Mom Minutes

"Two friends separate, with one of them living in the plains and the other going to live in the mountains. They meet up again years later: the one who has stayed down has lived less, aged less, the mechanism of his cuckoo clock has oscillated fewer times. He has had less time to do things, his plants have grown less, his thoughts have had less time to unfold... Lower down, there is simply less time than at altitude." 

- Carlo Rovelli The Order of Time -

Time is a complicated concept. I'm currently reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. In it, Dr. Rovelli explains the ways in which time is irregular. Time passes at different speeds for a person depending on their altitude and their speed. Time on other planets is different from time on Earth. Time is a problematic variable in physics because it is a variable with variables.

I know it's a pathetic comparison, but today it had me thinking about mom-time. There's less time closer to sea level than in the mountains... and it seems like there's less time after you have kids than there was before.

I dropped my girls off at school this morning and, while we were in car-line, I told them I'm only about four classes away from getting my biology degree! I told them because I'm really excited that I've made it this far. I've been in school for four years and I've had to limit myself and take it a little slower than some other students because I've got a lot of other responsibilities, but I'm almost there! However, the response I got was, "Daddy already has his degree."

Their dad, my ex-husband, just graduated last weekend. He has a bachelors in math. I'm happy for him, but I don't want to be compared to him. I don't want my kids to think of this as a race that daddy won. Especially since daddy was a single, childless dude for about 91.95% of the time he was pursuing that degree while I have not had anywhere near that luxury.

The kids have existed since well before he started working on this degree, sure... but he had them for about 29 hours every other weekend (unless he was too busy). He never had to schedule or attend eye exams or doctors visits or spend hours in urgent care when one of them was sick on a weekend. He didn't have to take four kids (or even just his three kids) shoe shopping or clothes shopping or school supply shopping or birthday shopping. He didn't have to plan their birthdays or make their cakes or cook their meals or make sure they take baths. He rarely even had to help them with their homework, and I would estimate that when that obligation fell to him, he forgot it somewhere near half of the time and it wound up being my job anyway.

He has called and told me he was too sick to take them or he was concerned that he was getting sick and didn't want to take them or he had so much homework to do... can we trade weekends. I have never done any of that to him. When I ask to trade weekends, it is always because of an activity the kids want to do or a vacation we're taking with them.

I might be a little bitter. I'm so close to getting my degree! He already has his. He didn't have to get a job because I allowed him to pay very reduced child support while he was in school. He didn't have the kids most of the time and I was flexible about his scheduled weekends when he said he wanted to skip or switch for a variety of reasons. And while his achievement of his goals is good for everyone, and yesterday I was happy for him and excited for my own future... that comment my daughter made in response to my excitement really shot it down.

As a mom, I saw my ex-husband's degree as a worthy goal for him and an important lesson for our children. I felt that they should see him working toward that and how it changes his life, hopefully for the better. I agreed to many compromises, wanting to see him succeed because I believe it is best for our kids. But with all of the responsibility we take on, and the compromises we make, there is less time for moms.

What took him four years might take me five and a half. For every four classes he was able to take, I have been been able to take about three. When I have a list of things I need to get done in a day, I have to plan for lost shoes, un-synchronized potty breaks, buckling and unbuckling of numerous seat belts, arguing over who has to sit next to little brother, and pouting an refusing to cooperate. Sometimes I spend 15 or 20 extra minutes trying to find something my five-year-old left in the store when he screams at me after I've already loaded the groceries in the car.

I just finished a semester. Here's what my general schedule looked like:

Hubby took all of the kids to school on Tuesdays because I couldn't. Cub gets out of school early on Fridays, so I couldn't do much with my bisected time. You see a lot of space for research/homework... let me explain. I have a research project I've been working on for two years with some great people. However, our schedules never seemed to sync, so I frequently spent that time working on research papers for classes, researching grad schools, talking to professors about my grades or grad school or our research, or trying to organize my life. I couldn't do a lot of my chemistry homework without help, so hubby and I worked on it after the kids went to bed about once a week.

Hubby doesn't get home until sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 pm. He got a new job with a different company in January, so he can't work from home as much as he used to and his hours are more difficult. He also doesn't answer his phone like used to at his old job. All in all, I'm more alone than I used to be, but not as alone as many moms out there (single moms amaze me!).

