Today was the first day that Pumpkin did NOT go to school. I mean, she didn't go to school for the past two years as well, when all her friends were in preschool. And our church DOES have an outstanding preschool which is only a couple hours for two days of the week, so it wouldn't have HURT her or anything...I just chose not to send her...
But today is the day that officially everyone who is schooling their children by kindergarten sent them off, and Pumpkin remained home. So officially, I am homeschooling. Or mostly just NOT schooling...
We had a good day, mostly. We got up when the babies did, ate breakfast, went on a walk, played outside, read books, ate lunch, played outside some more, and just relaxed. Mostly the same stuff we've been doing all summer long. When the kids (or rather babies) weren't getting into trouble I was reading a book.
It's amazing how much they are growing, and I love it. I so look forward to this year and the coming ones as they start understanding physical dangers more and I only have to deal with the emotional and mental and spiritual aspects of parenting. Or rather FOCUS on them, as I'm sure there will be other physical hurdles in my future (can anyone say ER and sports???)
But overall, I had a good day. Though I did fantasize a lot about my pottery.
I don't know if it's just me or if anyone else does this, but I talk to "myself" a lot, only it's not me, it's the person I WANT to be talking to, or maybe I'll be thinking about what I'll type into my blog later (95% of what I THINK about typing, I never do. I only post about 5% of the blogs I've typed in my head, due to time and energy....)
I will do this with my lips visibly moving, however, and I'm sure people must have seen me while on walks doing this, and I wonder what they think of me. If they wonder if I'm crazy. And maybe I am.
But I can't help it. I picture the best scenario possible for my future. I always do. This is not to say I never worry or wonder about my future. I do. A lot. But not while fantasizing. When fantasizing, everything goes my way, and works out, and I am good at what I do. Call it positive thinking, or what-have-you. It's how I pictured my births, for that matter. How I pictured my marriage, my kids, etc.
And strangely enough, many times things DO turn out pretty close to what I picture, though not always. Luckily I have enough pessimism in me to recognize that the very worst MAY happen instead, and if or when it does, I take the blow in a "I knew it" sort of way, and deal with it.
Either way, I was lost in thought much of today. I'm glad I never had to take a philosophy class, because I think it would have killed me. Literally. I was thinking about how what is best or right for me is not best or right for the world, and I do this often. I go in circles as I try to reason and make the logic work, and it just doesn't.
I can't rationalize how much control a person or people should have over lives. Who decides what is right and wrong? Who has the authority to enforce it? We can create lives and prolong lives, but we can't end them? Why is one end of the life spectrum allowed but not the other? Because it's positive? Not always. Some babies that aren't aborted are beaten to death. Some babies not left to die live on machines that eat and breathe for them, and brain waves hardly register at all. I wouldn't call that positive. Or some people are in so much pain they pray daily to leave this earth. And yet think that the higher road is to prolong their agony....
But I cannot say who it is who can judge these things apart from God. I cannot say whether creating life in a tube, or cloning, or pausing life is okay.
When does the individual's choice become overridden by another individual's right? If my son had died in childbirth, would you blame me for his death because of my choice to homebirth? What if he had died in the hospital...there is no blame because I was in the "right" place? Or is it because you can blame the professionals? Is that like blaming the school when your children do not learn?
Or is a child falls ill to a simple disease that we have vaccines for - is their parent to blame for not vaxing, yet when a child falls ill to the vaccine and dies - the parent is not to blame because it's the "normal" and accepted thing to do?
When is discipline considered abuse, and who decides how much right another has to oversee this? If I decide to use home remedies instead of use antibiotics, but it is found out later that I should have used the medicine, am I wrong? What about the mother who smokes in front of her kids, knowing the harm. Should she be taken away?
In a world where morals are relative, who decides? We discussed a book last month called "The Infidel" where the author points out that we are protecting the Islam religion in the name of tolerance, but denying the muslim women their rights as humans as they are being beaten and killed in the name of Allah. Yet if we step in and prohibit them from practicing their religion, then who will next stop Christians or Buddists or Hindus from practicing?
We have protected children in public schools by giving them the easy road and a way out. In the name of kindness we have stripped them of ever learning how to cope in the real world. We promote sameness and yet strive to remain unique.
Have humans always struggled thus?
I try to live as naturally as possible. As if mankind had never moved past the garden. And yet I recognize the benefits we have acheived as well. So I, too, am an oxymoron. And yet I have peace with what I have chosen.
I just wish others agreed. And yet they can't. Because by doing so, they automatically condemn their own choices. We can agree to disagree...and I guess that's what I'll have to live with. But darn it if I'm not so difficult that I actually wish we COULD all agree. Me and my black & white world....
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