The Introductory Homeschool Post

I've been putting off writing The Introductory Homeschool Post. 
I've worked it up so much in my head that yes, it warrants capitalization and it may actually live and breathe and haunt my dreams. 
The post.

Telling the world (or the ten people that read this thing) how it's going. What we're doing. If it's working. Do I love it? Hate it? Regret it? How does Ephram like it? How does it work with the girls?




Is he learning anything?

Ok, so my fear of this post doesn't have anything to do with this post. No, it's probably more about me facing these questions and all my doubts and putting down in one place all the reasons why I am sure of this choice and silencing all those nagging fears that make me doubt.

So here goes.


Somedays are great and somedays aren't.


Yesterday wasn't. 


And I'm pretty sure it ended with us deciding that Ephram should just go back to school. 


Ugh. 


It was a bad day and one should probably not make those kind of decisions on those kind of days. A lesson I am learning. Why does it feel like I'm the one who is always learning the lessons here? 


I love homeschooling. Ephram has been loving it too. It feels like it fits. It feels like a gift for our family. 


But it doesn't feel like I have a system figured out that really works for us and so days like yesterday easily turn inward and feel like my fault. For not planning better. For not engaging Ephram more. For yelling when I'm frustrated.


For not being good enough to do this. 
Which of course isn't true. But so easy to believe.

We're learning together I guess and that is truly what I wanted. Somedays it's easy to feel tied to a curriculum and a schedule and checking things off the lists. But that's not what I want and so I am slowly learning to let go. (Rob would probably say really slowly after last night and that would be more than fair - ha!)

There are things that aren't working. I likely wouldn't do the program we chose to register in with the school board again. It's hard with the girls. I feel like Ephram knows exactly how to manipulate already difficult teaching/learning situations to get out of work. There are things I wish he was better at and there are a lot of things I wish I was better at. There are things he isn't learning. But at the end of it all, there is much that he is. 

And to have a front seat to it all, the good and the bad and the sometimes (very) ugly...

An honor.


Do I regret this? 
Not one bit.