17th Day of Homeschooling at Daddy’s Academy of Gratitude: Our FIRST homeschooled holiday.

Morning Daddy! I’m up early for Academy today. Whatcha doing?

My 1st grader at 7am. 🤤🤤😭

No. I was not ready. 7am? Breakfast isn’t even served until about 8:30am so what the heck? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t interact with my kids (the students) until it was time for Academy. Nope, it was NOT the Multiple Sclerosis, Ulcerative Colitis, Spondylosis. It was NOT the amount of ‘business’ or development that I am behind. It was me. It was 100% da lil handicapped homie. On the 17th day of homeschooling aka quarantine, I was officially “overdosed” on them. The mind games and Jedi tricks to psyche myself into seeing them as students, kids, both, etc. didn’t work. I told her “Good Morning Sweetie! You’re very early. You can grab breakfast, take a nap, go back to sleep, read, this is the beauty of getting up early. Everything is yours and nobody to share with.”

Then, I went into my bathroom for about 2 hours. No lie Playa. I yoga’ed in the bathroom. I jammed my favorite sports podcast, Colin Cowherd. I meditated. Of course, I did actually use the facilities, read my latest urban fantasy, Hounded, and created a new allthingsonelove bitmoji. By the time, I emerged at 9:10am, I felt a lot calmer and willingly to accept the fact that the day was starting.

It’s called self-care and I’ve been slacking on it. Taking time for yourself to settle yourself is paramount to wellness. I’ve written an ebook about self-care, wellness and my personal methods to achieve both. I know I’ve sacrificed here and there to make Daddy’s Academy of Gratitude successful (It is cuz I said it is!) but it hit me how much today. I made a mental note that pushing my yoga/meditation into the afternoon P.E. slot, with the kids, was gonna cramp my self-care routine. I hadn’t realized before but it was apparent with my daughter’s early appearance that I needed to step my self-care up immediately.

I refuse to lie to y’all. Religion is NOT my thing. I am the proverbial, “spiritual-not-religious” type of cat. My kids asked would Academy be out for Easter and it opened a whole can of discussions, talks, stereotypes and everything. I ain’t gon lie. SOME of the stuff had me googling like a mug.

“Daddy? Why is it Easter bunny but everybody eats Easter eggs? Rabbits don’t lay eggs. They should have made it the Easter Chicken.“

Dude. I can’t make this stuff up! It’s part of the reason that I ran to my bathroom earlier when she came down at 7am. QUESTIONS! She has sooooo many. Questions, stories, dreams, tattling, requests, plans for us ALL, ideas I can improve MYself… *sigh* Regardless, the entire thing was a full hour family talk that everyone participated in, without being forced, nobody cracked a joke, all had questions, everyone was comfortable, it was good stuff. It came out that Daddy was an Omniest, person who believes all religions have truth, and why. Whew… that is for a blog by itself.

Clean Up Day then…

It was my wife’s idea. (Aren’t all family cleaning days the Mom’s idea tho?) There is NO Academy on Friday and plenty of deep cleaning to do. She said, “SO, let’s make it early release on them so students (dem kids) can help their parents care and maintain the home.” Kids + cleaning + today = WIN. It didn’t take her long to scratch out some areas that she wanted to start:

Maaaaaaaaan, I’m always excited about kids doing chores and helping around the crib. It’s one of the BEST things about homeschool aka Daddy’s Academy of Gratitude! Want another unforeseen and greatly appreciated benefit of kids cleaning, besides a clean house? It changes the perspective and dynamic between us all. The joy of me working hard as heck (drinking beers, blogging, writing, usual) as they cleaned suddenly extended my patience! I wasn’t Mr. Daddy, the teacher. I wasn’t Daddy fussing about chores. I got to be someone different, the cool parent backing up the serious parent!

Previous Related Post: Day 16

Next Related Post: Day 18