The True Story of Homeschooling

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We started back to school. Since we end up taking off a lot of time for Cee (and everyone’s) appointments throughout the year, I wanted to start with a cushion.

We’re Taking Things Seriously and Starting New Habits as of Thursday.

Thursday was fine. We checked off all our boxes, and mostly there were no tears. It felt good. Then came Friday.

While I was working on school with the older kids, Bea wandered off. I assumed she had fallen asleep on my bed, but asked Elle if she would go check to make sure Bea was okay.

Bea was okay. Slippery, but okay.

“Mom!” Elle called from my bathroom. “Bea got into the Vaseline and rubbed it everywhere.”

“Please let her be kidding. Please let her be kidding. Or exaggerating.” I thought on repeat.

“Bring her here.”

Elle wasn’t talking about the bathroom (though Cee’s toothbrush and the towel did see some serious Vaseline action). She was talking about Bea.

Bea had stripped down to her underpants and covered herself in a thick coating of the goopy stuff from chin to ankles. The only place she missed was a small patch between her shoulder blades. (It’s a quite hard to reach spot, even for a flexible four-year-old.)

She pranced out of the bathroom at Elle’s prodding and proceeded to dance around. Like a shiny, just-caught fish, like a tiny, pale bodybuilder, she glistened. And she was proud of it.

It was veryvery funny. And equally horrifying.

“You could just throw her in the tub,” Cee offered helpfully. (She hadn’t figured out that her toothbrush had taken a hit, or she would have been much less agreeable at that point.)

“Well, here’s the thing. The whole reason we have petroleum jelly is that water doesn’t cut through it. Like when your lips are chapped, if you put some Vaseline on it, the water doesn’t dry them out.”

Not sure how a towel or washcloth would recover, I opted for paper towels. I could have googled “how do you get a tub of petroleum jelly off a preschooler?” but Bea was a ticking, dancing time bomb. Every second that passed was a second that could be spent getting goop on anything she touched.

Do you know how many paper towels it takes to wipe an almost-full container of Vaseline off of a four-year-old?

Me neither, because I lost count after 85. Just kidding. I didn’t count at all. All my energy was spent trying not to laugh or run away and join the circus. Even after I declared the project “finished,” she still felt sort of clammy and mildly sticky.

I didn’t take a picture, but imagine a small child who got sneezed on by a brontosaurus. You get the idea.

So, day one of our homeschool year was fine. On day two only some of the kids checked all their boxes, but everyone learned something called “A quiet preschooler is a shiny preschooler.” It’s a valuable life lesson.

Generally, we like homeschooling. Generally, it’s a positive experience. But it also involves a careful balance of keeping the littles entertained and knowing when to throw in the (paper) towel and call it a day.

7 Comments


  1. // Reply

    “a quiet preschooler is a shiny preschooler” oh dear!!! Now I’m bracing myself for something similar when we start back on Monday… Although we don’t own Vaseline so hopefully it won’t be too bad! Probably the toddler will just poop in her underwear, that’s a pretty frequent occurrence here πŸ™„


  2. // Reply

    You are such a good, fun writer! I’ve had many, many days like this. My four-year-old this week did this with a new tube of toothpaste and Compound-W (acid) mixed in, covering the entire bathroom and his body. It was not so fun.

    Thank you for reminding me with your story that these things are funny because I was a huge crab when it happened over here.


    1. // Reply

      Oh no! What an interesting and dangerous chemistry experiment! Guess my shiny dancer wasn’t so bad after all.


  3. // Reply

    Oh man! I hear you! Our last incident with M involved copious amounts of water on the bathroom floor. Could only blame myself for that one as I was the one who turned on the water for him. (Doh!)
    I wonder if Dawn dish soap would have worked? It seems to do wonders for ducks/oil spills?? πŸ˜†


  4. // Reply

    Dish soap should work next time. (I actually googled this, and it turns out I was right.) It’s what they use to clean birds after an oil spill. Cornstarch or cornmeal works for hair.


    1. // Reply

      I hope there won’t be a next time, but it’s good to know!

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