Posted in Homeschooling

Twelve years ago this month, we decided to homeschool our oldest child, who was finishing up first grade in the public school. Our second child was almost one year old.  Throughout our time of homeschooling, we have had many challenging things happen, like being homeless, having zero income,  having twins, or mom going out to work in the middle of every day. However, I have to say that this year really takes the cake:  I think that this homeschooling year has been the most challenging one ever.  Of course, typical me only realized this last night!

I tend to think of our years as starting August 1 and running until July 31.  Last August 3, Brogan was born.  The rest of August was certainly not dull - Robert left for college, the twins learned how to climb out of their cribs and therefore stopped napping, Gabrielle began twice a week tutoring for her dyslexia and dysgraphia, and both girls' ballet classes began.

As the year continued on, we added in some medical appointments for the baby's condition, bumped Gabrielle's tutoring up to three times a week, got through our "birthday season" (we have six family birthdays from the end of August to the beginning of November, four of them within two weeks!), Roger began working seven days a week, and we faced the fact that the twins were not speaking the way that they should. In November I participated in NaNoWriMo, writing 30,000 words of my as-yet-unfinished romance novel.

We got through speech evaluations and Christmas and made the unhappy decision that Gabrielle just could not take two dance classes this year.  In January we dealt with MUCHO stress helping Robert prepare for his semester in Poland (if you have not heard that whole story, consider yourself blessed!), while worrying about the twins not getting speech therapy because the first therapist had gone AWOL.  Oh, and in January I hurt my back, making it so I needed help caring for the baby and the twins, and for several weeks we were thinking I had something like rheumatoid arthritis. Thankfully, I don't.

In February we thought we could relax when Robert got on the plane to leave, only to have him get stranded in London a few days later. Oh, and then there was the almost-24-hour period when I had no clue where he was.  No, I did not sleep that night.  We got a new speech therapist, who evaluated Ryan and found that he was only at the second percentile for his age.  To make up for the sessions the twins missed when the first one disappeared, we bumped up therapy to three times a week, now including Ryan.  Yes, tutoring three times a week and therapy three times a week.

And so on and so forth.  I don't think we've had all eight of us at home healthy at the same time since January.  Roger and I both work seven days a week.  Church attendance has been hit or miss.  We've had to deal with twins' fascination for flushing toothbrushes down the toilet (the toilet doesn't like it, and I don't think the toothbrushes care for it either).  The baby, for some reason, decided he needed to add mobility to the mix.

Ballet is now over, but I have promised Gabrielle that starting in August she can take two classes a week.  Speech therapy and tutoring will continue through the summer.  I hope to sign Ryan up for a gymnastics class next year.  Robert will be home next month until the fall semester starts.  Ryan and the twins are improving. So I hope it doesn't seem like I am complaining.  I am reflecting, and with this reflection comes the understanding that, once again, I expected way too much out of myself this year.  Will I ever learn?  After thinking back over this year, I'm just relieved that we are all alive, somewhat healthy and mostly happy. And, yeah, we did some schoolwork along the way.  What more could I ask?