Update!
First I must apologize to those who have emailed me wanting the full meal deal on the trip to Africa. I fully intend to sit down on night and dialogue it all in a nice document to send to you guys, but that hasn't occurred yet. However, that is no excuse for allowing your emails to sit idly in my inbox when it would only take mere moments for me to reply. Please forgive me. I will get around to that very soon as I am planning to do one of those cool online photo scrapbooks from Shutterfly and I plan to do a lot of journaling in it, so maybe I will just let you look at it.
It has been a nuthouse around here since I got home. Really not a nuthouse so much as just every single solitary moment of my time seems to be taken up by one activity or another. I'm not just talking about frivolous things here either - we aren't playing any sports or anything this spring. It just seems that life and the big changes going on in our family are making regular life more time consuming. We are trying to eliminate the small amount of debt we have while at the same time saving for our big move . . . .YES, we are *almost 100%* sure we will be moving to New Orleans in/around August for Jonathan to begin seminary. He has already started taking a class online and is loving it. Who knew Biblical Geography could be so much fun? Certainly not me. My vow of never returning to any sort of schooling for myself is still heartily in place. The stint at Emory was long enough to make me want to run screaming from learning institutions of all types!
Here's the hard part of the post. This is the part where most of my friends are going to shake their heads and say aloud or at least think very strongly that I have lost my mind. Right now, I am also going to have to eat many of the words I have uttered MANY times, so I will be eating a pretty big meal! I have been spending a lot of time reading books about homeschooling! There. I said it. I am going to start homeschooling Jon Thomas starting in August with kindergarten. There are many reasons why I have made this decision (which I won't bore you with ) but the least of which is that we expect to go through many, many changes in the next twelve months, and I feel pretty strongly that there should be a few constants in our kids lives. Our family will be one constant and the homeschooling will be another. AND I really don't mind if you leave derogatory comments - I'll totally understand. I mean I have literally said (on more than one occasion) "I will NEVER homeschool Jon Thomas".
The whole homeschooling admission brings me to a entirely different portion of my post. Please don't read this if you are easily offended, etc. Just stop right now - because I have something negative to say about homeschooling mothers, AND I am making these judgements based purely on observation because I have not had many in depth friendships or relationships with many home school mothers. I am also very certain that when I start seeking out other homeschoolers, I will change my mind. Wow, talk about prefacing your statement to be politically correct . . . . Do I have to become a disorganized, tree hugging weirdo in order to homeschool? Can I still yell at my kids when they are driving me nuts? Am I allowed to read books for pure enjoyment instead of books about children's brains, the status of our nation's educational system and learning styles of kindergarten kids? Can I do this homeschooling thing without being totally, 100% in love with it to the point of eating, sleeping and breathing it. I am hoping that the answer is yes. I think I have managed to do a few things in my life without being totally, 100%, type A, crazy about it type person. For example, I breastfed both my children, but I did it without turning into one of those crazy, fanatic people that think things like nipple confusion really exist and refuse their children a pacifier or bottle. I am hopeful that I can wade through all of this homeschooling information without losing my sanity, becoming completely disorganized, maintaining my independence from my children as well as theirs from me. We'll see!
It has been a nuthouse around here since I got home. Really not a nuthouse so much as just every single solitary moment of my time seems to be taken up by one activity or another. I'm not just talking about frivolous things here either - we aren't playing any sports or anything this spring. It just seems that life and the big changes going on in our family are making regular life more time consuming. We are trying to eliminate the small amount of debt we have while at the same time saving for our big move . . . .YES, we are *almost 100%* sure we will be moving to New Orleans in/around August for Jonathan to begin seminary. He has already started taking a class online and is loving it. Who knew Biblical Geography could be so much fun? Certainly not me. My vow of never returning to any sort of schooling for myself is still heartily in place. The stint at Emory was long enough to make me want to run screaming from learning institutions of all types!
Here's the hard part of the post. This is the part where most of my friends are going to shake their heads and say aloud or at least think very strongly that I have lost my mind. Right now, I am also going to have to eat many of the words I have uttered MANY times, so I will be eating a pretty big meal! I have been spending a lot of time reading books about homeschooling! There. I said it. I am going to start homeschooling Jon Thomas starting in August with kindergarten. There are many reasons why I have made this decision (which I won't bore you with ) but the least of which is that we expect to go through many, many changes in the next twelve months, and I feel pretty strongly that there should be a few constants in our kids lives. Our family will be one constant and the homeschooling will be another. AND I really don't mind if you leave derogatory comments - I'll totally understand. I mean I have literally said (on more than one occasion) "I will NEVER homeschool Jon Thomas".
The whole homeschooling admission brings me to a entirely different portion of my post. Please don't read this if you are easily offended, etc. Just stop right now - because I have something negative to say about homeschooling mothers, AND I am making these judgements based purely on observation because I have not had many in depth friendships or relationships with many home school mothers. I am also very certain that when I start seeking out other homeschoolers, I will change my mind. Wow, talk about prefacing your statement to be politically correct . . . . Do I have to become a disorganized, tree hugging weirdo in order to homeschool? Can I still yell at my kids when they are driving me nuts? Am I allowed to read books for pure enjoyment instead of books about children's brains, the status of our nation's educational system and learning styles of kindergarten kids? Can I do this homeschooling thing without being totally, 100% in love with it to the point of eating, sleeping and breathing it. I am hoping that the answer is yes. I think I have managed to do a few things in my life without being totally, 100%, type A, crazy about it type person. For example, I breastfed both my children, but I did it without turning into one of those crazy, fanatic people that think things like nipple confusion really exist and refuse their children a pacifier or bottle. I am hopeful that I can wade through all of this homeschooling information without losing my sanity, becoming completely disorganized, maintaining my independence from my children as well as theirs from me. We'll see!
posted by Mother of the Year @ 9:25 AM
4 comments
