Deuce

Finally, I've hit my stride in tennis. After the smokin' match on Thursday (even if I didn't win), I've been on the ball, literally, since then. My serve is finally in most of the time--I have been paying attention to nothing more than throwing the ball high enough, and sure enough, I've got my first serve under control and my second serve less pathetic now. My groundstrokes are also more reliable, and I'm getting more overheads and playing more aggressively at the net. This morning I played singles and won 6-4, 6-2, 6-1. Tonight Kerry and I played doubles in a well-matched pairing, and we also won three sets, though I'm blanking on the score. And I am dreadfully tired. Maybe I'll get that racket tattoo after all....

Speaking of smokin' talents, Walter is learning to play the piano, and he is such a natural at it. Right now he is playing Jolly Old St. Nicholas, and he is doing it smoothly and with feeling. I've just been casually teaching them and having them practice 3 or 4 days a week, and this is pretty good for just being three or so weeks into the deal.

Tomorrow I teach Sunday School in the morning. I feel so unprepared, even though there's not that much to prepare for it. The activities in the book we teach from are...interesting. Tomorrow's lesson plan calls for a lot of tearing up foam pieces and throwing them at things--throwing them at plastic ants, of all things. Last week there was a lot of throwing things, too. We threw a styrofoam raven at our prayer requests. Hmmm. And we picked up plastic ants. I can't remember why we did it, but there it was. After tomorrow, we don't have Sunday School again until the middle of August.

Here is my current thinking about what seems to be a key to homeschooling success past the critical zone of late elementary, the point at which many people I've known have chosen to send their children to school. I was listening to a friend who now has 15 and 16 year olds, and while it sounds like sometimes her boys may have wanted to go to school, they accept that this is what their family does. I see her boys all the time around the neighborhood, and they seem very "normal" to me--out with friends, riding their skateboards, they seem to have girlfriends, almost always in a pack of other kids. The three biggies that I see as setting one up for long-term success are (1) Consistent activities--doing the same thing year after year. For her it seems to be Boy Scouts, church show choir and youth activities, and at one point, Lego robotics. (2) Doing a few things and doing them with gusto. (3) Keeping as much as possible local. Some of her boys' major activities happen within walking distance of her house. They haven't lost touch with the other people their age living right around them.

Now I'm on to wondering how I'll put that together for myself. Easier said than done, right?