Weekends! Weekends are for grocery shopping, laundry, guilt-cleaning (you know what I'm talking about) and taking care of other catastrophes (e.g., emergency shoe run when a 5th grader's sneakers start leaking, and clothes shopping when their jeans suddenly don't fit, then on to the fabric store for that class project they have coming up...). Once in a while, if we've planned especially well and worked extra hard... we get to go hiking on the weekend!

It just feels like I'm constantly in motion and running from one obligation to another. Everything takes longer and there's more that needs to be done. It's like the fabric of space-time has some special kind of wrinkle just for moms. It's taking longer to get my degree and I'm still losing my mind in the process. But I only have four classes left to take! I'm almost there! In fact, I could finish it in a semester if three of those classes weren't sequential. I'm going to get there... and then keep going!

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. - Lucille Ball

Disclaimer: When I say "moms", I hope you know I mean parents of any gender who take on the majority of the child-raising responsibilities... not just women who have children. "Mom" is just easier to say.

Sources:
Rovelli, Carlo, et al. The Order of Time. Riverhead Books, 2018.

School is Cool?

It has been almost a month since we decided to put M and S in public school. Shortly after they started their classes, I started mine: I am on campus five days a week this semester and I have field work to do. I knew it was going to be a difficult schedule and an uncomfortable transition, but assumed we just needed some time to adjust. Now, I'm not sure.

Laundry isn't getting done or folded. The playroom is rarely getting cleaned. Every time papa mentions some as yet unscheduled activity, I want to shoot it down because I immediately assume anything new is going to be the thing that makes my google calendar explode. On top of that stress, I'm having very mixed feelings about this public school business.

M is in first grade. She's doing fine. She's a little behind with her reading, but we knew that. I think sending her to school has renewed her motivation to pick up sight words and work through short books. Something about having her teacher backing us up, and sending home packets of stuff to work on has made her more serious. She's got someone new to impress, I guess.

Her teacher, a young man so tall and muscular that he would be intimidating if he weren't so darn friendly, is optimistic. He also uses a program called "class dojo" to keep in contact with parents, which I really appreciate. I have had to use the app to ask him for advice on getting the dry erase markers out of her clothes, and he is able to inform me if she is having a moody day.

S, on the other hand, is in fourth grade. She is struggling with more than just the academic part of public school. Her teacher says she's struggling with math and handwriting. The handwriting doesn't surprise me, but she's doing the math homework just fine, with almost no help... and choking on the quizzes in class. She made friends, but her friends are the target of playground bullying. She shares her classroom table with two boys who argue with each other constantly and have no interest in her, and a girl who doesn't speak much English. She doesn't want to go. She mopes every weekday morning, and her teacher describes her (on the phone with me) as "sad".

I have talked to S's teacher only once. I have never seen her. I knew about the playground bullying several days before I was able to tell her teacher... who apparently didn't know. I could have guessed that S was sad in class, but I didn't know until the end of last week, when she finally called.

S says she feels like her teacher cares about her. So, now that she knows about the playground situation, and I know about the all-day sadness, it's time to see if things improve. The teacher wants to try moving S to a different table and says the school takes bullying "very seriously". But I'm skeptical about bullying policies. I'm not sure that any amount of "seriously" is going to fix the problem. Still, we intend to give this a few more weeks to work itself out before we deploy the parachute... and we're not quite sure what that is going to be just yet.

Costa Rica: It Begins

I started writing a blog entry the day I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica. Here are some excerpts:

When I got here, I felt intensely out of place because I don't really speak Spanish. Thankfully, everyone I've had to communicate with has known enough English to help me hobble through the conversation. Clearly, they deal with people like me all the time. 

...

Several minutes later, he (the guy who called my taxi and said it would arrive in 5 minutes) said this, "Five minutes is twenty minutes in tico time." So, welcome to Costa Rica.

...

There's nothing like being in a Central American country in the back of a crappy van, careening down loud streets in a neighborhood where all the houses are surrounded by bars and many barred fences are topped with razor wire. I'm so glad I didn't have to drive. I never want to hear another United States citizen complain about drivers from other states. If you haven't driven in Central America... you don't know!

I wasn't the first to arrive. Several of my classmates flew in early so they could enjoy a bit of a vacation before class officially started. When I met them, I worried I wouldn't fit in. Not only had they bonded before my arrival, but they were still in vacation mode and I was ready for class. In retrospect, I was feeling a little stuffy (and it wasn't congestion).

