Why is there orange juice on the floor?

...and on the table, and in the tea set, and the play toaster? *let it go, let it go, let it go...* "WHY IS THE ORANGE JUICE ALL OVER THE FREAKING HOUSE!?!?!" Oops. I really meant to let it go this time. Alright, so the orange juice incident may be directly related to my time-wasting on the computer, but really, why are they playing with orange juice at all? Is this mess making or learning? Oh damnit. It's the same thing. I'm just a freakin' control freak. Ok, fine, but what are they learning? No, stop it, stop it. ugh, I'm constantly dissecting their activities and behaviours. This may not be wise. I need to let it go.

It's probably that I want to show off how learny they are, and prove that unschooling works. It defeats the point of unschooling if I keep searching for and bragging about their "learning moments". Unschooling is supposed to be not focusing on this. It's supposed to be learning life. All their learning is relevant, not just the academic related things. I know this. I have nothing to prove here, really. I was unschooled - I know it works, that's why I'm doing it.  Why do I keep second guessing myself? Why do I feel this overpowering desire to see academic "results"? Why am I measuring the importance of one type of skill against another?  I don't need external validation to know that unschooling is good for us.  My hope is that they will eventually learn that when you pour orange juice all over the table it spills onto the floor and makes a big sticky mess, which is unpleasant and you'll have to change your clothes which is inconvenient and disrupts the flow of the tea party.  Not that when you pour orange juice all over the table mom yells at you and you don't have any fun.  

Maybe I'm just a neat freak with mess hang ups. Actually that's not a maybe, that's a definite. There needs to be some middle ground that I can feel good about. The truth is, I'm exhausted and the thought of cleaning up an additional, huge mess is overwhelming. But it's not fair for me to refuse them such fantastic sensory experiences - especially Jonas. In fact, I should be ecstatic that he wants to get messy. That's such a positive thing. Except, you know, I have to clean up the mess when they're done. See, I really don't want to limit them out of convenience for me.

video games?

   I believe in radical unschooling.  I swear I do.  You know, in theory.  I'm a patient, don't sweat it kind of girl (ignore other posts saying complete opposite of this) but there are some things I'm not so convinced of here, namely, tv and video games.  I read a blog talking about this very subject.  Good points, sure, nothing I haven't heard before by the very loud and abundant RUs out there.  I'm waiting for someone's words to inspire hope in me, but so far I'm left in a quandary.  "Make your life more interesting."  Right.  I know that's a good answer, but my fear is that my life isn't that interesting.
   For some people there is nothing so fascinating as video games.  I know you can waste hours and think you've only been on a short time.  This worries me.  I have trouble myself with wasting time online when I have millions of other things that I should be doing.  I've seen weak people fall at the hand of online RPGs.  It's hard for me to be trusting in this.  Sure, people who spend their whole lives playing video games, and have no real interests outside of them, are the exception.  Perhaps their problem is precisely that they never learned to self limit, in fact, I'd bet on that.  What troubles me, however, is this very common (and relatively new) phenomenon of men whom's favorite, and frequently all consuming past time is playing xbox after work (before work, during work, instead of work, geting stoned and playing all night - oh dear I'm getting carried away).  Right, I get it; they didn't learn to self limit.  They weren't unschooled.  Right, yes, probably. 
   Still, it's difficult momentarily to believe that at some point they will learn to self limit and will be fascinating people with very varied interests.  They are not this currently.  They are furious balls of energy who never tire of staring at a screen.  They're interests are limited at best.  For Jonas it's lego, video games, Miyazaki films, weapons and taking pictures of these things.  For Lavinia it's tea parties, dress up, nursing, dolls, Miyazaki films and having her picture taken.  Oh, and watching Jonas play video games.  
   Perhaps I have an irrational fear of this.  That's likely.  We have no television because I don't want the commercialism (among many, many other things) to be accessed freely whenever they wish.  We still watch movies, though.  We don't watch them during the day because I take care of other kids, too, but in the evening they have free reign over it.  They're usually not that interested, and rarely ever watch anything back-to-back.  So I can see that this idea works.  I'm just stuck at the video games.  I'm trying not to limit, and let it play out, but when it comes to online games there are just some things I cannot feel good about.  Am I needlessly hung up about this?

A new year

Lately I've been having some kind of identity crisis, or something. I do this frequently. Not an all out "what does my life mean?" "who am I?" life falling apart crisis. I don't have that luxury. No, I have these mini, one or two day freak outs. I still function, as I have to, but I feel like just laying on the floor and crying. I generally isolate myself when possible (my kids don't count with this, they are always around) and contemplate complete life changes. I think sometimes this can be helpful, but usually it just seems selfish. I am a person who is constantly evaluating and am obsessed with self improvement, so a freak out is not a much needed catalyst of reflection, but perhaps it jumps starts a proactive attitude. To be honest, I'm not really sure.
Typically I shrug these off as a side effect of lack of sleep, getting sick, getting over being sick, being emotionally drained, stress and the like. But when I think about who I am, I mean the real me, this is part of it. This is just my crazy. It may be simply how I react to those things, but it is me. I need to accept my crazy. I may even need to embrace it.
I have been struggling with embracing the whole me. I don't have a good grasp on what this means, but I want to find out. Surely there are spots that need improvement, but I've spent too much time worrying about what people think, and wanting to make everyone happy and comfortable. I feel schizophrenic because it's like an impulse, not something that is largely important to me. It turns out that I don't actually care at all, so I need to stop being hung up about it. I want to be done caring about these pointless things that I don't care about. I'm not good at it, but with practice I hope I can be. I'm worrying about what you think as I write this. That's silly.  It's not easy to just put yourself out there.  Much easier to be agreeable, polite, and quiet out of a bizarre fear of rejection.