NO YELLING!

Well, we made it to day three before there was yelling in the morning on the way out the door to school. I'm not sure if that's a record because I haven't kept track. But, suffice it to say that pressure was building already. It started yesterday afternoon when said child realized he had forgotten books he needed to do homework so we drove back to the school to visit his locker. Then I dropped him to play basketball for an hour and a half, he came home to finish his homework and went out on an hour-long Mike & Ike run with his buddies. Going to bed about 10:30, after complaining that his friends stay up to 1 a.m. no problem and still get all "A"s, he suddenly began complaining about a headache. Was that dehydration from playing basketball in 87-degree heat or from the gross chemicals in the Mike & Ike's?
Then this morning as we are leaving he pulls papers from his backpack, "You need to sign these."
Could I have signed them while he was watching Family Guy the night before?
"You have to keep up with everything," I yelled.
Yes, I was the yeller and he was the yellee. But, this just goes to prove my point that the best thing ever about homeschooling was the fact that you didn't have to get your kids out the door every morning. Because getting the kids out the door causes stress which leads to yelling and sometimes crying, but we haven't gotten there yet.
When the kids were little, maybe 5, 3 and 1, Grace and Spencer went to a Montessori school. Each morning, I would bribe one-year-old Tucker with a Mento if he would get in his car seat and get buckled. Like Pavlov's dog, he learned his lesson well and still craves sugar as a reward.
Fast forward to ages 17, 15, and 13, getting out of the house is still hard.
"Why do we have to leave so early?"
"Did you get the box of tissues I have to turn in for extra credit?"
"Did you pay my school fees?"
"Which lunch is mine?"
I'm so grateful for those nine years of homeschooling when I wasn't yelling at my kids, at least not to get them out the door. Now, I have only a few years to catch up on all that yelling I missed.
SO GET MOVING!