Team Gray!

We put 4 bikes out on the curb today.
5, if you count that plastic, no pedals baby one.

That left 6 bikes in the garage.
And 1 in the basement for the baby when she grows.

So I asked the question, “Do we have 11 bikes?”
And the answer is actually,
12ish

That’s a lot of bikes for a family of 8
And still somehow not enough for us all to have 1.

We were a tad busy when my two June babies’ birthdays came. The 6 year old’s birthday was the day of the mandatory graduation meeting. The mandatory meeting that one family didn’t attend, but yet showed up the next day at graduation. Graduation day, as I mentioned before, was my 10 year old’s birthday.

Then we proceeded to run at the speed of light. Until I looked up Monday and realized June was almost over. And I hadn’t thrown those birthday parties I’d promised. So I quickly called friends and invited them to a Wednesday party. I combined the two children, something I don’t want to do regularly. I mean, the kids are 4 years apart, and opposite sexes. They really don’t have enough in common to combine parties.

Watching the children hunt for candy in the back yard, civilly open presents, and then to watch the recital the girls put on with their friends really warmed my heart.

I could get used to throwing birthday parties.

I misspoke yesterday. Homeschooling is not a subculture. That would imply that it is a smaller subset of the culture at large. No wonder I found that categorization offensive. No, homeschooling is a counterculture. It runs against the grain; opposite to the culture at large.

Today my son went to an airsoft party. He and several of his homeschool buddies started an airsoft club, and they take turns hosting parties. The boys dress up in as much camouflage gear they can find, and break up into two teams. They spend the day in an elaborate war game complete with strategy, covert operations, and prisoners of war.

The boys spend many of the warm weather days bundled up in long-sleeved, long pants camouflage battles. One of the boys even threw a war in January. That was quite something for the boys, trudging through 40 acres in the cold. Here’s a group of teenage boys who have organized themselves around a joint activity. They take dues, agree on rules of engagement and insignia.

That was the kind of socialization I’d heard about when I first started homeschooling. It had sounded too good to be true. Now it’s just an accepted part of our homeschool counterculture.