Ahhhhh September is here. Back to school. Cool nights. Finishing the garden. So many happy things. School is definitely back underway here and it is fun trying to make our homeschool special for our youngest as he is the only one around these days. It struck me as I was working on curriculum and lesson plans that I need to make sure to be intentional in the “real” life lessons that my child needs.
Maybe you are in the same boat. It takes being intentional about our goals and what we want to teach our kids.
When my kids were young we always did a “homemade” gift for grandparents and often aunts and uncles. Sometimes we would choose the craft or project for our children but mostly we wanted them to pick something fun they wanted to make. We’ve decorated bags, wrote and illustrated poems, made picture frames, woven baskets and much more. Having your kids create DIY gifts makes their gift giving MUCH more meaningful.
We sent our third child off to college this fall (that can’t be right can it?) She lives 2 hours away and that has been quite the BIG adjustment for our family. Our other kids lived in town and at home for college. We miss her but we are having fun making sure that she gets some great care packages as a college student.
Did you know that I don’t make breakfast anymore? Actually I don’t make breakfast or lunch for my kids. Now before you get all upset, you need to realize that my “kids” at home are 14 and 20. They are quite capable of making their own lunch and breakfast. But I am a little concerned by my 14 year old son. He is clinging to the same breakfast and lunch everyday and I want him to have more ideas in his repertoire. We are going to have some teen cooking lessons going on here in November. This will be an adventure as he’s not so excited about the whole concept of learning to cook.
I really shocked at how crazy our life has been for the last month. It feels a lot like a runaway freight train. It just keeps picking up speed. I often I wish for the times when we’d eat supper together as a family and then play a game after the clean up was done. Then the kids would head to bed before 9 and I’d be snoozing by 10. I'm finding that having family time with teens and college kids is super challenging and looks nothing it did when the kids were little!