Over the course of the 10 day class trip, I worked my tail off. Some days I had scheduled activities before breakfast and/or after dinner. I often felt like there wasn't enough down time to get any useful work done on my field notebook (which is required for the class), and I know I'm not the only student who felt that way. I was winded, I was sore, I got noodly arms on an 8 or 9 mile kayaking trip (having never kayaked before in my life), I was sweaty, I was tired, I was itchy, I was sun-burned. And I had the best time of my life so far.

I saw an incredible array of animals and plants in this biodiversity hot spot, and I learned more than I think I have ever learned in a class. There's a tree in Costa Rican forests called a suicide tree because it produces seeds only once, then dies. Sloths only really come down from their high perches to poop. They dig a hole with their nubby tails, poop in it, and make their way back to the canopy. Darker roast coffee is roasted for longer and loses more of its caffeine. Sugar cane is full of potassium. You can tell an insectivorous bat from a frugivorous bat by the shape of the uropatagium (tail membrane). All of that academic excitement aside, let me share with you the most important thing I learned while in Costa Rica:

I learned to slow down. Don't take things so seriously. Everyone I met while there was patient with me while I was struggling to communicate or understand. And, with the exception of chasing the "bonk" of an out-of-season bellbird, none of the natives were in any particular hurry and they never made me feel rushed. I think "Tico time" isn't a derogatory term for chronic lateness in natives, it's a label for the comparatively more leisurely and enjoyable way that Costa Ricans live their lives, without strict time pressures.

I also never felt judged. When you walk into a new class on campus, you feel the heat of dozens of eyes examining you... sizing you up and deciding where you belong. I never felt that from a Costa Rican native.

There were hammocks and chickens and care-free dogs everywhere and people seemed to love what they were doing. That is how life should be.

Free Field Trip

My kids like to go grocery shopping because the store down the street has penny pony rides. Conveniently, they happen to have three mechanical horses by the checkout. The kids love to remind us to bring pennies if we’re going to the pony store. Last weekend (labor day weekend), though, the pony store was particularly interesting.

Some representative fire rescue men were setting up their trucks at the entrance, about to collect donations for muscular dystrophy in their boots.

My girls are not huge fire truck enthusiasts like some kids I know, but they are curious and interested, so we stopped to have a look. They see these things on the road fairly often, and I’ve talked to them about what they do. I know they must have wondered what they’re like on the inside. One of the back doors of the fire rescue vehicle (basically a red ambulance) was open, so I encouraged them to have a look, “but don’t touch”. Then, the man who was trying to put up the banner for their cause came around the corner and asked if they wanted to see inside.

All in all, they got to wander around inside the rescue vehicle, check out the inside of the fire truck, and even hold a fire hose. And all of the gentlemen were very friendly. One of them even told me if we ever wanted to stop by the station, someone would probably be able to give the kids a look around.

I had thought about taking them to the station some time as a field trip. A few people have suggested that, if they’re not busy, rescue teams will usually show a kid around and answer questions without a second thought. That seems to be the truth.

And once the kids were done taking turns with the fire hose, they got a call and had to load up and leave, lights, sirens and all. It was quite exciting.

Of course, we donated. Because we care, and because these men were admirable to a t.

What a nice day that was.

(Not) Back to School

 

It's the beginning of the week, and we're just getting started. I have no idea how this will go or what we'll accomplish this week. I don't even know what to expect or plan.

Labor Day was fun. We had two picnics (one for lunch and one for dinner) at two different parks the girls had never been to. Denver has an incredible number of parks, really. Sunday, they made brownies, with my guidance, and we had those for dessert on Monday. We brought flashlights and stayed out late at the second park. Inexplicably, there were huge fireworks we could see from the park, also. This morning, everyone was still asleep when I opened their door to announce breakfast at 8.

Today, we start lessons, but they’ve been learning every day of their lives. Yesterday, we gave them their first lesson on the cardinal directions and how to use a compass, which I didn’t learn until fifth grade (is that even normal?)

I’ve been telling them, “On Tuesday, we start lessons” or, “next week, we’ll start lessons” because I didn’t want to confuse them with the word “school”. Last night, my partner used the ‘S’ word and got just the response I figured I would get, “AT school?!”

My five-year-olds were excited to go to school. Six months ago I wasn’t planning on homeschooling them, so they’ve always assumed they would go to school with other kids when they were old enough. They only recently learned otherwise, and what homeschooling would mean. Of course, we’re looking into sports teams, community center art classes, and other group activities so they can still get the parent-free, mingle-with-other-kids time they were so thrilled about. Besides, they’re very excited about learning at home.

