I don't know what God will have us do next year for school for my 9, 6 and 4 year old. I'm making plans for home-schooling. I'm assuming that where we're going. But it's really weird to lack some firm ideas anymore.
I feel like we sort of got 'boxed' into home-schooling by God. Home-schooling was NOT anything that I wanted or felt comfortable doing before I leaped into the deep end.
Jon & I went to public school and assumed our kids would too. Because we lived in a cheap rental with rather distressed families around us in a D.C. suburb, we sort of flipped out when we thought about putting our little five year old on the bus with the kids she wasn't allowed play with unchaperoned on the playground with. Public school was out. And Catholic school was out also because a) it was completely expensive (I laughed out loud when I read the meager multiple sibling deductions from my parish), b) I thought it had got infected with with crummy academic ideas from the nearby "hot" public schools (expensive wipe boards do NOT replace real science labs) and c) I saw a lot of things that made me concerned about the "Catholicness" of the instruction.
So three years ago, I officially started "homeschooling."
It was awesome. It was great. Everything went totally "swimmingly." I nicknamed my home-school "the Sacred Heart Academy", bought everyone Catholic uniforms and had a grand time marching out on field trips all over the D.C. area.
Until this year, when we sort of had the "youngest sister in the NICU hand grenade" thrown into the mix.
The truth is, I pretty much lost most of our Fall Semester.
In January, I throw my unschooling theory out into the wind and adopted a "reading bootcamp" for my struggling to read independently second grader. I found out that my kid is flawed in her approach to homework and I'm flawed in my approach to teaching. I had a knock out inner brawl to get some fortitude in my heart.
The amazing part, is that now my girl is really starting to enjoy books. And I'm more humbled as a teacher. I don't think I'm the "bee's knees" at teaching anymore. But I do think that there is not a single person who is going to take MORE time to iron out each of my quirky children's reading challenges and do it in a more prayerful way, than me, their Mom.
That's the story. After this weird year, I'm humbled and I'm strengthened. I really don't know what will happen next.
Now that there is a good Catholic school in our new parish, and we'll probably have some tuition money to spend, will Hannah transition to St. Joesph's? Am I home-schooling all my kids until they can learn how to read in 3rd grade? Was this just a three year process to help both Mother and Daughter fix their hearts for heaven? Or are we riding this home-schooling wave all the way to High School like we planned?
Never ever a dull moment as a Catholic Mama!
Jesus, I trust in you.
