~Finding US~

This year must be a lot about reflection~ because it seems to be all I think about.  Finding balance, finding peace, finding who I am, finding time, finding, finding finding or better yet CREATING it!  It's all good!  I think that finding who we really are is so important and so healing.  I've been struggling a lot lately with who we are as a family, as a homeschooling family.  Our curriculum we are using is.... OK.  I don't hate it but I don't love it. I love the school the program we are in and the teachers that are helping us, but it doesn't allow me the freedom I had envisioned when I started this journey of teaching at home.  I'm struggling with the "you have to do 7 lessons today", or should I say Jo is struggling with it and Buckwheat, well let's be honest he could care less if he learned how to count, but he wants to do boy stuff (he really knows how to count I was just exaggerating, LOL!)  And little peanut is so intrigued with all this learning that she is disappointed she doesn't have a book of her own.  Anyway, I was talking with a wise woman tonight (yep, my mom) and we were discussing different things about what is important to life and important to each of us.  I've come to the conclusion that we can meander from our curriculum as long as we are learning the same type of thing, I don't need to read the text book for literature if it's not working for us, so we can read other books and write reports on them and do different types of activities to learn what we want to learn.  Ultimately it comes down to a handful of things.

• What do I want out of this  experience?  
• What do I want my children to gain?  
• What do I want to be, the nagging teacher, or the amazing explorer?  
• How do I want our home (school) to feel?
• What matters most?

In answer to these questions, I have given it a lot of thought.  A lot of prayers and soul searching has gone into this.  At first I was ready to give up.  As Jo asked if she could just go back to regular school because I was too tough on her and she felt she had too much to do.  I took a step back and couldn't understand why she wanted to leave, why this wasn't working like I had planned.  Realizing that I'm not a "fun" person by nature, oh I can have a good time and I am fun to be around and I do fun things, but it doesn't come naturally to me I am more serious, more "LET'S GET DOWN TO WORK" that's more my motto.  So DUH no wonder Jo wanted out, I didn't do creative stuff, I don't really like messes (I know I'm so boring!)  But I do know how to have fun and that is something I am not letting my children see.  The "Me" side, the side that isn't mom, that isn't the maid, that isn't the teacher.  So I thought and here are my answers to these life altering questions....First of all WE ARE NOT GIVING UP, because this is so important to me and I KNOW it's what we are suppose to do.  Also I realize that there will be good and bad and we have to adjust and may have to several times through out the course of this creek we are journeying down:

• I want this home-school experience to be STELLAR!  I want my kids friends to want to home-school because we ROCK at it, not that we will be perfect at it but that my kids will experience things other kids don't always get to and that we will be together exploring the world and doing the things that WE want to do, and learning what WE want to learn.  Whether it be how to make beautiful snow flakes outta paper (which is what we did last week) or discovering how puppies are born (which will be happening again....in January....am I prepared for puppies?!?!) 
• I want my children to gain knowledge, to gain character, to be good people, loving caring individuals that are accepting.  Children who know they are daughters and sons of God!  I want them to gain confidence in themselves and in the things they are accomplishing and learning
• I want to be an AMAZING mother, wife, teacher, friend, student and woman!  I know that is an ambitious goal but I also know that learning and growing NEVER ENDS!  So if I have eternity to develop into this, that should be sufficient enough!  
• I want the feeling of our home, and our school to be LOVE, EXCITEMENT, FRIENDSHIP, JOY, CREATIVITY and CHAOS! Yes, Chaos~ because with chaos, organized chaos it means we will have ample to do.  Ceasing to be idle, by engaging our minds and our hands in purposes that are helpful, full of learning experiences, service and love.  I want our home to feel what we feel in our hearts!

• Saved the best for last, What matters most to me is that my children know who they are, they know that they have a Loving Heavenly Father and they know they are LOVED by their parents and  siblings.  Other than that nothing else matters to me.  I don't mind if Buckwheat takes 2 years to read at grade level, because he knows how to brand cows, build extravagant Lego houses and love his family unconditionally.  I don't mind that Jo hates to diagram sentences (heaven only knows where she got that from, hehehe!) because she ROCKS at spelling and can spell things off the charts, and she is an amazing help to me and her soul is older than any 9 year old you've ever meet.  I don't mind if Peanut can recognize all her letters or only the ones in her name, because she is a whiz at math and can color with the best of them and she is the sweetest most caring little woman!  When it boils down to it, I want my children to KNOW THEY ARE LOVED!  I want them to feel the love, to experience the love and to relish in it.  NOTHING else matters. 

This doesn't mean I will stop teaching, but it means that I will view our lessons, our school, our lives differently.  I will try my hardest to perfect my imperfections, to be patient, kind, understanding, and helpful to these little people that God has entrusted me with.  We will learn together and we will learn remarkable things, fabulous character traits, and we will try to help wherever we can!  I want my children to be good people I want them to know God, to know how to work, to know that education comes from so many places and that they should NEVER feel insecure because they weren't schooled the "normal" way.  This is my hope, my dream and my new devotion.  To be US, to find US, to create US, to love US and in the process learn all we can about what makes US interested, better, and happy!  Thank you for those who read my blog.  I am trying to make more time to blog as it brings me great happiness to share my feelings and experiences with all of you (or the one of you) :) regardless it's therapeutic and fills me!  Hers's to our chaotic Journey, of love and happily ever afters!