A Homeschool Vignette

I haven't written much about homeschooling. It is the most frustratingly wonderful time that I spend with my kids.

My "desk" is a loveseat where I sit with whoever I am helping at the moment. The other day, son #2 was waiting for me to join him. With his left hand he grabbed a spider that was crawling across the loveseat. (It's been a buggy fall.) He decided to hang onto the spider while we discussed the outline for his term paper.

After he had returned to his desk, daughter #1 walked into the room and said, "Ewww, that's disgusting!"

Looking up to see what was going on, I discovered my 6-foot-tall son #2 suspending the spider from his web string. As the spider released more webbing in order to descend to the floor, my son continually gathered the string causing the spider to remain suspended midair. Actually, this was quite fascinating.

Next the spider was passed to my 4-foot-tall daughter #2. Although willing, because of her height, she wasn't able to maintain the spider's midair status. So she quickly handed him back to her brother.

Daughter #1 insisted that the string comes from the spider's butt, but daughter #2 insisted that spiders don't even have butts. No one bothered to look up this fact. We might have missed a learning opportunity there.

At this point the excitement moved to the adjoining bathroom. Now the spider was being suspended over the toilet and allowed to fully descend. Discovering a pool of water at the bottom of his descent, he began a frantic climb up the web string, cheered on by daughter #2 with cheers of "Vork it dude!"

Ultimately losing his struggle, the spider saw a watery tunnel and went to meet his maker.

Okay everyone, back to work!

Regretfully, one arachnid was harmed in the enactment of this story.