Are my kids going to be weird because they homeschool?

This question has lingered in my mind lately: Will my kids be weird because they homeschool? After giving this some thought, I've come to conclusion and the short answer is...yes. 

I'm okay with this. Wanna know why? Because all kids are weird. The difference with (some) homeschooled kids is that their parents allow them to be weird and don't judge, mock or condemn them for their weirdness the way a classroom full of peers might. Or a bully at recess. Or older kids on the bus. Or kids at the lunchtable.

Kids are immature, goofy and quirky. They tell jokes that don't make sense, make odd annoying noises, laugh at ridiculous nonsense words and they love disgusting bodily functions.

All kids are weird. Seriously, think about that for a minute. Except the overly mature, those who are naturally quiet or shy, or the overly insecure kids who are so afraid of being made fun of that they don't do anything outside the "norm". I truly believe those kids are still weird on the inside, they just don't show it to the rest of the world.

Many kids have an over-confidence; like they are the center of the universe and that everyone should die laughing at everything they say. Who stifles this confidence or brings it under control? We do. Other kids do. Teachers and coaches do. There are class clowns who will keep upping the anty to get attention, but for the most part, there comes a certain age where most kids reel in their sillies and begin acting more...civilized. More socialized. Less "weird".

My kids will not get as many opportunities for those maturing kids to look at them with a furrowed brow or roll their eyes at their antics. And I'm okay with that.

I predict that this will result in some hard conversations and some broken hearts along the way, but I'm prepared. Well, not prepared in a practical sense, more in an emotional sense, because I have absolutely no idea what I will say. But I'm ready for those moments of confused sadness and I'm hoping that because they're home 24/7 that I will be available (and they will be willing) to talk about getting snubbed by kids at the park. Or at sports practice. Or at Cub Scouts. Or playing in the neighborhood.

All of this has had me thinking recently as Ryan interacts with friends on his football team. He had a pair of brothers spend the night last night and to be honest, I was a little worried for him. Without the forced social norming of a daily classroom setting, would these boys relate to Ryan's...um...sillyness? Would he be too immature for them?

The answer was, "no." More accurately, "not yet." These boys (7 and 8) were just as goofy and wild as Ryan is. They told seemingly odd stories that made no sense (to me) and said silly things to make each other laugh. Ryan fit right in.

I anticipate the shift will begin sometime over the next year or two. As kids get into 4th and 5th grade, they aren't friends with everyone in class anymore. Cliques begin to solidify (some intentionally, some accidentally) and groups of kids begin turning their nose up at certain other groups of kids for being different. Weird, if you will. "Those kids think they know everything," or "That girl can't afford new shoes," or "That kid cries when he doesn't know the answer," or "Her mom isn't friends with our moms." Unfortunately, this is the way it is in most schools, big and small. You dealt with it, I dealt with it. It stinks, but it's reality.

I'm just hoping that we can consciously NOT be the family that becomes a little clique of our own, turning our noses up at others for being different. And I'm hoping that I can stand firm as I deal with the reality that my kids will be the different ones, not necessarily because they homeschool, but because I don't force them into a mold that others might if they were away from me at school all day long.

It's funny because it seems like most kids come out of their shell and get weird again in college. Finally out of their high school setting, they're no longer labled as a jock or a princess or a partier or a Jesus freak or a geek or a drama queen. Some continue with those rolls, yet others "find themselves" and develop a new sense of self-confidence. I find this intriguing.

Years ago, we went to a marriage conference called, "Love and Respect." The speaker used a tagline to help the husbands and wives in the audience change their perspective on the opposite gender: "They're not weird, just different."

I will continue to allow my kids to be themselves in our safe(r) home setting. And sometimes the things they do might seem weird. Well, not weird, just different.

Jason's 3rd Birthday - Airplanes!

Our adorable Jason is turning three. And to celebrate, I paired two of his favorite things for his party: airplanes and the color orange. (Every night at dinner, he ends his prayer with "...and thank you, God, that I get to go on an airplane someday.")

The Evite read...
Arrival: 10:28am
Departure: 12:04pm
Gate: The Park
Fly on over and join us to celebrate Jason turning THREE!  Consider this your online boarding pass for a party of outdoor fun.  Passengers are allowed to carry on parents and siblings. In flight lunch and cake will be served. Your reservation may be subject to cancellation if you do not respond to your booking agent by 10/15/12 to confirm travel.

We arrived early at the park to set up...the weather was beautiful!

"The Drink Cart" - Hi-C orange drink boxes for the kids, Crush and V8 Splash for the grown ups. Orange, orange and more orange.

I got this idea from this site. So adorable and not nearly as difficult as they seem. The dads were the most impressed by these little creations. 

"In Flight Service" = trail mix. I was going to do just peanuts, but raisins and M&Ms add a little something extra.

"Baggage Claim" - Party favors were giant bubbles, wooden airplanes and whirly birds.

Airplane-shaped PB&J and boring triangle ham & cheese (because I wasn't going to torture myself further by attempting to shape the ham sandwiches into planes. See this post for details from that fiasco) Our orange food included: Doritos, carrot sticks and cheese puffs. I skipped out on the orange slices because sticky hands + sandy playground = a mess!

