It goes pretty much the same way every morning. First there is the click and slide of the stall door latch. Then Clove, it’s nearly always Clove, comes barreling around the corner, pausing briefly to consider knocking the lid off the feed bin and diving in. I tell her not to even think about it and she lurches onto the milking stand. So it goes with each doe, each morning with very little variation.

I didn’t give it too much thought until it was Asher out there helping me the other day. Clove had to be coaxed out of her stall when Asher was holding open the door. Then she refused to go back in and made several laps around the barn in desperate confusion. A goat isn’t a particularly affectionate animal so you don’t realize they have given their complete trust to you and your routine until someone new steps in and they wig out. She hadn’t exactly expressed deep satisfaction with our little system but apparently being off of it totally threw her.

The goats aren’t the only ones around here who are creatures of habit. Allen took the older kids to camp out for the Bolder Boulder run. Asher and I stayed back with Tess and Brendan to hold down the fort. At first I imagined all sorts of free time given half the family here. Reality is, Asher and I had to split up the chores belonging to the missing kids and add them to our own. This always makes for a bit of on the spot decision making and some lapses. While I wouldn’t likely have said we had a well-oiled machine before, we seem to have had a pretty good flow going.

I remember years back a homeschool author writing about habits shared how she had moved a wall clock to a new location. For weeks afterwards various family members would glance over at the now empty space. Nothing could have convinced her of the power of habit better than that object lesson. This weekend has been a compelling example for me as well. “Why are there still dishes on the counter?” Oh yes, Aidan is gone. Lots of that type of thing has happened. More than that, there is Brendan.

We seem to have a pretty good system for supervising the B-bop boy. We seem to REALLY need one. Without those extra sets of eyes, mine are glued to him his every waking moment with the occasional hand-off to Asher so I can sweep a room or run for a bathroom break without disaster striking. We have appealed to his future aspirations, reminding him of the things that good scouts rarely do. For example, scouts do not swipe strawberries and flee to the nether regions under the bunkbeds where their pregnant mother cannot retrieve them. Nor would a good scout climb unto the kitchen table and wear the centerpiece as a hat while singing “I David Cooke!” at the top of his lungs into a cell phone charger. And a good scout never, never paints his sister’s face, even with jam. Never. Sometimes he is game. Sometimes he remains unconvinced. Always he is busy.

These past weeks have been spent factoring that reality into plans for the coming school year. By Thanksgiving there will be three little ones under four years old. One of them will be Brendan. While the details are being worked out I can tell you the master plan is to follow the advice of my mentors, Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori. As Charlotte suggests, he will be right by my side to assure good habits supplant natural inclinations. Montessori work will have to be plentiful because his mind – and his hands – are never still. This should be considerably easier with lots of helpers on deck but it does mean a new school plan for the older kids. More on that to follow!

Meantime, if you have a very, VERY busy three year old and wonder if you will ever get another thing done then know you are not alone. My advice to you is not to even try to get “another thing done” right now. Nothing ensures future opportunity for getting things done like taking a season to instill order, peace, and self control in our whirling dervish children. I know this because I have had two other such little people. They both became skilled athletes. One is the most even tempered, helpful girl I have ever met today. You would have a hard time equating her with the busy toddler hanging upside down off the couch or rolling down the hallway in uproarious laughter or changing her clothes multiple times per day. It happened though and at this moment she is running six miles through Boulder with some thousands of runners – and her Dad. : )

I have every confidence Brendan can be such a boy. I am realistic enough to know it will not happen overnight nor without vigilance on our part. Relaxing that vigilance in early pregnancy is responsible in part for our schoolroom box/tray messes and the periodic closet tornado. What is necessary now is girding our loins and setting those good habits in stone so that he too, comes to find it a very pleasant second nature. Wish us luck!

Dr. Laura recently weighed in on the side of homeschooling. It was a timely article. This last week dear friend Jen and I witnessed one of the most vicious attacks on homeschoolers over at The Old Schoolhouse. I won’t even link to it. It was that bad. Several hecklers, who referred to themselves as teachers but refused to sign their names (one claimed because she feared homeschool militias – hello?) anonymously attacked the guest blogger’s hair, wardrobe, punctuation, children, and general personhood. I quote one teacher:

“I reject your truth, your BS, and your hair.”