Today, I think we’ll try to get in some math, reading, and writing. Of course, we’ll see what they’re capable of, right out of the gate and I’ll teach them whatever they want to know about. Between me and the oracle of the internet, we know everything.
 

A Day In The Life

We have a schedule... sort of.

If the kids aren’t already up by 7:45, I get them up because they absolutely must file through our single bathroom one-by-one before breakfast, which is at (or near) 8:00. Breakfast is usually just cereal. I’ve tried other things, but 8:00 am is not a good time for me to hear “I don’t like it” after I’ve just made applesauce pancakes, so I stick with what’s safe.

I try to have the dogs fed by 10:00 because I have to have lunch ready by 11:00. A result of feeding them cereal for breakfast: they’re hungry for lunch. The twins usually finish their lunch in 30 minutes or less, while the youngest sometimes takes over an hour. My favorite thing to make for lunch is turkey and cheese wrapped in crescent roll dough. They love it, and it’s fun. And I try to always offer a side of fruit. Of course, they also like corn dogs, mac and cheese, and pizza, but those things make me feel guilty, so I try to limit them.

Nap time is from 1:00 to 3:00, with some flexibility. It is required that they clean their room before they nap, so I assess the damage at around 12:00 to determine if the clean up will be a half or whole hour-long project. I also generally have to spend most of clean-up time in their room with them, keeping them on track and reminding the two-year-old where things go. But I don’t physically help.

The twins will soon be ditching naps, except on days when they've exhausted themselves in the morning. So, we'll probably utilize that time for more lessons.

Between 3:00 and 4:00, I take my dog out.

Lately, my partner has been on the “late” shift. He works for the school district, though, so that amounts to 8:00am to 4:00pm. The office is downtown, so he gets home between 4:30 and 4:45.

Dinner is as close to 6:00 as possible, and limited to 45 minutes. Our current favorite dinner food is tortilla soup.

After dinner, we fit in a bath, a second clean-up session, brushing teeth, and a story.

Bedtime is at 9:00.

It looks like this:

Click image to see larger version

I’m so glad that it counts as education when my kids ask me questions over dinner, or when they ask me to explain what something is during story time. Additionally, we manage to fit in math practice after dinner, to earn gummy bears or jelly beans for dessert. Still, sometimes I have to interrupt their play time to work with them on something. Otherwise, I’m not sure how I’d fit the required 4 hours (on average) into each day.

This post linked to iHomeschool's  *Not* back to homeschool blog hop

Planners

I mentioned in my previous blog that I printed a planner. I spent one whole day on the process, which involved finding forms that worked for me, printing, copying, and filling out the pages, and putting the planner together. Granted, this would not have have taken nearly so long if I didn’t have many other obligations, but we’re working with whatever free time we can find, here.

To me, it’s a masterpiece. To anyone else, it’s a pinkish-purple binder full of paper. And, really, who uses binders? But I keep looking at it and thumbing through it with pride.

You can buy lesson planners. Book stores have them, or you can buy them online. There are lots of options on Amazon. That might work for you if you are a flexible person who doesn’t mind having to bend a bit to conform to the styling set out in a pre-printed book. Also, if you can make the time to review a few different versions and find the right one for you. I make that sound bad, but that’s only because I’m not that person.

If you’re not at all flexible, you can make your own. If you know how to use Excel (or something similar) or tables in Word, or any of a number of Adobe programs (I bet InDesign would be fun for this), you could organize and style your own planners from scratch. That, though, requires some time.

For those of us in between, there are great resources online. I want to be able to pick what kind of pages I include in my planner, how many, and how I organize them in my binder. I have most of a design degree, so I do know how to do this on my own, but I don’t really have time. So I’ll sacrifice a little personalization for the sake of being able to put it together in one day and no longer having to think about it.

I got my planner pages at http://donnayoung.org/forms/. This site has a short list of different sets available. Then, if you click on a set you like, then click “homeschool”, you can see the different pages available for that set. For instance, in the set I chose (Colonial, because I’m a sucker for script), you can choose from 9 different layouts for your planner, depending on what works for you.

