The Secret to Living is giving! And why Actions Speak Louder Than Words!

Six weeks in and loving it! In my mind, we’re now officially “home schoolers!” I was poignantly reminded of this when we walked into Color Me Mine, a local “make your own pottery place” that we frequent under the guise of “art class”. We were there to pick up our latest masterpieces. The clerk at the counter asked the kids if they had started their Valentines yet, and I chuckled. “We’re home schooled”, I quickly offered. “We don’t have to do those anymore.” And subconsciously, I felt myself release a HUGE sigh of relief as I recalled prior years and what Valentine’s Day meant in our world.

Typically, I hadn’t planned ahead. Usually, it hit me in the early evening the night before that I had again failed as a mother by not preparing for this event in July. My children would be shunned. Where would I find decent Valentines at 7:30 p.m. on a school night? Would I really have the energy to make the pilgrimage to every local Rite Aid until I found them? How could I then coerce my children to stay up until the wee hours of the morning writing notes of endearment to 25 acquaintances that they honestly weren’t that fond of? I even ventured into the extreme danger zone. “What is the worst thing that could happen if we just didn’t bring anything?” Ouch. Thankfully, we never went there. But, we never did school Valentine’s Day very well, and I was overjoyed to realize that I was leaving it behind!

Then, almost miraculously, I noticed a very sweet scene unfolding at the table next to the counter where we awaited our “prized creations”. A young father, with his two, itty bitty daughters had taken their Saturday afternoon to paint heart shaped statues with their heartfelt thoughts of appreciation lovingly expressed in color palettes that only a 3 and 5 year old could conceive of. First and foremost, I was in awe about the fact that he had planned so far ahead. His biggest dilemma now was whether to pay the $5 rush charge to absolutely guarantee, without a doubt that his wife could receive these treasures on Valentine’s Day. (He opted for the rush fee by the way. This guy was committed!)

How wonderful, I thought to myself. He took it upon himself to surprise his wife with these selfless displays of giving and he involved his children in the process. Think of the life lessons. Think of the memories. Think of the love his wife would feel and she opened these treasures on Valentine’s morning! (This guy would be good at homeschooling, I thought). And the amazing thing is (in my opinion at least) that he nailed it! As a mom, what I want most from my loved ones are these earnest and spontaneous gestures of unconditional love. Forget the flowers. Skip the chocolate! It’s appreciation, acknowledgment and a great back rub that I crave more than anything.

How “coincidental” it was that this caught my attention now. Our leadership topic for this week is “It is better to give than to receive”. It left me wondering what it is that my own significant other craves more than anything this Valentine’s Day. How far would a selfless gesture of our appreciation go in his mind? Sounds like an experiment worth pursuing. Hmmm. … I need to start on this now.

It also left me thinking that I could get it together for once in my life and have the kids make Valentines for the people in their life that are truly important to them and maybe, just maybe (I am not promising anything) get them in the mail in time to make a difference on that special day!

I have our “house rules” posted in the heart of our home--our refrigerator. The title, in 72 pt bold type says The Secret to Living is Giving! And this is followed by a list of Eder Family commandments by which we must abide. Somehow, I hope that each day as they grab their physical sustenance, they absorb some spiritual sustenance. I am not sure it is working. In fact, I am pretty sure that they selectively ignore this reminder now. As a back-up plan, I have a great curriculum laid out this for this week with excerpts from “giving gurus” to help my kids understand this important concept; “It is better to give than to receive.” My children will listen with varying degrees of open-mindedness, I am sure.

But sometimes it is the simple things, like actually doing something that mean so much more! Actions do speak louder than words. THERE ARE FOUR DAYS LEFT UNTIL VALENTINE’S DAY, a radio commercial just screamed to me. We’ll be getting busy now!

January 5: Day One

To kick off our home school adventure, I developed a six to eight week project that we are undertaking on the Fibonacci Sequence. Our research will encompass all areas of our curriculum including math, science, history, writing, art, music, logic and reasoning, and computers. Wow! We launched the project today and began to learn the concept behind the numbers. Keep in mind that when and if this is taught in regular schools, it is a high school or college level concept. But I just knew my kids would get it.

Austin was getting very frustrated with the Fibonacci concept partially because Frankie was nailing it. This kind of thing is just completely intuitive for him. It's deep in his DNA. But the real problem was that I wasn't explaining it right because it was the first time I was teaching it (and truth be told, I don't fully understand it myself). She was getting frustrated and shifted immediately into a state of learned helplessness. She threw herself on the floor, completely withdrawing from the lesson. Essentially, she completely "gave up". So I quickly shifted to damage control mode and took them to a website that has numerous examples of the concept hoping there would be something she would grasp onto. (For those who are interested, a great website is http://www.phisource.com/).

There are many fascinating aspects of the Fibonacci Sequence and one can get lost on this site for hours. But, we found a the theology section of the website and it was like a light bulb came on for Austin. Her entire face lit up and she launched into a whole dissertation about how the Fibonacci principle relates to religion and the trilogy. Soon, they were working together, fully inspired, feeding off each other and building on these concepts around religion and the Fibonacci Sequence. They spent a solid hour exploring the website and digging into interesting aspects of the Golden ratio and the Fibonacci principle. They were fully inspired and engrossed in learning. At the end of the day they told me that they loved it, and learned more in one day than they do in a typical week at school. If we can keep this up, the kids will be off the charts in their learning.