This school year has been anything but what I expected it to be!

What a lesson this year has been for me!!! We make plans but ultimately God is in control of all things and He saw fit to rock my world by giving me a son when I least expected it!

A baby was the furthest thing from our lesson plans for our first year of homeschool. In fact, a baby halts most of the plans I had for homeschool. A baby made homeschooling virtually impossible in the beginning and the challenges haven’t stopped coming since we brought little Sarge home.

I think the most important thing I have learned this year is that life happens and you have to make adjustments where necessary. Even perhaps do something you never dreamed you would do.

Little Bug will be going to school in January.

This is something I never imagined we would do, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what is best for Little Bug and for our family as a whole for this year.

My original plans that included lots of taking our homeschooling outside the walls of our home have become extremely difficult to implement with a newborn baby in the house. We are not an on-the-go family when we have an infant in the house. To me, it’s just easier to be home when the baby needs to nap. That doesn’t mean I am always home when the baby needs to nap, but it does mean that I highly respect my baby’s need for sleep. I am finding that it was way easier to be home with a two year old and newborn than to constantly be home with a 5 year old, 3 year old and newborn.

In other words, Little Bug cannot stand being home all the time. I know she feels cooped up. She needs social interaction. I was aware of this before Sarge came along and I had plans to give her that social interaction through many play dates and outings with our homeschool group. As I said, keeping up with all of that on top of taking care of a special needs baby is just too much.

So I started looking at my options so that my family could run smoothly, everyone’s needs could be met and our family could find a new normal.

My first option was to put Sweet Pea in preschool. That was a temporary fix. Sweet Pea going to preschool did do two things for our family. 1. It helped decrease the chaos in the house three mornings a week when Sarge was going through the worst of his pain and was requiring constant care. Having 2 children to care for instead of 3 three mornings a week did cut down on the chaos in the house. 2. It allowed me to do school with Little Bug on the mornings Sweet Pea was at preschool. Mama would come over to handle the baby and Little Bug and I would do school.

It was a temporary fix because Little Bug was starved for social interaction. She is a Social Butterfly and going to church on Sunday mornings was basically all the social interaction she was getting! It wasn’t enough. And because mothers know their children better than anyone, I knew we had to figure out what we needed to do to meet this need of Little Bug’s.

When I was first trying to figure out what to do (back in September when we got home) I asked about a school that I knew about that partners with homeschool families. Several families from our church attend the school. I decided to ask about it. In the end, we decided to put Sweet Pea in preschool, but after a very difficult weekend for me, when Dave and I finally had time to sit and talk, we both brought up this school again.

I knew right then God was leading us to this school for Little Bug. I knew I needed to find out more about the school. I called and asked if I could come observe the Kindergarten class in action. I went on December 8th to observe the class.

It didn’t take me long at all to know that this was the place for Little Bug. It’s truly a blessing to have found this school because it is the best of both worlds. Little Bug will attend the school three days a week and get plenty of social interaction along with Kindergarten instruction and then we will still have two days of the school week at home together.

Little Bug is so excited to start this school. Her first day will be January 6th.

I am very excited about her being able to attend this school. I am looking forward to having some one-on-one time with Sweet Pea while Little Bug is in school. Since Sweet Pea’s personality is quiet and reserved, she has suddenly become the “middle child” and she doesn’t mind being at home, I know this time with me will make her blossom as well. While Sarge naps, we will do Ready-Made Preschool Level 1 which I had planned to start with her in September.

I feel like our family will FINALLY – after five months of craziness – find a new normal come January.

Every year I dread the coming of January. The holidays are over, we take down all the Christmas decorations, it’s cold and there are more cold and dreary months ahead. It is also Dave’s busiest month at work. I am actually looking forward to January this year!

This decision has taught me an important life lesson. I have strong convictions to homeschool my children but if I went so far as to say that I WILL keep my kids home no matter what that quite possibly might not be best – even though I have strong convictions to homeschool!

As a parent we must be sensitive to the individual needs of our children and give ourselves grace to deviate from our original plans when God leads in a different direction.

- Elaine