My planner includes an attendance calendar, two sets of lesson plan pages (one for each kid, since one will have speech therapy and the other will not), and two reading lists. This year, it’s fairly simple. We’re not grading because I don’t have to report grades to the district yet. However, when that changes, there are grading tables available, too. And if I need more copies of, for instance, the reading list, I can just copy a blank page and not have to fill it out again. This works for me.

I’m pretty sure I’m not being biased at all when I say the planner I created is concise and easy to use. I have a dream in which I imagine family members being able to substitute teach and fill out the planner for me while the kids are on vacation with them. For some, though, that might be unrealistic.

As mentioned in the previous post, I’m currently compiling a list of resources I use for our lessons, as well as free/cheap field trip (or just for fun) destinations for families in Denver. If you have any suggestions for either list, let me know. I can always use more information.

Curriculum

A page from our headstart agenda

I’m noticing the topic of conversation this week among homeschoolers has been curriculum. And since the conventional school year is about to begin (some schools here started this Wednesday), a hot topic is how to save money on your materials. For those of you who don’t homeschool but read this anyway, imagine back-to-school shopping, but include all of the stuff the school provides, too. Keep in mind, the state doesn’t consider us part of its budget, so we have to find our own resources like textbooks and chemistry sets.

My kids are young. We did some head-start work through spring and summer, and we’re starting our first full year of lessons this fall. So, textbooks aren’t a concern yet. Instead, we need workbooks, for which I can mostly find free, printable versions. And there is no strict curriculum, yet. We have lessons, but they’re usually dictated by what my kids are interested in learning that day, and are generally kept pretty short, so they don’t lose focus.

This year, I plan to cover the following topics:

Reading: We started on this in our head-start period. We will spend more time working on it this year, and we’ll probably be spending an increasing amount of time at the library. We have a lot of books, here. Really, I barely have space for them all. But I think exposure to the library is positive.

Writing: We also worked on this in the last several months, as you may have gathered from my last blog. They’re getting fairly good at it, but still require reference sheets to get each letter right and need practice. I also thing reading and writing go hand-in-hand and I would like for them to start writing words by the end of the term.

Basic Math: Some work has been done on this already. They’ve established the method of double-digit counting, and know the concepts of addition, subtraction, and multiplication. But, here again, practice. We use Khan Academy quite a bit, and I’m thinking about incorporating “bedtime math” to see if I can foster more interest. 
http://khanacademy.org
http://bedtimemathproblem.org/

Science: We will mostly be focusing on the visible, physical world. There are a lot of great resources for this, which is good because my kids’ interests are varied. I’m thinking we’ll have one structured and pre-planned science lesson per week, and anything else they feel like bringing up will be taken seriously and explored. This is a category we never seem to have a shortage of inspiration for. http://scienceforpreschoolers.com/

Culture: This year, I want to start talking about religion. We are not a religious family, but I want the kids to understand and appreciate religion, and be able to make their own (educated) decisions about it in the future. I’d also like to talk about the role of girls (since I have all daughters) throughout the world. And, since we’re here in America, we’ll talk about the history of our country and how it came to have the culture it does.

Sign Language: This one has been running its course for years, now. I started teaching them their alphabet with sign language so they could break up the “LMNOP” segment, visually. We’ve been using Signing Time, and I want to expand on this by taking some courses, myself. If I manage to go back to school part-time this year, it will probably be for this. http://www.signingtime.com/

Art: I’m not sure if this one counts. I don’t so much “teach” it. Mostly, I let them draw and color because, even if they don’t end up caring at all about art, and even if they can never draw anything more exciting than stick figures, it’s great practice for motor skills and not structured like writing practice. I consider it part of the curriculum because it needs devoted time, because it’s important. http://www.kiwicrates.com

Speech Therapy: One of the twins has a bit of a speech problem. I believe it's a tongue thrust problem, but we'll have to have it assessed. Then, I plan to work speech therapy into our structured time at home.

An important note: My homeschoolers are five-years-old. According to the state of Colorado, it is not required for them to enrolled in school at all for one more year. This means I don’t have to subject them to standardized testing yet. I also don’t have to take attendance, tabulate grades, or submit an official curriculum to a district school. http://www.cde.state.co.us/choice/homeschool_law.asp

However, since this is the year leading up to their official homeschooling, I’m trying to simulate (at least for myself) what this undertaking will eventually involve. I have a planner I printed and arranged for the coming months, that includes reading lists for each kid. I also have an attendance chart to keep track of our days and hours.