Now there’s a way to encourage fruitful discussion. Whooey.

Another claimed homeschool kids were clearly handicapped as evidenced by their obvious lack of fashion sense. It was those skirts, doncha know. Not that all homeschoolers wear them. Not that all homeschoolers are of one faith, one worldview, one curriculum, one cookie cutter. It was a convenient insult to hurl given the lack of serious data supporting academic and psychological damage from homeschooling. Apparently those are not the most critical factors in school choice. No, silly. Its about the hair. Let me tell you, girlfriends, I am in big trouble if so.

We have been in homeschool groups across the country over the past 17 years. We have happily been part of Catholic groups, Protestant groups, military base groups, and secular groups where a number of the families considered themselves pagans. There were few things that were consistently uniform among the groups but always these two: they loved learning and they never made personal attacks based upon outward appearances. Some families were very mainstream and some very eccentric – just like in public school. Some were math and science minded, some were artsy – just like in public school. Some preferred classical disciplines, some leaned toward the alternative – just like private and public magnet schools. There is an unwritten law among folks in these groups however that what is on the outside is not nearly as important as what is on the inside.

No matter what your beliefs about the hereafter may be, one thing is pretty universally accepted and that is that the ‘outside’ is not going with us when we leave here. So, while it is fun to hash out hairstyles and skirt cuts can you really fathom considering that a yardstick by which to evaluate your fellow man?

One thing we have always tried to drive home to the kids is that if a person is reduced to discussing bodily form and function they must have nothing more substantial to contribute to the conversation. Likewise when a person raises his voice or makes personal attacks he generally has nothing legitimate to add either. (thank you to the fine folks at Critical Thinking Press) In our home you may debate ‘ideas’ but you may never attack the person who holds them. It is both irrelevant and entirely unkind.

I admit there is some leftover teenager in me who does notice. However where one might interpret a dated hairdo as belonging to a woman who is clueless, I am much more inclined these days to interpret her as being far too involved with her vocation to be concerned about things as transient and superficial as fashion trends. They see women who don’t make the cut. I see women who place a premium on selflessness, service, and character. Those high-minded habits used to be considered virtues. In some faiths they nominate you for sainthood for just such traits. In mainstream Western society however those very attributes single a girl out as ‘subjugated’ and ‘brainwashed’.

I think the slam that really illustrates best how many define success was the comment:

“We will see who gets the $150,000 jobs!”

I guess we will. Income seems to determine whether a task is admirable or not. For instance, making a healthy dish for your children for free would be subjugation. Getting paid a small fortune to make a healthy dish on the Food Network – which feeds no actual human beings – is worthy of great praise.

I will probably knock myself inexorably into the ‘hopeless case’ camp when I tell you I really couldn’t care less who makes what when its all said and done. It is rarely an accurate indication of personal satisfaction. Like the ‘outside’ the income doesn’t go with either:

“All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall”

We will not be physically beautiful forever. Investments often fail. Your paycheck will not attend you by your deathbed nor care much when you are gone. Character goes on forever. Work on the inside. Avoid contention. It is the meek who are to inherit the earth, not the loud, the angry, nor the self-righteous. Therefore I don’t engage in debate.

Make no mistake, my quibble here is not with teachers. I have dear friends in that noble profession and many in my extended family have devoted their lives to education. I have learned more than I can ever adequately express from excellent teachers who have shared their expertise. Many of them fill the sidebars. My discouragement is not aimed at any particular profession. This is not really about being a public schooler or a homeschooler. It is about being human and the dignity which that commands. Insults nearly identical to those mentioned here were levied at Michelle Dugger and her girls on a popular ‘women’s blog’ so apparently meanspirited swipes are not limited to TOS. My sorrow is over that sentiment, the yardstick being used to measure innocent children’s value. Their Father in heaven would surely not approve.