You can't do it all

There comes a time in home schooling where mothers are so full of joy at the freedom this method of educating one's children offers that it's way too easy to overschedule the kids in an attempt to fit in every single activity the world has to offer. Unfortunately for me, that time has never really left and I am still all twitchy and weird about this and inclined to try to register the girls for workshops on textiles in the United States (where they would have the opportunity to weave their own cloth and make a dress) and tours of every historical marker in Marion County.
I say "try to register" because, as the girls have gotten older, they've become much more savvy about my sneaky ways of getting them signed up for things before they know I've done it.

"Mom," says Meelyn, tapping her foot on the floor, arms crossed. "I see that you have registered Aisling and me for a aqua kickboxing class at the Y that meets at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, November through January."

My eyes shoot guiltily around the room. "Uh....uh....uh....I have no knowledge of that event."

Meelyn puts her hands on her hips. "Mother, DO NOT PAY THAT FEE. There is no way we're going to be want to get up that early and get in the water when it is freezing cold outside."

Grumpily, I say, "Well, fine. But you're going to wish later that you'd learned to kickbox in the water! Someday someone might be swimming around under the water wearing goggles and you'll think, 'Gee, I wish I'd taken that class so that I could make that prevert stop looking at my rear end, but you won't be able...."

"Mom," she says, "I am perfectly capable of stopping someone from looking at me under water. Without taking an aqua kickboxing class IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. In the WINTER."

"Well then," I say, brightening up, "how's about taking a biology workshop where you'll dissect earthworms, cow's eyeballs, frogs and fetal pigs? It meets just after lunch at the public library in Oaklandon..."

But then I find I'm speaking to an empty room.

Anyway, I say all this because I am very sad, but we're not going to be able to do 4-H this year. I should have had the girls start their projects about a year ago, like, the second last year's fair ended, but I didn't and this summer thus far has been crowded with family activities including Kieren, Dayden, Carol and Susie, and I wouldn't subtract a single second from any of those. But driver's ed and CousinFest did detract from the time they could have been using to get their projects completed, so they lost some time there, even though none of us can bring ourselves to regret it. Plus, Mee is starting her new job. Plus, the girls will be gone to Florida with Nanny, Poppy, Pat, Angie and the kids during the entirety of the 4-H Fair this year.

So no 4-H in 2009, in spite of the fact that it is one my my favorite, favorite activities for them to do. Sad, but you just can't do it all. I know. I've tried. And all it does is stress everyone out and make them mad at me. I have learned this from painful experience.

4-H results!

Can you believe that we entirely missed the fair this year? My husband was working, the girls were with Nanny and Poppy, and I was at CousinFest and it all slipped by far too quickly. Before we knew it, we were back at the fairgrounds picking up the projects and looking dejectedly at the closed up corn-on-the-cob, funnel cake, meat-on-a-stick and Hoosier Dairy Farmers milk shake stands. Even the popcorn was gone!

Likewise, all the rabbits, goats, llamas, guinea pigs, chickens and other livestock that I always want to take home and name and make outfits for were all being loaded up into trucks and trailers. It was terribly disappointing.

But the girls did have some great results from their projects, as follows:

Meelyn

Scrapbooking - blue with honors
Fine Arts (colored pencil) - blue with honors
Fine Arts (pencil) - blue with honors
People in My World - blue with honors
Travelogue - RESERVE CHAMPION!!!!!

Aisling

Scrapbooking - blue
People in My World - blue
Fine Arts (pencil) - CHAMPION!!!!!
Folklore - CHAMPION!!!!!!

FINALLY!

Thanks be to the saints and angels in heaven, who undoubtedly watched over us yesterday and kept us from killing each other with the scissors or even that little saw-toothed cutting edge on the Scotch tape dispenser: THE 4-H PROJECTS ARE TURNED IN.

Yes. After working like maniacs for the past three weeks and for seven hours -- I kid you not -- yesterday, project turn in day arrived. I can now sleep at night without having nightmares about showing up at the 4-H Fairgrounds and realizing that we'd left all the projects back at home, piled on the dining room table. I'd finally reached the point where I refused to go to Hobby Lobby one more time, even if we ran out of stickies, even if it meant the girls had to mount photographs on their People in My World project boards with old chewing gum they'd collected from under the tables at Waffle House. I was. Not. Go. Ing. Back.

"I think the parents of 4-H kids ought to have Reserve Champion ribbons pinned to their shoulders," I said as we wearily made our way to the exhibition hall where the Fine Arts projects were being checked in.

The only problems we ran into were monumental at first. The girls went to turn in their Travelogue (Meelyn) and Folklore (Aisling) projects, and neither of the people who had been scheduled to check them in had bothered to show up. The person who was there knew nothing about the projects, but she did have some gold-standard advice.

"They're supposed to have project record sheets with these," she said. "But I don't know what those are."

I couldn't help but wonder how she knew they didn't have them if she didn't know what they were, but I was too busy trying to stave off my nervous breakdown with deep breathing exercises to ask.

The four of us ended up in the 4-H office, where we thankfully ran into a head honcho. She listened to our tale of woe, wrinkled her forehead and said, "Project record sheets? I don't think so...." Ms. Honcho ended up affixing sticky notes to the girls' projects that said "PROJECTS O.K. AS IS" with her signature. I taped them to the project binders with TWO pieces of the mailing tape I had in my handbag.

It turned out that signature carried a lot of weight, since a reverential silence fell over the check in table as the girls presented their binders. "Thank you," said the un-helpful volunteer meekly.

And with that, we were done! As free as little birds, we went out and immediately saw Katie, her husband and Beck. Beck told us that her projects were driving her so crazy, she decided to take an incomplete in Cooking. The alternative was to drive the entire family so insane, they'd end up taking her biscuits or cookies or whatever and throwing them at one another. We thought she chose wisely.

Now all we have to do is wait until Thursday, when we get to go see how they did. It's almost as bad as waiting for Christmas.