... my freak-out session is over.  My house is a little more organized now, and everything is set for "school" to start on Monday.

Michael is flip-flopping now, though, and is torn between HS & PS - the only reason he wants to go to PS is to meet new friends & have recess every day.  Other than that, he is fine with being HSed.

I'm hoping that our local HS groups get back into the swing of things again soon.  Since it is so miserably hot here by June (who am I kidding - Easter Sunday was 100+ degrees), everyone becomes hermits and hides inside their homes until cooler weather (at least below 95 degrees) arrives.  So, say, mid-September, if not later?

So far, I've been in contact with the HS group in the larger city (the one our address is in, but our home is on the border of) and they are still having park days each Thursday (in a different part of the city each week), but since it begins at 11 am, the heat is too miserable to be out & about, and nearly everyone forgoes the event (especially those in my situation, with younger kids - both of mine are under 5).

I joined the email list for the HS group of the town we live on the border of (but where Michael would go to PS if he were going - the districts here are charted weird) & they don't have a formal park day during the summer, they just wait until the temps consistently stay cooler before organizing anything.  After that, though, it is on the same day each week, and at the same park (about 10 minutes from our home).

I've even visited the website of a group in another town (Georgetown) that is 45 minutes away.  It's a smaller town with more conservative values (as a whole), and more likely to be someplace we'd fit into.  The two drawbacks of that group being (a) you have to join the co-op, pay a fee each year (minimal - $25 or so), & wear matching tee shirts when you are together with the group, and (b) they only get together for park day once a month.  They do have a PE group each week, on Friday, but there is a monthly fee to participate, and again, you have to dress alike to participate.  I'm not really into the whole uniform concept - for me, part of homeschooling is letting my kids be who they are, not part of a group with a dress code & such.  Oh, and another thing I didn't like in their rules is that parents are discouraged from socializing during the gatherings, as they want every situation to be a learning experience, and they feel parental socializing can take place at other times.  Hello, I thought the group was for socializing with other homeschooling families?

So, bah.  Michael is a very social child.  VERY SOCIAL.  He needs interaction with children his own age, desperately, and as often as possible.  I worry that once a week at a park day won't be enough for him.  I think he is worried about that, too.

I am convinced that once the HS groups get into their groove, and we start meeting new people, things will go fine.  Between the two groups, we may have two park days each week we can attend, and that may be all we can handle with our homeschool schedule & keeping up with our regular chores.  If not, there is one other homeschool group I haven't contacted, in a town about 12 miles from us, that may have different park days & activities as well.  The only reason I haven't contacted them yet is that the town is known to be, well, rather affluent, and I'm not sure we can fit in there.  I don't want to subject Michael to a group that has so much more than we do that he feels inadequate by being around them.  And yes, this can be a problem at his age - he met a new friend last year in preschool, a very sweet boy who lived in a humongous home with a massive toy room stocked with every play thing my son has ever dreamed of owning, and my son begged me for weeks, no, months to give him what this other little boy had (he still mentions it from time to time, and this occurred last September).  Something we could not, and I personally would not want, to give him, ever, as I don't feel it is good to spoil children to that extent.  However, being a young child, Michael doesn't understand that, and only knows when he sees that type of thing that he is missing out on something that appears to be much more fun than the life he has.*

I am just thankful that Michael seems to be very sure of the fact that he wants to be homeschooled, even in light of the "missing out on so much fun" aspect of things.  I have been honest with him, that he won't get to see other kids as often as he would if he were in PS, but that I'll socialize him as much as time will permit, at least twice a week via whatever routes I have to take to do so.  I have let him know that I am limited in what I can do because of Emily's age, but that things will improve greatly as she gets older and we can be more mobile with her.  I have been honest with him about the pros & cons of both methods of education, because I don't want to convince him HSing is better, and make promises that I might not be able to keep, in order to do my hearts desire.

So, Monday will be our first day of school.  I have our school calender on the wall, with the "First Day of School" square stuck in place.  We will wake up and begin our journey, and pray that it is a long one.

Because, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

Have a great weekend, ya'll.

* {I just want to point out that God meets our family's every need - we are not poor by any means, but neither are we wealthy.  We are a middle of the road family, making ends meet like the average American next door, but trying to do so with minimal debt, and the minimal debt we do have we are aggresively paying off by the end of this year, God willing.  We have sacrificed the "extras" in life so that I can be a SAHM, and my husband and I are completely at peace with our decision... and we are teaching our children to be at peace with it, too.  However, we are definitely in the minority in the area we live in - a very techie-saturated community where many of our peers are in two-income families making well over $100K a year, often over $200K a year,and still struggling to get by.  And they just don't understand how we can be satisfied living the life the good Lord gave us, and making our way slowly in the world, waiting for God to bless us with a home in our price range and driving cars that are twice as old or older than most of the homes they live in.  Most of our peers are trying to find happiness in new cars & new homes & annual vacations that cost more than a year's worth of our rent... we can't, and have no desire, to keep up with that lifestyle.  But it's a concept that our children are too young to fully grasp, though as I said before, we are teaching them our values, and one day, they will get it.  We haven't always had this mindset - it came about after I lost my job in 2001, the month before Michael was born - and the Lord threw us into a situation that made us stop & think about what was important in our life.  At that point, we realized we would do without whatever we had to in order fo me to be at home with our children... it's a decision we don't regret, and one that we are constantly tweaking to improve.  Our most recent improvement has been working towards becoming completely debt-free (we owe less than $2K right now, praise God!) & following the principles laid out in Dave Ramsey's book, The Total Money Makeover.  I'm not saying our way is any better than anyone else's, but it is the path we've decided to take, and because not many follow it, we have become an anomoly, and that oftentimes makes it difficult for us to be comfortable with others, not because of how we feel, but how they respond to us.}