I feel very flaky…but we are making another change to our homeschool schedule.

I have really been wanting to homeschool year-round.  Not just because we have some special learners in our family but also because it would help me to have a full day to focus on my job.  But after a month’s trial it became apparent that it just won’t work.  Not only is Eric home so we do more projects but also with J1 and Eric on strict school schedules, it would just work better to have everyone on the same schedule.

I’m bummed but sort of relieved.  This means I will get a school break too.  And, since I did school in June, I’m really ready to go and can really, truly let it go for a few weeks.

J1 is a card-carrying high school student.

Today Hubs, J1 and I went to Sacramento today to register him at the charter school Visions in Education in their 9-12 Independent Study program.  I’m super excited about this program as (1) it’s not the local high school, (2) he’ll have a teacher to work with him and I can just be Mom again, and most importantly, (3) he seems interested in this option.   I might be persona nongrata with my local homeschool group who don’t think too highly of public charter schools, but I’m praising God for this opportunity to still have him be with us most of the time while making sure he gets the education he needs.  I do wish it could have worked out to continue privately homeschooling him, but frankly he has some bigger issues that need to be dealt with right now.  This development will allow me to be nuturing mom full-time and someone else can be the teacher/nagger/etc.

He won’t start school until September, but today we were able to register him for his first semester of classes as a freshman.  He will be taking English 1A, Pre Algebra (a necessary repeat), PE 1, Earth Science.  Also he was able to choose two electives.  He chose Beginning Drawing and – after listening to his Dad’s counsel – Career Exploration.

I have no doubt this will be a hard transition for J1, but I’m confident he can do this.  WE can do this!

Yesterday was a very busy day.

First, Bubba 1 (J1) stayed home with us as I had no opportunity to reschedule these appts.  Let’s just say that I received confirmation that him spending most of his day with dad at NCS is not a bad thing.  I hate being negative, but until he is willing to make a change in his heart and his attitude this is the way it will have to be.  I’m praying continually that it is only short term.

Second, all three Bubba’s had eye appts.  The first was scheduled for 9:10 and the last at 10:10.  About 9:30 I realized that bringing Sissy along was not a good idea!  So I called Grammy and, bless her heart, she came to the eye dr and picked her up.  They went shopping until we were done.

The eye dr seemed to take longer with my boys this time than on prevous visits.  The end results are:

  • Bubba 1 – only needs reading glasses if he wants.  They are not necessary any longer! PTL!
  • Bubba 2 – need glasses for near sightedness.  That means all the time.  He took it better than
  • Bubba 3 – who needs glasses for school or computer work.  The doctor also told me that the eye surgery he had when he was 2 or 3 (soon after Joshua died – it’s sort of a blur) did not completely fix the problem.  He gave us some exercises to do to retrain his brain.  Bubba 3 was pretty sad to hear that he was to wear glasses for school and told me he didn’t want anyone to ever see them. :(  I think he feels a bit better about the situation now when he realizes that Bubba 2 has to wear them all the time.

After that we took Sissy to her speech therapy.  Maybe it was the missed nap, or maybe it was the good weather but she was talking up a storm!  Her therapist was pretty excited about it!  Sissy was copying her and really trying.  It was so nice to hear!

After a quick lunch, we went to the surgery center to see an ENT dr about Sissy’s tongue.  I can’t pronounce/spell the thing that is under her tongue, but there has been concern that it was too short and would affect her speech.  But the Dr said it looked ok and he’d prefer we just watch it and deal with it later if needed.  To deal with it now would require surgery and later it would just be an office visit.  After learning that Bubba 3’s surgery didn’t give us the results we wanted, I was quick to agree to wait.

Then it was home to crash.  And my headache was full on by then.  :(  The Hubs took pity on me and picked up some dinner at the local grocery store.  We had done Corned Beef the night before so we did Chinese on St. Patrick’s day….yeah, we are weird like that!

In spite of my headache, I was determined to go to Knit Night.  Ruth helped me wind some sock yarn into two cakes so I could knit 2 at a time.  It was a great turn out and even though I ended up tearing out the 4 rows that had taken me all weekend to do on my socks, I was happy to have made it!  I love Knit Night!

Well, the boys are patiently (NOT!) waiting for me to listen to them read – so I’d better close.  Please pray I can be headache-free today – I need a break from this contant pain!

Starting tomorrow we’ll be having a big change in our homeschool. Dad is taking on J1’s daily homeschool as he’s having trouble submitting to my authority.  In order to do that, he will be going to school with Dad each day and work in his classroom.  This was a suggestion by Eric’s principal to help us with this problem.  I’m not happy about this – but I’m not fighting it anymore as I’m just tired of running into that brick wall again and again and again.

Please pray for all of us as we proceed forward.

When you have boys…boys who are learning to read and reading out loud to you…you can really lose your whole house to the giggles when they read “My, but it is dirty“…and don’t remember to pause at the comma.

And, in case you don’t see the humor of “My butt it is dirty” then you don’t have any young boys around!

Lord give me strength!

LoL

Oh dear…they just told me the next part is

“Yes, it is”, said Grandfather. “It has not been used for a long, long time.  You can do something about that, can’t you?”

LOL