"What's this, mommy?" asks Tymon, holding up a large T-shaped straight pin which he pulls from my pin cushion.

"It's a motivational tool," I say, as I sew the torn neck of a stuffed lion.

"Huh?"

"Bend over and I'll show you how it works," I say.

"No way!" he yells, hands upon his bottom, scooting away from me across the room.

"Yes way," I say. "When you get spaced out doing your schoolwork, this will help you to get refocused." I grin and raise my eyebrows at him, ala Groucho Marx.

Homeschooling has its challenges. I ask Gracie, first grader extraordinaire, to study her syllable chart. "Pl - play. St - stay. Pr - pray. Cl - clay." She sits on the couch, repeating the sounds, while sliding down, snakelike. Her neck is now on the place where her rear end was.

"What kind of posture is this, Gracie?" I ask.

"I'm tired," she says, sliding into a puddle-like being on the carpet. "I want chocolate pudding." Soon she is lying on her back, feet and hands up like the legs of a dead beetle. "Lunch. Lunch."

"When I was in school, we couldn't take chocolate pudding breaks whenever we felt like it," I say. "We had to buckle down and sit up straight and do our work, or we were sent to the principal's office."

"What's a principal?" says Gracie.

"A motivational tool." I reply.

I do flashcards with my five year old, Ranin.

"A."

"A."

"B."

"B."

He makes wild guesses at most of the letters. I hold up "L."

He says, "Foot."

I hold up "Q."

He says, "O with a line."

I hold up "M."

He says, "Batman ears."

I try a new method. We sit on the couch, and I sit sideways, stretching my legs over his.

"Every time you don't know the answer, I am going to tickle your foot," I say. He giggles. I hold my finger near the center of his foot and wiggle it in provocative little circles, closer and closer.

"NOOOO!" Ranin giggles.

I hold up the card. It's a G. "What's this one?"

"Z? N? D?" he desperately tries. My finger gets closer to the ball of his bare foot. Circling, circling, closer, closer, and then --- TICKLE ATTACK!

We put the flashcards away. He's learning slowly but surely. He has about 10 letters down. I have confidence that he is learning at his own rate, and is on his way to Harvard. Ranin and Tadin roll up the throw rug from our hall with the wooden floor and begin roller skating up and down. "We're exercising!" Ranin says. "Yeah!" Tadin echoes. "We 'kating."

Our school structure is a bit of a free for all, but it certainly isn't boring.

This morning Tymon hands in two pages of a script for a Star Trek movie he plans to make when he grows up. The dialogue flows like a real show. Peter pulls a book about screenwriting off of a bookshelf and opens to a section on the movie, "The Karate Kid." Tymon studies the format style and plans to turn in two more pages tomorrow. Hey why not? We may have another Brannon Braga living with us. (A prolific Star Trek teleplay writer.)

In the morning, I scramble eggs on the stove and Gracie comes along and finishes cooking them for me. Then she runs and gets her daddy a pair of matching socks (without holes) while he is dressing and shaving. Tymon gets the Bible out to share a short reading before the school day begins. Ranin straightens the shoes. Tadin takes a bowl of dry cocoa puffs into his room and methodically smashes them one by one with a big wooden block: A satisfying crunch followed by a beautiful brown powder. Genius at work. A budding scientist, researching a theory. I flip through a health magazine, marveling at Oprah's victory. Another day begins.

Sometimes I wonder. Does all this chaos have a purpose? Then I look at my family's Ovaltine milk mustaches and I think, "You bet it does!"