Okay, so I'm reading Charlotte's Web to my daughter. We read about a chapter a night. She seems to like it a great deal, we talk about the story and she asks questions, constantly, so much so half the time the answers are "let's keep reading and find out." It is a very special time for us. I'm really enjoying how her mind works. She listens to the words, the questions she asks, it's fun to see the connections.
My husband and I have also decided to home school our daughter. Not for any religious reasons, that's a whole other topic I'm sure I'll write volumes on later. We've talked about homeschooling for a while and decided to give it a go for lots of reasons. I think the big one for me is that it would be most beneficial for her education. It's one-on-one learning, you can't get better than that. The few people we've told always have the same concern, the socialization. We've enrolled her in gymnastic classes, she also attends a Sunday school program at my church. She interacts with children her own age at these places on a weekly basis. She also goes to play at our gym where she plays with children of all ages. We've already started with some preschool learning and it seems to be going very well. Goodness I don't even remember when we started, we transformed the basement play area into a one room school house, as one of our friends put it. We did take a bit of a break from lessons, with my Mom passing away it was hard when we came home to get back into the home school routine. Now with my change in work hours and increased responsibility at first it seemed impossible, but after sitting down with my husband it actually seems much more practical now. He will be part of the planning process and the teaching process as well. He's always been very involved with her education, it was just the hands on factor. He's done tons of research, written out curriculum working backwards from high school info to middle school. He's wonderful, I also said I would take on her curriculum now, but I have to admit it's been so much better with him sitting at the table with me writing her preschool lesson plans.
Things are always better when my husband is sitting right next to me. As a matter of fact I know he's always on my side. I'm starting to feel like I did before we got married and just after. Don't get me wrong our relationship as always been terrific since day one. It was at those early times that I was a little more carefree with him. I didn't worry about things as much. I've always been a worrier, but when I first met him in that wonderful little coffee shop on University some of that worry melted away. As we became closer more and more of that worry went away, and when we got married it was just about all gone. As I think back on those days now, it seems like it was only when we moved back to my home town that worry and constant concern of things I can't control came back. I don't know if that's just what I grew up with & I had returned to it or if it was something else. There was a lot of negativity in my house as I grew up. Which I don't think anybody would guess based on my attitude on life as an adult. I consider myself to be a very positive person and always trying to put myself in the other person's "shoes" something I learned from Kairos back in 1991 on my senior year retreat (thanks Becky Parker).
This sounds absolutely terrible, but maybe with my Mom's death that part of my life died too, the constant negativity went away. Now with that said, please understand that my Mom was not a complete negative person. She was kind, funny, caring, generous, and a really good person. I love my Mom very much. She was a great deal of fun, we would drive an hour and a half north just to go to lunch or go to a Starbucks that was 60 miles away, just because we'd never been there before. We would make each other laugh, and I mean egg laying cackling. She really was a wonderful woman and the fact that my little girl will not know her really breaks my heart into thousands of pieces. Okay, no tear fest. Just know that my life is wonderful and I feel very blessed (yes I do believe in that sort of thing, well I'm coming back to it) I have a wonderful husband and terrific little girl and I truly appreciate what my life is right now.
Thanks to the great cyberspace as my psychologist I will sign off for now.
take care.
