Balancing life, projects and homeschool

We are now in the middle of project mode. We've been working on our kitchen for at least a month now (Ben estimated that it would take about three months, I was hoping for less, we will see.) With each weekend or stint we bite off a little more. At first it was just two cabinets and over the sink, then it was seven cabinets, this weekend we are attacking all of our lower cabinets and island. It helped that my parents took the kids last night and Ben's dad came over this morning to help us paint.

I realized about a week and a half ago that I needed to choose one: working on the kitchen or exercising. On days that I exercised I was too tired or it took up too much time and energy to do any projects. I figure if I press on for a while the project will end sooner, the weather will cool down and walks will become much more a part of our lives.

Homeschooling is going well so far. We are doing lessons plans from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com, just the preK curriculum. We never do all the lessons prescribed, but I give us a lot of grace since he's only three and a half. He is doing really well with recognizing the letters we have talked about so far "A" and "B". I will be reading along when suddenly he says, "I see an A!" and points out an "A" it's very exciting.

I never thought I would be a homeschool mom. Is that terrible? That's terrible. I swore I would never marry a homeschooler and that I would not homeschool. I mean, maybe in the back of my mind I would consider it, but never really thought I would. But really, the Lord has given me a heart for just teaching at home. I feel like right now I can do a good job with Levi and interact with him and just teach him. I like the one on one time, it's been good just for our relationship to sit down and work together. Yes, sometimes I would rather be checking my email or doing something around the house, but then I remember, this is my SON, he is not going to stay little forever.

Speaking of teaching, Aria is learning to talk. I LOVE this part. It's like you put something into their little brains like, "house" or "cheese" or if you really want a laugh "hippopotamus" then you get to see what comes out. Sometimes it sounds vaguely similar, sometimes it's not close at all. I love it. I usually laugh and tell her she does a good job. However, it's important for me to be able to understand my children. It's also important to me that OTHERS understand my children. (I want to know all of the cute things they are trying to communicate.) So sometimes when Aria does pronounce a word completely wrong, I try to correct her.

My method of correcting speech is this: I smile and tell her she did a good job, then I get down on her level, look at her and we pronounce whatever consonant she was trying to say. If it was "play" I will just sit and say the "P" sound. If she stays interested, we will move on to the L sound and so forth. More than anything, I want her to see my mouth moving and experience what it is doing. I want her to see the difference between a "D" and a "T". This is just my method. I did it with Levi and I have gotten a lot of compliments about how well he speaks. I am quite proud. Although, it did take him a long time to say his L's (which he can say quite well now) and he still has trouble with the word "air conditioner" :)

All in all, I feel like I'm slowly learning that if one area is going to get focused on, another area has to give. My house will not be immaculate, especially during projects. If I spend a lot of time on facebook, I probably won't get what I need to get done. It's all kind of a balancing act. There's no such thing as the perfect mom, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep trying to focus on what needs focus at that point.