We had some outdoor games, footballs and nerf guns to play with. We also had a paper airplane making station that I forgot to take pictures of. The dads had fun comparing their flight creations.

But who needs organized games when you have "race down the hill 1,000 times"?

Jason did unusually well opening gifts in front of the crowd.  I made Ryan open his gifts after his 3rd birthday party, expecting overstimulation and meltdowns. Jason even opened the cards and showed the crowd of kids the picture on the front and inside, like he was reading a story. Too cute!

Ryan asked to spray his hair blue to go with the orange and blue theme. We had some leftover from crazy hair day a couple years back. Notice his orange mustache...that won't come off for days, I'm sure.

The party was a success! Since Jason doesn't have many little buddies of his own, it was just a great excuse to invite our closest friends to hang out, have lunch and sing Happy Birthday to our big boy. A fun time was had by all!

Behind the Scenes of a Theme Party: What Other Mothers Won't Tell You.

I could be quick in my description of Jason's to-be airplane birthday party in the morning, but the story of the process is much more entertaining.  Got a minute?  Okay, let's go.

On Monday night, it hit me like a ton of bricks: "OHMYGOSH! Jason's birthday party is THIS Saturday!" Weeks ago, I had pinned some Lego birthday party ideas, then we switched to an airplane theme with lots of orange and some royal blue. (his two newest obsessions are airplanes and the color orange)  Pinning ideas is great, but {most of the time} if you expect to use any of these ideas, it's best to peek at your Birthday Party Board more than 5 days in advance. 

Just sayin'.

One of the cutest ideas I saw were little airplane-shaped sandwiches tied with little bows. I had planned on looking for an airplane cookie cutter, but clearly forgot.  So, at 10pm on Monday night, I Googled.  Sure enough, I found one for only $1, but to assure it would arrive by Friday, I had to pay $8+ shipping. That was painful, but as I pictured myself driving to different craft stores all over town, hauling all three kids in and out, in and out, in and out of the car, I decided that the time value of money was worth the expense. (See, Jess?  I actually listen when you speak!!!)

Glad that something was checked off my to do list, I posted a status on Facebook: "Today I had a moment of, 'Um, I think Jason's birthday party is this weekend,' realizing that pinning ideas on Pinterest doesn't count for *actual work* the week of a birthday party.  I totally just paid $8 to expedite shipping of a $1 airplane cookie cutter. I'm a little appalled at myself right now." Within minutes, I had comments from people saying, "I have an airplane cookie cutter you could have borrowed!" Curses.

I quickly emailed the company and asked them to cancel my order. I immediately halted my Etsy search for an orange shirt with an airplane on it. Because I'd learned my lesson!  I posted a plea on Facebook asking if anyone had an orange or blue shirt with an airplane.  Sure enough, I got some positive feedback.  Yay!

But not before I emailed a few Etsy ladies about their shirts. Most required an additional $20 to express ship, after racing to complete my inconsiderate rush order in a timely manner.  But there was one. ONE who insisted that she could whip up the shirt and send it, regular mail, for me to have by Friday. I didn't believe her, but I paid anyway.  

Back to the cookie cutter. The next morning, I got an email confirmation that my order had been shipped. NO! I responded asking if they'd gotten my cancellation email? They had not. Whatever, liars. They do, however, have a "very generous" 30 day money back guarantee.  "On the $8 shipping?" I asked. "No, on the cost of the product," they responded leaving out the "BAHAHAHAHAHA, I don't think so, lady." (*sigh*) 

We left the house bright and early and ventured to Target to start collecting orange and royal blue party stuff. Thank goodness Halloween is so close!  We got tons of fun, color-coordinated goodies. Later that afternoon, I printed out some cute food labels and some fun covers for the party favors that were purchased before the color theme was decided on. (Gasp! They won't match?!?!?! Oh well, I'll survive.)

Fast forward to Thursday. A friend brought over the slate blue airplane shirt she promised, which I originally wasn't too excited about because the party is more of a royal blue hue. (yes, I realize how stupid I sound) But when she arrived, she whipped out an outfit that she'd forgotten about that is PERFECT. Blue and orange plaid shorts with a great airplane matching blue shirt. Yay! Except I just paid $17 for that other custom, orange shirt. Bummer. Oh well, we're borrowing the outfit, he'll wear it at the party, then he'll wear his orange shirt on his actual birthday...and probably every other day after that because he's so obsessed with orange and it will give him variety from the ONE orange shirt that he currently has, not that it matters because we rarely leave the house anymore anyway and no one realizes he wears this particular shirt at least three times a week. (exhale)

Thursday afternoon guess what arrived in the mail? The $9+ cookie cutter AND the orange shirt. Man, those people are fast!

This morning, I pulled out everything to assembly line the airplane sandwiches for the party tomorrow. I went to cut the first one and it tore apart! No. No! NOOOOO!!!  Not my $9 cookie cutter!!!!  I played around a little and landed (no pun intended) on freezing the bread first, then filling the sandwich, then putting it all together. Which I should be doing right now instead of blogging, but I'm procrastinating that piece of the party until the morning.

