A Thank You, Some Honesty, and a Week One Report

Pin It First, thank you all so much for your comments on my previous homeschool post! I'm glad I could encourage y'all. :) I so appreciate those who have encouraged me through the years - from trying to homeschool with a high needs toddler, to trying to homeschool two with a baby and a hurricane, to now trying to figure out how on earth to add number three in. It's funny to see how different our schooling looks now from how I had envisioned it all those years ago. It's funny in a good way though. (Although having little stair-stepped children standing every morning to pledge allegiance still pops into my mind every now and then!)

I don't have it all together. At all. It took all of two days before our schedule was adjusted to start an hour later. It's about to be adjusted again because the work load on one child is a little more than it should be, but I don't have the wisdom for how exactly to adjust it yet, so she's still doing it all. The thought of "BUT I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS!!" is still rolling around in my head.

I've discovered with parenting that the only time you really have it all together is before they're actually born. Really! I knew all about parenting and had all my plans worked out. I giggle at it now. An example? Her name was GABRIELLE, and we wouldn't be using nicknames. Not only that, pacifiers were evil and my children would not be using them. GABBI left the hospital with a pacifier in her mouth. Giggle. Funny how things change when you're actually in the situation.

Same thing with schooling. My personality isn't the biggest fan of flexibility, but I really appreciate that the Lord has given me a measure of it with our school. I think that's the main thing. It will always be difficult for me to be flexible, however, it's so great to give myself permission to change things that don't work for us. I always know exactly what my plan is before it starts, then when it does start, there is always some tweaking that needs to be done.

Now for our week one report.

Sigh.

Day 1 was not good. One child cried, one had a tantrum, one got in trouble for something he didn't do. Oh, and I may have hidden in the bathroom for a long period of time, pretending to ... well, you know ... but really reading a book. All in all, not a stellar day.

After that, it did get better. I think it's going to take some adjustment to get back into our routine. We finished early last year and took a LONG summer break, so we have developed a lot of bad habits that need to be broken, plus just getting back into it is always tough. I did expect that it will be easier when Bren goes to preschool in a couple of weeks.

(Oh yes, this homeschool mom is sending the little one to preschool. I know my limitations. ;) ) He'll be at home for kindergarten next year, but this year I think he will benefit from preschool. :) I know we will all benefit from him going to preschool. ;)

I think we are going to LOVE the Heart of Dakota curriculum that we're using. English and math are going okay. We need to work on memorizing some math facts, but we'll get there.

All in all, other than the first day, I'd call our first week a success. Funny that I'm the one who is incredibly excited about sleeping in tomorrow morning. Which of course means that I will wake up at 6:30 am and not be able to get back to sleep. Murphy's Law abounds at my house!

I'm looking forward to catching up with my homeschooling blog friends to see how your first weeks went/are going/ will go!