Insanity.

I will not get into why exactly my brain has been so fried lately.  But let me just say that grief and depression coupled with a cursed home improvement project that just seems to go on and on has had me kind of in a tizzy both mentally and physically.   When we are stressed, our children sense it and it adds to their stress too.  Having stressed out children adds to our own stress and it becomes a vicious cycle.  

We started school back at the beginning of July and here I am at the end of July already discouraged and frustrated.  I have sent Asher to his room for the rest of the day today because he just couldn't do anything today without a rotten attitude.  Evie has been working through her school work diligently today and that is a good thing.  Small mercies...

But what do you do when your brain is completely frazzled, the children are all over the very last nerve you have left, and the house is in chaos?  Everyone says, "Take a break!  The kids will learn when they learn!"  But I took a break from basically April until the end of June.  Not to mention the 'break' I had back in March while attending an extraordinarily sad and stressful funeral in another state.  

Here is my question:  When stressful years happen (and I say years because 2009 has been a doozy) is it worth it to just do the bare minimum in your homeschooling journey and leave the rest for another time?  Do we just do core subjects like reading, writing, math and find fun activities to teach the rest?  At this point, that is where I am.  Science and History are important, but really, in the end, does it matter when my children learn the scientific names of animals, the periodic table of elements, the date of the last battle of the civil war, or how long it took Christopher Columbus to sale across the ocean blue back in 1492?  Does it matter when they learn it as long as eventually, they gain a basic knowledge of our world's history and the scientific method?   

Honestly, I think part of my depression and current self-doubt and loathing are because I am unable to get out of the house and do the things I normally like doing with the kids.  Play dates, trips to the park, walks at the greenway or the mall - I can't do those things during the day because of the bathrooms of doom.  I am, more or less, stuck at the house with the kids a good portion of my time right now and I am a person who loves to be on the go.  My kids beg me to go places all the time now.  I think I have conditioned them to desire movement and when we are still, they get restless.  And so do I.