the

checkers at Wal-Mart, grandparents, folks who sit near us in church average person. Although falling outside the scope of this post, our reasons for our choices are rich and numerous, but to us, they are worth doing.

We have been recently reminded of another activity that for us, is worth doing. Laziness and busyness squeezed it out of our schedule for a while, but we have rediscovered the joys of "Family Night". While we are actively engaged with our children for far more hours per week than the norm, there is still something special about dropping everything else, and just being together.



Presumably because we do not have television, watching a movie together is a fun treat. When the weather is nice,to eliminate popcorn on the carpet make it even more novel, we have "Drive-In Movie Night". We pull the cushions off the couches, grab pillows and blankets, cuddle and set up the TV out on the deck. Plenty of butter on the popcorn, homemade ice cream, and liberal use of the pause button for potty breaks make for a lighthearted diversion from the discipline, chores and ritual of our usual routine. The popcorn tricks and pillow fights are bonuses. Yeah, this is worth doing.

Drive-Ins may be extinct, but our version has a better view anyway.

Edited to add: Mr. Visionary would like to let the record show that he personally agrees with my assessment of the Guiness Book "activities", but has too much fun checking it out with the kids to cease his current practices. He promises to not tell The Mommy any more of the "what people ate" stories.