For homeschooling family like ours, it’s year round. One great thing about this schooling mode is its flexibility: one of its worst thing is its flexibility.

Unless you’re a very organized person who can manage your day with strict schedules, activities and lessons can blend into one big blob. Being that organized hurts my brain. There’s learning going on but getting evidence of it is not so straightforward.

So when the kids are having fun playing but two seconds later tell me they’re bored, I get nervous: I wonder if we are wasting time; maybe I’m not doing enough to make their learning broad, stimulating, and wholesome.

I brush off their “bored” comment with a telling them that nothing is boring and, as a matterof fact, it’s good to daydream; stare out the window and wonder why you’re bored. How can you fix this boredom?

I believe what I’m saying but the self-conscious mind goes beserk.

“I’m bored” is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless, it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”

– Louis C.K.

Maybe Ellis senses my reoccurring restlessness because she told me that her future plans as a mom doesn’t include homeschool.

Ellis: “Mommy, when I grow up I think I’m going to send my kids to school”

Me: “Why do you say that?”

Ellis: “So I can relax. Then you and me can relax together when the kids are in school. I don’t have to feel far away from you.”

She says random things like that and I wonder what ideas are going through that little mind of hers. But it’s nice to know I’m included in her future relaxation plan. My restlessness is probably palpable to her; I need to relax and believe that learning takes time and patience. It doesn’t happen all in a day. Trust God and let go of the burden.