Our "Little House" Christmas Goes Wild

I am sure you have all heard the old homeschooling joke about having to have a teacher workday because the principal needed clean underwear. Of course, the principal would be dad, and every pair of underwear he owns (except what he has on) would be sitting in a laundry basket dirty because mom has been busy dissecting roadkill with the kids or cleaning up after a science explosion in the kitchen. However, I feel really privileged and fortunate to be the head mistress of a school where the principal is so industrious. Our principal resigned himself to washing his own underwear a long time ago!! And he has kept to it, a tribute that will, no doubt, bear positively on our sons, who will know how to wash their own underwear should their wives decide to homeschool some day.

Marriage is a tedious venture under any circumstances, but homeschooling is like putting a mystery icing on the cake, adding an element of excitement, not just for the teacher and principal, but for the students as well. Take, for instance, last Christmas. Trying to give our home a Laura Ingalls Wilder flair, I was baking a bunch of Christmas cookies with my 4 children. In the midst of the baking festivities, the principal (dad) sauntered into the kitchen, looking ever so innocent, and put his stainless steel lunch thermos in the center of the kitchen table. "Here, honey," he said brightly. "This just needs to be washed whenever you get a chance."

"Okay," I said back. With the Laura Ingalls Wilder glow in the kitchen, I looked on my husband with loving eyes, thinking nothing of having to wash his thermos--the dear, hardworking man. The children and I continued with our baking. I was probably humming a carol as the children dusted green and red sugar sprinkles over the tops of our cookies. I have no idea what I was humming, but I know without a doubt that the tune came to a screeching halt when the thermos in the middle of the table exploded!

I kid you not!! Suddenly, seemingly from out of nowhere, there was a huge exploding sound that completely dissolved the "Little House" aura we had created, following which 3- or 4-day-old gravy could be seen literally dripping from our 10-foot ceiling in the kitchen, and the lid to the thermos had disappeared!! Well, if the gravy was all over the ceiling, I was almost on the floor! All I could do was stand there weakly, mouth agape, trying to discern which child had done what!! One child, who had left the scene of the disaster only moments before it happened, came running back asking who threw food.

"No one!" was the unanimous reply.

"But I saw food fly by!" the previously absent child exclaimed. Things were becoming clear.

We laugh about it now, but I assure you, it was not with the soft step of Ma Ingalls that I hightailed it around to where my husband sat relaxing in the den.

"Your thermos exploded!" I said loudly, trying to remain calm. It was then that I found out the thermos had been riding around in the floorboard of his car for about 3 or 4 days. Coming into our toasty-warm kitchen was just the ticket to getting its fermenting contents to propel the lid like a rocket through our kitchen, stripping the threads on the thermos as it went.

Now, I ask you. Where is there a public school where children could get such a lesson! Cooking-gone-bad turns into a science bonanza! Our principal had presented us with the opportunity to learn about pressure, heat, energy, bacteria, and even food safety(!!), even if most of the cookies were no longer edible.

I am pleased to report that we made it up to our principal later in the school year by placing in his shower a bar of our homemade oatmeal soap. It was truly a labor of love! We thought about Pa getting up and showering to go to work before we had even risen for the day, and wondered if he had enjoyed the soap. It turned out that Pa was not as pleased as we had envisioned! He came home from work on the first day of using his oatmeal soap demanding that some REAL soap be purchased immediately. He could not go to work, he explained to us, bleeding all over from the little cuts made by shards of dry oatmeal. We ditched any efforts to try to market our oatmeal soap.

We are probably due for a kitchen fiasco again soon, as we have not had one in awhile. Our soap saga continues, but in a very different form. Pa recently ran out of soap again, but didn't tell Ma. (He was probably afraid of more oatmeal soap.) He decided instead to wash with the long, oval, beige bar that sits in her end of the shower. This went on for about a week, at which time Ma was able to finally figure out why her Clinique facial bar was disappearing so rapidly all of a sudden. Hmmmmm... Gives me an idea. Pa's tackle box would be a great place to find trinkets to go into our next mosaic birdbath!!

Feel free to visit our actual Cookie-Baking Page.

The above article may be reproduced on your website with the following byline:
Lynn Wilson, mom to four delightful (and perhaps challenging) children, is the eclectic and nature-loving owner of The Healthy Homeschool (http://www.thehealthyhomeschool.com). She welcomes you to visit her any time at her website!