If I could take a snapshot of my homeschool morning, it would have been the moment that I squatted in front of Katie eyeball to eyeball and listened to her recite “Foreign Lands” by Robert Louis Stevenson, gently correcting her here or prompting her there as she worked her way through the whole thing in her perky, smiley, cute way.

Of course, that photo would have been cropped.

Perhaps I could selectively expand the frame to include Jenny in the next room engaged in a solitary game of her own design or the baby sleeping peacefully in her bassinet upstairs. If I smudge away the uncleared dishes, the clutter, and the mud on the floor, it would still be a lovely shot.

Omitted from view, or at least from hearing, would be the two older boys, distracted from their assigned tasks and engaged in a very loud discussion right behind my head about some extremely important topic like the significance of the Passover meal and the symbolism in the parting of the Red Sea, or, perhaps, noted geographical features of the Southwestern US, or, possibly, the wisdom of bringing a light saber to a blaster fight.

But definitely, definitely, I would need to photoshop a smile on Petey’s face as he perched on my knee complaining wretchedly about some thing, some anything, that is going horribly awry in his two-and-a-half-will-I make-it-to-three year old life.

Somehow, though, Katie and I managed to tune all that out for one minute as she chirped out her poem and I listened intently, then smiled, and said, “good job,” and moved on to see if there was anything that could be done to please the toddler.

This is “how I do it.” One minute at a time.