Yesterday's park day with the support group went much smoother than last month. The little people were still very introverted but did the best they could to mingle. The other parents there were nice and we had some interesting conversations. I suddenly felt much better. I guess I needed to talk to someone who does the same job I do. Sometimes I start to feel alien about the whole thing.

There are a lot of unschoolers that attended park day yesterday. I really admire their courage in complete nonconformity. I wish I had the confidence to let go of the traditional way of doing this. I am still struggling and pushing him to complete workbooks and write papers. Something that I am noticing he wants to wean himself from. A few days ago he made the suggestion that instead of doing "bookwork" that day he would like to do alternative projects that would still have learning value. Normally I would have embraced this as an opportunity to learn through living, yet instead I pushed for him to do his bookwork first. I guess I am still too worried about standards and fulfilling social expectations of what education should be about. I am still too stuck in that frame of mind. I don't want to fail him. I don't want him to suffer in the long run because I didn't approach this the proper way. I guess since I know that he can do the bookwork accurately and with very little effort, I just assume that he should be doing it.

Today we are invited over to swim at a fellow homeschoolers home and have lunch. This family is the only family we have ever socialized with outside of the support group. That is because, before they bought their new house, they lived in the same neighborhood as us. We met for play dates a couple of times. They are nice people although we don't spend time with them on a regular basis.

On a personal level, I feel very tired lately. My eating habits have become a big blur of disgustingness. For example, mashed potatoes and gravy are very yummy in theory, but they are very polluting. I have that feeling you get after a large Thanksgiving dinner. I have had this horrible full bloaty nasty feeling everyday for the last two weeks. Yesterday I contributed it to the multiple peanut butter and strawberry preserve sandwiches that I had to eat. I ended up eating mine, and most of the girls' because they didn't even touch theirs, out of stupid habit. The really odd thing is, that this morning I have that gross polluted feeling and all I have had is a large glass of orange juice and a couple of saltines to settle my yucky stomach. I have not done anything resembling a workout in months. I think this just amplifies the lethargic haze I am in. I get off balance easily. Then I am easily sucked into that downward spiral that is laziness. My self-confidence and ability to cope with the everyday ordinary emotional happenings is greatly diminished when I feel this way. I hate it.

Posted by gwendolyn on April 11, 2001 at 09:16 AM