Yesterday I realized...

...that I was entering my 5th week of homeschooling.  WOW!!!  I hadn't blogged all summer, but that was kind of the plan since I was trying to have fun with the kiddos & I was preparing for a whole new journey.  But...I had planned to blog through my homeschooling journey & now that I'm five weeks in I think I better get started. 

Let me start off by saying that hardly ever do things go as I expect & homeschooling is no different.  The difference is that usually things are much worse than I anticipate & life is seldom easy for me.  Homeschooling has been this amazingly, wonderful, beautiful journey.  It is so blessed by God that I sometimes I look in the mirror & I can't believe that this is me or that I am actually doing this.  Like for instance, it's lunch break right now.  I am sitting at my computer typing my thoughts (while eating some noodles) & the kids are watching a show eating their lunch.  There is no yelling, no screaming, no fighting.  It's just a quiet, peaceful sound.  For the most part this is how our days have been.  Not the watching TV part, but the quiet, peaceful sound part :)  Now, let me say right now, upfront, I am in NO WAY, NO HOW trying to say our days have been perfect.  We have had our ups & downs.  We have had changing it up a bit, changing what we are learning & changing how we are learning for that matter.  BUT...it has all been smooth & much easier than expected. 

For those that read my blog, you know Logan has "those days" where things are difficult.  Well let me confess, I anticipated many of "those days" & even rougher days than that for the first several months while we adjusted.  I expected him to fight me, argue with me, beyond test my limits.  I anticipated that he would tell me how much he hated homeschool and that he wanted to go back to school. (We had previously agreed this wasn't happening) The kid hasn't lived up to the first expectation I had & that is a GIFT FROM GOD!  That is God saying "I told you I would take care of things if you just let me lead".  Logan has been amazing, in fact so good that I can't believe it's my boy most days.  Its such an affirmation that this was the best choice for Logan.  He needed this, he needed homeschool.  He is so not afraid to work & work hard he does.  He just needed to be allowed to work hard the way he works.  I am learning so many new things with him & just seeing him in such a different light that it's blessing me in ways untold.  As for Emily, she is doing amazing.  She is so stinking smart that some days she amazes me in ways that I can't believe.  We really struggled with the homeschooling her vs. putting her in VPK this year.  We made the decision, but then I went back in forth several times in my head & in my heart.  I just worried that I was pushing her too hard by starting Kindergarten when she hadn't been to preschool.  But I heard the voice pushing us in this direction & so I stuck with our initial decision.  (Shh...don't tell, but I still didn't cancel her VPK enrollment until the start of Aug) I am so glad that I listened to the voice because she was so ready for Kindergarten.  She is doing so much, writing so much, reading so much, spelling so math, getting ready to start addition, she's learning all about herself & her community.  Most importantly, she is comprehending everything and retelling to others what she is doing.  It makes my heart smile.  I can't believe how much she is capable of & I know that there is no other way to educate her than to homeschool her.  I know we have made the right decision for both of our children & I can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds.  As for Kolby, he's doing great & he's having an awesome year.  He loves his teachers, but then again who doesn't.  Ms. Gibson & Ms. Hernandez, simply put, are the most amazing, loving, thoughtful, God fearing ladies I have ever met within the school system (but also in life).  Trust me when I say, children are blessed by them teaching.  But, it's been hard on Kolby & on me that he's not home with us.  We did a special for 9/11 and I let him stay home with us.  He really flourished in that environment too.  He has asked to stay home this year, but I prayed and I know in my heart that God wants him in school this year.  My plan is to homeschool him next year, but when the time comes I have to have faith that God will tell me where Kolby needs to be, regardless of what Kolby or I think. 

The main thing I have realized this year so far is that I really am capable of doing anything through Christ & that with him I am made strong.  It's hard to believe that I am doing this, but I am & it's working amazingly.  I don't know why I ignored this calling for so many years.  I don't know why I felt so fearful.  I realize that God just kept putting more & more things in place so that I could no longer deny this calling.  I feel at peace with our choices & I feel at peace with who I am right now & who I am becoming.  I realize that all the trails & struggles were preparing us for this moment.  They were preparing Logan so that he would be ready for this.  All the struggles with Logan prepared me to be even more confident in my choices with Emily.  I've always said raising Emily was like raising a female version of Logan.  They are so much alike that it can actually be scary.  In some ways it breaks my heart.  I see how well Emily is doing.  I see how much she is learning, how she is growing & how her confidence is soaring every day.  I know that's because of how she is learning & the way I am approaching her in lessons.  I realize that Logan would have done so well at home from the start.  He should have never entered the school system.  They beat him down, they broke his spirit, they took what could have been amazing and turned it into hurt & sadness.  I see my little girl & I think what he might have been.  I think how sad he must have been in class when he was in trouble, for being himself & for being to smart in a system that can't handle it.  They tore away at him piece by piece & they made him hate school & learning.  They made him think questions weren't okay.  They broke him like no child should be broken by education.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry over these thoughts.  I feel in so many ways like I failed him.  I know that in the end he will be okay.  I know that because he had those really amazing teachers I mentioned above, Ms. Gibson and Ms. Hernandez.  They loved on my boy, they told him he was so smart, that he could do anything.  They built him up with such love & belief that he could do it.  They made him want to learn, made him want to ask questions, made him see being smart was really okay.  They made him understand that being him was also a really good thing.  They helped fix what had been broken.  So I know he'll be okay & I pray that through homeschooling we will help him become all that God wants him to be.  And though our future looks bright, I still have a hard time not looking back and thinking  what if?  But with God we have to keep our eyes forward & on the cross. When we do that we remember that he has always loved us, that he will always love us & that he has the perfect plans for us when we allow him to dream for us. 

While I realize that there were some people out there who doubted my ability to do this & do it successfully, there are also some pretty special people out there who were rooting for me & praying for our success.  The difference between the 2 groups of people, the first group didn't account for God & his calling me to this.  The number one lesson I keep learning over and over again is, if God calls me to something then he is going to qualify me to do it.  That second group of people, well, they kept preaching that lesson to me over & over again.  So here I am, successful because I am being qualified by God who called me here & blessed me for following his path. 

So that's a little bit of the ups.  Tomorrow a little bit of the learning curve that we have experienced &  a whole lot of pictures of what we have been doing.

Walking this journey with Christ by my side,
Andrea