Drama camp, growing up and excitement about homeschooling and sibling bonds

So I dropped Katie off this morning for her first day of drama camp fully expecting her to be clinging on me and not wanting me to leave her there. Boy was I wrong. We walk in and she immediately starts heading towards the group of other kids, I called her back and asked for a hug and guess what she does...looks around to make sure no one is watching and gives me a quick hug and runs back over to the group! What the heck? What happened to my baby girl who never wanted me to leave her? I walked out of there laughing with tears in my eyes. She's really growing up... I was looking at pictures of her from just a year ago and she looked so different, she still had her baby teeth and was a lot shorter and still had that little girl look. Now she is getting so tall and leggy, the top of her head is above my boobs now (that is how I measure her now - it used to be I measured her at my belly button :)) She wears a size 2 shoe, has adult teeth and now is embarrassed to hug her mom in public. What a difference a year makes. I can't believe she is turning 7 on Wednesday. I have been a mom for 7 years now. Wow. It seems like just yesterday that I was bringing her home from the hospital. In another 7 years, the same lightening quick amount of time that has passed, she will be 14. A teenager - yikes! I'm really hoping that homeschooling her will help to keep us close and curb the negative outside peer pressure that public school seems to breed. I want to be the one helping to shape her morals, her idea of what is right...not a bunch of other kids and teachers who are too busy to even know what is going on with the students. Instead of eating lunch, unsupervised with a bunch of other kids talking about God knows what, I imagine us going to volunteer at a nursing home and eating lunch with the lonely people there who would love the companionship or having picnics with other homeschooling families. I have so many hopes and dreams for her and want to teach her so many things about the world that a school could never teach her. Living in such a beautiful place I really want to spend a lot of time exploring nature and getting involved with the community. I'm so excited about homeschooling her - and all my kids - and the least of what I plan on teaching them comes from a text book. The one thing I want them to have is unrestricted reading time. I remember when I was a kid I wanted to read all the time and would actually get in trouble in school for reading books during mind numbingly boring classes. How ridiculous is that? Shouldn't kids be encouraged to read as much as possible? I read a quote by Einstein that I absolutely love, it goes like this: "Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty." -- Albert Einstein.

That is how I hope to teach Katie. Don't get me wrong, she will have a certain amount of work she has to get done everyday but she can do it in an hour or two and then have the rest of the day for other more enriching activities than sitting at a desk. Volunteering at various places, curling up in the hammock with a good book, exploring nature and learning about science hands on, getting together with other homeschooling kids to play and have fun, going horseback riding, hiking, skiing, getting involved with the community theatre and doing plays, and most importantly spending time together as a family instead of being off in separate worlds for 7+ hours a day. I think that is what I am excited about the most, spending my days with the little people who own my heart. I know too well how precious our time together is and how quickly any of us can be taken away so I want to spend every moment I can with the ones I love. No regrets. I also love the bond that is developing between Katie and Kobe, they are so incredibly close and I feel that by being home together, instead of separated into different classrooms and different schools, they will be able keep that bond. I know I am so incredibly lucky to have a husband who works hard to make this all possible and I love him so much for it. I am so, so excited that he will be home more often with this new job and get to spend more time with us, it is truly my dream come true. Now I just need to somehow convince my parents and best friends to move here too and it will truly be perfect. :)