One of my home school philosophies is “Inspire and Require.”

I am thrilled to see the amazing things my kids come up with for school projects or their playtime, that comes from having been inspired by a story or idea. I am also thrilled to see their growth in foundational concepts because they have done the work I have required of them. If I can work some inspiration into the required things, that is the ideal situation.

Inspiration really is the best method for helping anyone learn anything.  When someone is inspired to pursue further knowledge in a subject, they take ownership of it and commit to learning it because of personal passion.

But, there is also a great deal to be said for the things we “had” to learn, and are now grateful that we did.  I wish my mother had “required” me to learn piano.  I took some lessons as a small child but I didn’t like taking them. My mother stopped making me go.  I wish she had “required” me to continue. Once I had gotten beyond the first few boring years and acquired some foundational skills in piano, I would have begun to appreciate it, own it, and pursue it on my own, looking for inspiration from the Masters.  Instead, I can only play Mary Had A Little Lamb, Heart and Soul, and part of Axel F… the theme song from Beverly Hills Cop.

Each week our home school time is filled with lessons and work that is required, as well as free school time when the kids are allowed to explore the books on our shelves, including the constant influx of library books, and to discover and come up with whatever kind of activities they are interested in, excluding television and video games.

Today was Columbus Day.

I probably should have done some sort of lesson on Colombus… but I didn’t.  In history we have been studying ancient times, so Columbus was nowhere on my radar… or my bookshelves.  Beyond that, truth be told, today was a free school day entirely, because Momma – that’s me –  needed to get some overdue cleaning done.  I mean the works! Corners and crevices, baseboards, nooks, and crannies.  It was just time!  I could not go another day with such an ignored mess lurking about me.

Remy spent most of the day drawing pictures, except for when she took a break to paint some pictures.  In addition, we read one chapter together from Return to the Hundred Acre Wood.

We also had a major breakthrough playing with Leapfrog letter magnets on the fridge while I was feeding Llany dinner.  Remy sounded out the words, “pig”, “bug”, and “big” completely on her own.

Leo spent the day building with Legos, defining Latin nouns, reading books about Egyptian Pharaohs and boy detectives, playing outdoor games with some friends, and… with my permission… helping Nana do some housecleaning upstairs…. In the home school world we call house cleaning “working on life skills.”

For me the day was a total success… except for the recurring guilt that I was completely ignoring Columbus.

I didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything but focus on cleaning.  Both Remy and Llany took three hour naps… extraordinary!

I didn’t even have to stop my house cleaning to make dinner, because Nana offered to make homemade Chicken ‘n Dumplins for the whole house.  She usually does this when the fall days start to turn cold, and today was the first fall day filled with gray skies here in good ol’ Southern California.  Tomorrow we are expecting rain.

I’m ecstatic! !

I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the rain!

Maybe because in these parts it’s so rare.

In addition to all of that, I weighed myself this morning and have dropped two pounds from last week.  Thanks Gilad. We won’t talk about the fifteen pounds Einstein has dropped in the last month with absolutely no effort.  Yep.  Just a freakish drive-by pound dropping for him.  No change in his eating.  No exercising…. I better just stop right there before this post becomes a rant about the things in life that just aint fair.

What was I saying?  Oh yes… total successs….

And to top it all off, after my entire day of guilt for not giving a history lesson on Columbus, Leo surprised us all with a dessert he and Nana made.

He called them New Land Cookies.  The sails are made from won-ton wraps, on toothpicks.

Nana said it was all his idea, which I entirely believe because typically we don’t allow the kids to have dessert on week nights.  Leo however will find any excuse he can to try and wiggle into a treat after dinner and of course today his excuse was Columbus day.

I must say I was thrilled however that he ended up acknowledging Columbus on a day when I completely dropped the ball and didn’t teach about him.

I just love great days like this.

Life is most certainly sweet!