The school year has "officially" started. :)

Well things are in full swing around here! I am homeschooling Katie and started her a little bit earlier in the summer to give her a headstart so she can finish sooner in the Spring and take an extra long summer (and since I will have a new baby next Spring, I'm sure I'll need the break!) Our schooling was very relaxed over the summer (we took a lot of trips) but now that the school year has officially started, we are on a more serious schedule where Katie has to do her work every day. I'm so glad I started earlier to give us sort of a "warm up" to the curriculum. This Abeka curriculum is very advanced and in the beginning Katie went through a period of resisting doing the work and stalling and dragging her lesson out to take hours (on stuff that should have taken minutes) I was starting to have second thoughts but am now SO happy we stuck with it because that is all it was, an adjustment period, she wanted to see what I'd let her get away with. Now that she knows she HAS to finish all her work, she is doing amazing and really gets down to business and gets her work done quickly so that she has the rest of the day for fun stuff. It's amazing to me how much time must just be totally wasted in regular school because she can easily get started at 9am and finish by 1pm (with 2 recess breaks and a lunch break in there too!) She is doing a TON of work too and also art, spanish, some extra science and geography work that I got for her to supplement her Abeka stuff. She is getting the same education that she would in a good private school, except so much better because she has her teacher's undivided attention (instead of being 1 of 20, or whatever the ridiculous amount of kids they have in a classroom these days) She is only a couple weeks into the curriculum and is writing full sentences in cursive now - really good cursive too! She catches my mistakes and corrects my handwriting now! LOL I can't believe it! When we started the curriculum, I thought there was no way she'd be able to learn cursive so quickly, but she really has. I love that I can really work with her individually on each subject until she has completely mastered it before moving on to the next thing. There are no more "silly" mistakes on her papers now and she has the opportunity to learn immediately from her mistakes and correct them instead of just getting a red mark on it a week later from the teacher. I also love that we have SO much freedom, we can get up when we want (YAY for no alarm clocks!!), go to the pool/zoo/aquarium/musuem/library/etc. whenever we want (what is a rare "field trip" for school, we do on a weekly basis. I am just so loving everything about homeschooling. It feels so wonderful to be in total control of what she is doing/seeing/hearing and knowing that she is able to be who she is and develop the confidence to be herself without outside influence from kids teasing or pressure to conform. I guess I'm just glad she's not experiencing the "ugly" part of school that I did growing up. She is so happy and free and has such an innocence about her still that I just love. It's funny, I was talking to my mom the other day and she was saying that she thought I was brave for being willing to do these kind of things (home birth, home schooling, etc.). I thought about it and realized that all it really is, is refusing to get on the "conveyor belt" of our society, so to speak, and doing things the way you WANT to. It seems scary at first, going against the main stream but once you actually take the initial leap and do it, you see how wonderful it is to be empowered and make your own choices for you and your children based on what is truly best for them - not what is "expected". Then you realize that the truly scary thing would be to just "go with the flow" and NOT do the things you know in your heart are best. I honestly can't imagine going back to the rushed early morning routine of "school", Katie being gone ALL day, other people I don't even know having a huge impact on forming her opinions, sense of self and influencing her thinking, then our time in the evenings spent rushing to get homework done, dinner made and eaten and into bed early so she can get up early the next day and do it all again. Sigh. I get sad just thinking about it. One year was more than enough for me. I seemed like I had hardly any quality time with her then. Now we have so much time wonderful time together and her and Kobe have so much time together too. They have such an incredible bond, she plays with him all day and that time together is so precious and valuable. I know I'm starting to gush but I just can't get over how much I am loving everything about homeschooling, the Abeka curriculum and just so, so, so glad we gave it a chance. I know in my heart that we will never "go back". I found a really cool website that anyone who is curious about homeschooling might find interesting, it is: http://www.homeschoolinfo.org/

Another thing I am super excited about is that I just joined a local homeschooling moms group and have already met one of the moms on there who is super nice and also has a daughter Katie's age. On Monday we went on a "field trip" :) to a pool and had such a great time talking while the kids swam and played. We are going to go over to their house tomorrow afternoon to just hang out and let the kids play. Katie really seems to get along with her little girl and I'm so happy that we are starting to find friends around here. There is no reason that she should have less opportunity to play with other kids just because she is homeschooled, in fact she should have more because she certainly has more free time. Through this moms group I have also found out about more local resources for homeschoolers and it turns out there is a fabulous support system for homeschoolers around here. There is something called C.H.E.S.S., which is a one day a week program where homeschooling kids can go for enrichment activities like Chemistry, Music & Art and learn and meet other homeschoolers. So in addition to horse riding lessons, she will start doing C.H.E.S.S. once a week and also starts soccer next week. She is going to be one busy girl and I am truly one happy mom. :)

Well Lily got fixed today, poor baby, and it's time to go pick her up at the vets office. I also have my first midwife appt. today so I'm excited and anxious to meet her. My old midwife was so sweet and such a wonderful part of my pregnancy and labor, I hope my new one will be equally as wonderful. :)