Welcome to the World...This is the Alphabet

I Was the Perfect Parent...Until I Was One

Way back in 2003 when I was pregnant with my son, I decided that he would be perfect.  He would do everything on schedule, would be perfectly behaved, have perfect grammar, and would read by the time he turned 3.  Then the kid came 3 weeks early, refused to breastfeed, and had to have all of his food pureed for the first two years of his life because of texture issues.  He also decided not to talk for a couple of years.  But he sure was cute.  I mean - CUTE.  Cute fluffy hair and big blue eyes and snuggly.  He's still cute with big blue eyes, freckles and we get daily drive-by snuggles so we count ourselves blessed.  At almost 11 he is just a little more wiggly.  When he was a little over 18 months I decided that I could maybe handle another one, and so almost exactly 2 1/2 years after "Huck" was born, "LiLa" came along.  

LiLa was a potted plant the first year of her life.  There were no challenges, and truthfully, I can hardly remember it.  It makes me sad that she was so easy.  I remember so much about my son that first year.  LiLa talked early, walked on time, always ate everything, and slept through the night at 5 weeks.  She's now my kid who sleeps in.  

Early Preschool to Get Things Rolling

Huck started preschool at age 3 and was in two different preschools at the same time - one was an in-home preschool and the other was at a facility.  I made sure that he was getting a very well-rounded education.  I did a preschool co-op with other moms in the neighborhood.  He was exposed to music, art, tumbling at The Little Gym, and we jumped on Starfall.com at least a few times a week to make sure that he was learning the alphabet.   

LiLa started preschool at age 2, was also in two different preschools, including a Spanish immersion preschool.  She was in dance and tumbling and potty trained herself.  

Then in 2007 I helped start a charter school.  It was going to be PERFECT!  Huck couldn't even go to it for a year, but that didn't matter because his education was going to be amazing and he was already very well prepared having had three years of preschool prior to Kindergarten.

And Then...I Felt the Pull to Homeschool


Wha???  What happened to my perfect plan?  I was finally going to have both kids in school all day long!  I was a work from home mom so this represented finally getting things done without juggling carpool.  Nope, the feeling was there and just kept getting stronger.  So I started the process of researching for 10,000 hours so that I could become THE PERFECT expert on homeschooling.  If I was going to homeschool, dadgum it, I would be perfect at it.  Holy moly was I overwhelmed!  Which curriculum?  TJEdCharlotte Mason?  K-12?  Unschooling?  What the heck was unschooling?  

Common Core was just coming on the scene and I knew there were two camps about it, but I was too busy trying to figure out a math program and didn't have time to research it.  And let's just say that I still won't be writing about it, because I still haven't researched it.  However, after two years of homeschooling, I have a few things to say about it.  I consider myself one of the "new school" homeschoolers.  I'm a little bit hybrid and don't stick to a specific methodology.  I'm more focused on the system I created to run our homeschool than the actual curriculum.  So stay tuned...and hopefully this will help someone out there!
 

No comments:

Post a Comment