This afternoon, I assembled the coolest 3-year old birthday cake EVER. I mean seriously, tell me this isn't awesome!!!!  The only thing that would have made it more perfect is if I'd spent the money to get all orange M&Ms or even enough bags to pull out just the orange and blue ones.  But I'd just spent $9 on a cookie cutter that wasn't doing it's job and $17 on a custom shirt that he's not going to wear at his party, so buying extra M&Ms just didn't sound like a good financial decision at this point.

How genius is this?  Another Pinterest find.  Two bundt cakes, cut and shaped into a 3. I bought a giant bag (2 lb? 3 lb?) of M&Ms and it was more than plenty. Kaylin sorted the colors for me and I put them in stripes. It didn't take too long doing it together, but the M&Ms are already starting to soften, so I probably should have waited until the day-of to decorate.

I was putting everything together today thinking, "Why does everything look so perfect on Pinterest?  Why am I the ONLY ONE who seems to admit when things go wrong during the party planning process?" (please refer to the cake pop fiasco from Kaylin's Hello Kitty party last year) Or am I the only one stupid enough to try to attempt these types of over-the-top ideas that other "I should have been a party planner" women are casually tossing out there like they're no work at all. Because I never wanted to be a party planner, I just like hosting fun parties with cute themed details. Is that so wrong??? 

To sum up the solutions for the things that went wrong during preparations for this party:

1. Plan ahead, but not too far ahead that you think you're on top of it then forget about it for weeks until it's too late and you end up throwing everything together at the last minute.

2. If you're going to cut sandwiches with a $1 cookie cutter that ends up costing $9, freeze. the. bread. first.

3. As you're assembling your cake, do not agree to let someone come look at clothes that you posted on Craigslist. The frosting (ahem, your GLUE) will dry and the M&Ms will fall right off.  Thankfully, you can apply more fresh frosting to help them adhere, but the better scenario is to push off the Craigslist lady until tomorrow.

4. Do not spend the evening before the party blogging. Blow up balloons, assemble food, do something productive. Then go to bed early, not at 11pm.

Fall crafts, part 1

I have been busy putting fall Pinterest craft and recipe ideas to use and thought I would share a few that were fun and easy. There still dozens of pins on my "fall" board, so I'll have to start doubling up if I want to get through them all before the Christmas crafts take over!  My kids beg to do crafts, so it's really more about me getting my act together and planning them, pulling out supplies and being prepared for the school room destruction.

This hot mess was something I made up as I went along. We collected different shaped leaves at the park, the kids cut out a "tree trunk" and pasted them on. Cute? Not so much. Cheap, easy craft? Absolutely.

Footprint witches...Ryan (far right) didn't want his witch to have 5 feet (his toes from the footprint) so he connected them to look like bent knees on her broom. Clever!  Too bad his witch is riding her broom backward...!

This was supposed to a brown hand/wrist print that was the branches of a tree, then the kids could decorate each tree for each season. But their hands were too big, so there was no trunk, it was all tree. I rarely buy supplies, so we used some gold paint I had instead of brown. And yet I wonder why our crafts never look as nice as the pictures on Pinterest...???

Pile o' Bones snack

Prepping the apples for our homemade apple sauce. (I could not survive without my apple corer/peeler/slicer - it is one of my favorite kitchen gadgets!)

The finished product was a brown pile of goo, so I'm showing you the before picture.  Much prettier!  The recipe was simply 8 apples (peeled and sliced/chopped), 1 cup water, 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Cook on high for 2-3 hours in your crock pot, then turn it to low for 2-3 hours. Pulse in food processor or blender till smooth.  Easy, sugarless and DELISH!

pumpkin pretzels

Homemade caramel popcorn

These were supposed to be castles (using empty toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls) - you can kind of the see the "top" of Kaylin's pizza box turned castle. The kids made Lego creations with them. 

Hand-held Apple Pie dessert

"Witches Brooms" - obviously just pretzel sticks jammed into upside down, mini Reece's PB cups

candy airplanes (totally unrelated to fall, but we made them for Jason's airplane birthday party this weekend)

Ingredients for the next delicious, easy-assembly project...

...voila - edible acorns!

Pile o' Bones

We've been doing all sorts of fun fall crafts that I've found on Pinterest and this was too cute and easy not to share. Start to finish, we were done making a big bowl of these in less than 30 minutes and the kids loved helping.

Supplies needed:

* small pretzel sticks

* mini marshmallows
* melted white chocolate chips/bark (melt in 30 second intervals in the microwave or in a double boiler)

Instructions:

Have your helpers twist a mini marshmallow onto each end of a pretzel stick. (Tip: broken pretzels make cuter bones! Ours were all sizes)

Dunk the stick into the melted chocolate and pull it out with a fork, allowing the excess drip off.

Put each chocolate covered bone onto a wax paper/Silpat lined baking sheet.

Allow to cool completely and set up before removing.

Attempt to keep your kids from devouring the bones until it's time to bring the snack to your play date.