Ambitions

When I was a child, my ambition was to be a concert pianist, or a singer, or maybe a psychologist. (Seriously. When I was 10, I wanted to be a psychologist. I was a weird 10 year old.)

But pretty much from the age of 15, my ambition has been to be a stay at home mom, like my mother.

These days, my ambitions all have to do with what kind of SAHM I want to be. There are sub-genres, you see. And I’ve been thinking about these ambitions more as I gather materials and try to prepare for our first real year of homeschooling.

These are hopes, really, plans I’m making that I recognize could fall by the wayside at any point (or never materialize at all) – but I’m laying them out here to remind me what I’m striving for.

1. I want to be a predictable mom and teacher with regular routines and a pre-planned schedule.
My son frankly requires that I cultivate the small part of myself that thrives on order and routine – because HE thrives on order and routine. This is the boy who asks me every evening and every morning, “what do we do on this day?” I need to have an answer for him that doesn’t have me extemporizing and desperately improvising every day.

2. I want to be a decent housekeeper.
Maybe this will happen if I build it into those routines we were just talking about?

3. I want to cultivate small adventures.
So that those routines and schedules don’t become an excuse to stay in and do what is easy rather than what is memorable.

4. I want to fuel this all with daily prayer.
Even if the daily prayer is a single Memorare a day.

What are your ambitions for this school year?