Colorado requires at least 172 days, averaging 4 hours of “educational contact” per day. Our current schedule will leave us short at 169 days, if we do nothing educational at all on the weekends. But I suppose you can imagine how likely that is. After all, weekends are our preferred field trip days.

I’m currently compiling a list of resources I use for our lessons, as well as free/cheap field trip (or just for fun) destinations for families in Denver. If you have any suggestions for either list, let me know. I can always use more information.

This post linked to iHomeschool's  *Not* back to homeschool blog hop

Beautiful Butterflies

It is technically my twins' first year of school. I've started semi-structured lessons, but they don't have to be registered with the state as home schoolers until august of next year. My (very loosely) categorized, dry-erase chart of lessons lists math, reading, writing, science, sign language, art, and culture. I also have a weekly planner in which I make notes of the specific topics we cover. 

Last week, we did 12 lessons. Some of them were fairly pedestrian, like reading practice, addition and subtraction, and writing letters and numbers. But in other cases, they certainly blazed their own trail. We talked about reflexes and the difference between voluntary and involuntary movements, then had a breakfast lesson about the causes, physiology, and symptoms of cerebral palsy. They were curious.

This week, they asked me about where butterflies come from. We discussed the butterfly life cycle, cocoons and chrysalises, and watched a video of a caterpillar exposing its chrysalis. Then, this weekend, we took a field trip to the butterfly pavilion and they got to see what many different butterfly chrysalises look like, and saw butterflies coming out of them. They remembered so many facts about it, and even learned a bit more about how butterflies eat. 

This, to me, is one of the beautiful things about homeschooling. They learn such a wide variety of new things because they're curious. I could dictate their education by scheduling what we will practice or discuss and when, but when they ask me questions and I answer, they're far more likely to remember what they learned. And I can offer them an incredible array of relevant field trips to help solidify the lessons.

My Homeschooling Training Wheels

Before I begin, this isn't about convincing everyone to choose to educate their children at home. It's about sharing my story, which might be your story, too. And it might just help you make the right decision for you and your family.


I really fought the idea of homeschooling my kids. I thought a lot of pretty typical things like, "public school was good enough for me." and "I don't know everything, how can I teach them all they need to know?" and "I don't want to deprive them of the social aspect of public school." Then there's the one most parents won't admit, publicly: "I can't wait to have that eight hours to myself!"


Now, my twins are five-years-old and I'm homeschooling them through their first year of "structured" learning. What happened?


Now that my first born kids are old enough to start school, I had to reevaluate those things I told myself, and it was scary. 


Was public school really good enough for me? Is it good enough for anyone anymore? Maybe it is, for some people. But it wasn't for me. And it's not a matter of smarter or better behaved or otherwise better prepared kids doing better (or worse) in public schools. Kids, and really all people, have different methods of learning, not all of which are met when a teacher has to constantly tend to 15 or 20 students. 


I got an education, and I graduated on time, and I was told how smart I was, but I wasn't interested in my lessons, I did as little as I could to get by, and the few things I was deeply interested in learning weren't offered at my school. Now that I'm openly talking with other adults, post-high school, I'm learning that I'm not nearly the only one who has these complaints. 


No, I DON'T know everything. That much is absolutely true. What I know is pretty limited. Of course I know a lot about what I care about. I try to keep up with psychology, and I can impress you with all of my knowledge if you take me to the zoo (I loved zoology and botany in school). But I'm only average at best in the field of math and when it comes to history, thank goodness for Wikipedia. 


Which brings me to my epiphany: I don't KNOW everything, but I have access to it. I have the internet and the library and my college text books. I also have the willingness to answer my kids' questions with, "I don't know, but let's find out!"


The most bizarre realization was that I do, in fact, want to deprive my kids of the social aspect of public school. I don't want to deny them the ability to make and spend time with friends. But that should not get in the way of a good education, and, in my experience, social issues destroy the educational scene in public schools for almost every student at one point or another (or many points). Honestly, the twins already have each other for distractions, and that's difficult enough.


As far as wanting that eight hours to myself... I can't answer for that. I still want that, and I know I won't get it this way. But nothing good in life is free. We barter our time for money at our jobs, and our money for food at the store, and as our Dalai Lama said, you should, “Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.” I'm not going to get everything I want. My children's education is more important to me than eight free hours a day to take more college classes, get a new job, or just bake a lot. My prerogative is to produce adults who are prepared for the world and ready to start a life and be successful, by their own definitions.


Here we go!