A New Direction

Pictures are to come, but I haven't had time to wash dishes let alone edit pics, so you'll have to wait.

First, thank you for all the homeschool support everyone has offered me.  I'm going to direct most of my new posts to this blog from now on, though, because we have just stopped homeschooling this year (mostly), and so I don't want to use my homeschooling blog right now.  We will be praying about resuming again next year, so let me explain why:

I was extremely stressed about all I was about to take on, and reality hit me that I was so stressed that I wasn't helping Lovely learn anything, or at least not much.  I didn't want to cause her to cry (or let's face it, myself), so I began to pray.  The charter school I submitted an application to was filled for 1st grade, but I continued thinking about it and reading up on them. They follow a 40 D list of character development traits, so they are very strict on teaching children to think of others first, etc.  No profanity, they wear cute uniforms, they make parents promise to be involved...all things I was looking for.  I was worried about mean kids (from my own experience), so I believed these school goals would cut down on that. 

Anyway, I found out my husband's cousin had to remove her twins from Kindergarten because she couldn't get her son in the same school.  That left two spots open.  I began to question whether or not it would be better for Lovely to have learning reenforced while allowing her more time to develop as a social little person.  I had started her in school early, afterall.  With as timid/shy as she acted, I was a little worried she might have a slight case of Asberger's (sp) syndrome, but I kept pushing thoughts like that out of my mind. 

I called the school and low and behold, there was ONE spot left.  I took her to the school and enrolled her that day, knowing that after talking with Hubby, if we changed our minds, I could simply call and not drop off the final paperwork Tues.  However, Lovely begged to go to school...literally begged.  The child who was scared of anyone under the age of 15 begged to go to school!  I bought her uniform (one skirt to last the year at that price!), her backpack, and supplies, and got her ready for the next morning.

I had to go to work the day she started, but I called and asked how her day went.  "Mommy, I love school!  I made two friends, but I can't remember their names.  I learned to count backwards, too--10, 9, 8...," was her response.  Wow!  Oh, and that night she showed me how to make a proper B--apparently I hadn't been strict enough when teaching her! lol  So why is it it took 2 yrs to learn to count w/o skipping numbers, but 1 day to count backwards perfectly?! 

Her second day went pretty well, too, although she didn't like a game they played, but we can't love everything, can we?  She painted a turtle and petted a real one, and she gets recess with other grade levels, so she's still exposed to various ages/learning development, which I like.

School/work for me should end in May, so we'll reexamine everything around then. 

Well, that's all for now...