Live from Crazyville

OK, so I still couldn't decide on a title, but here goes anyway.

When school ended in the spring, I was extremely happy and relieved. I'm not sure if I actually said this out loud to anyone, but the main reason I was SO happy was that I had decided it was my last day of home school EVER!

I wasn't sure what this meant. But I had three months to pray about it and think about it and work on it, and I knew that something would come together. It had to.

Yes, yes, yes... We had signed up for a new home-school co-op, but it was basically just my last-resort back-up plan. I was determined to make a change.

I have gotten to the point that I avoid talking about the subject of school unless someone specifically asks me about it. Basically, it's just embarrassing to have to discuss my Bipolar Home Schooling Disorder. As I've tried to explain many times, "I love the HOME; it's the SCHOOL that I have trouble with."

It seems that the rest of the world has this thing figured out. Most people wait for their child to turn 5 and sign the cute little munchkin up for kindergarten. They enjoy their summers, happy to have a break, and when fall rolls around they rinse and repeat. It doesn't seem to be a huge topic of deliberation. It's just what they do.

For others, they feel they have been "called" to do something different. For whatever reason, it is their mission to home school their children. They feel very strongly about it. From what I can tell, they don't seem to doubt themselves or wonder if they are doing the right thing. They enjoy it. It works for their family. It's all good.

And then there are those who are able to send their children to private school. They have figured out a way to make it work financially, and they enjoy the security and community of private school.

And then there's me. I don't have a strong belief that one way of schooling your children is best. I don't feel like I have been "called" to do it a certain way. I know there are strengths and weaknesses to all of these choices, and it's basically a matter of finding what works best for our family.

We have been in a private school situation. For the past two years, we've home schooled. We have a very long list of good reasons why we made this choice. And there are many things about it that we absolutely love.

But I doubt myself. I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. Am I permanently scarring my children because they won't have any wonderful childhood memories of their first grade teacher? Am I really capable of keeping them on pace with their peers? Am I isolating them too much from other kids their age? Am I ruining our relationship because I can't be just their mom who they come home and cry to when they have a bad day. I'm also the teacher who made them have a bad day.

These are the questions that are in my mind pretty much every day of the week. And since I don't want to look like an idiot by revealing what's on my mind, I try not to say anything. And then it becomes difficult for me to talk about other topics because I know that I'm avoiding the one thing that's really on my mind. And then my blog sits without any posts for months on end, all of my former readers give up on me and before you know it, even my blog is in a dire situation. You can see the tragedy in all of this, right?

So, I'm simply going to try to get this off my chest so that I can write about more important things... like jewelry... and some of our new favorite hobbies... and why I have to walk down the middle of the street because I'm so afraid of getting hit in the head by a bird.

As you can see, the sooner I get this done, the better!

... to be continued.