Life at Oak Grove

This week question for the blog cruise is:
“How do you homeschool during illness or family stress or crisis?”
Ah!   That is a great question.   
Since we started homeschooling about 4 years ago, we never really had anything major happening in our life.    Well that’s not technically true.   We have events but no major illnesses, family crisis or major stress either.
Don’t take me wrong, we have encountered things that disturbed our life.    But with patience, organisation and planning, we went through them.
In 2007, I was expecting our fourth child.   I knew it would be another caesarean which also meant that I needed to plan in advance before the birth so we can relax a bit when I was in limited in our activities.  Jasmine was born on December 19th about three weeks before her due date because this was my fourth caesarean.     The boys were really helpful especially my oldest back then.  He learned how to do the washing and helped me a lot with this task as well as with the vacuuming.    We pursued homeschooling slowly doing basic lessons.   But it was also during the Christmas season and we were blessed to have help from my mom who came to visit for a while.
Another time, I was schedule for surgery on my right foot in 2008.  Yes a year after the birth of our little girl.    Was I crazy to get operated when I had a non-walking little one at home.   More than likely yes but honestly I couldn’t bear the pain on the foot anymore…   I had a bunion that was hurting a lot.    The left foot had been operated when I was in high school.   This one had not bug me until about two-three years ago.   It took two years to have an appointment with the specialist and then another year to have the surgery.   So here you go.   There was no turning back.   I had surgery and was limited in walking.    Ah!   Nuts I tell you.    But I planned in advance and did a big BOOM of homeschool before the surgery.  We also did a bit during the Christmas time to advance more.   I was in a cast for a long time.  
Stress/depression has also been part of my life.   When I feel overwhelmed and can’t seem to function, I take it easy.    It happens more during the winter season.     And since I discovered that vitamin D helps people who have the blues during winter, it happens less.    I am fortunate then when it happened, it didn’t last many days.   It usually happens for a day.   A day I take to relax, pray and seek God while the kids have it easy with coloring, movies and popcorn.  
How do you homeschool during illness or family stress or crisis?   My suggestion is that you take it easy, cover the basics (reading, writing and arithmetic) and think that in a way your kids are learning to deal with it.  It’s life.  It needs to be dealt with.   They can learn in a different way going through these events like how to help, how to trust God, how to deal with doctors/nurses and so on.    Learning happens on a daily basis whether you plan it or not.