Feeling the Love

In the year 1999, I found myself  living in a new state again, getting acclimated, trying to sort out our new normal. Over the course of a summer and with some valuable input from ladies God placed in my path, I, with my husband's help,  decided to embark on the adventure we call "homeschooling". You might guess that this was no small undertaking. 


While it was a big challenge and an even bigger commitment (or maybe that should be reversed!), my children were all pretty happy with the decision. At the time, I had a 7th grader, 4th grader and a 2nd grader. That little 2nd grader barely looked up from the dinner table after our grand announcement and said, "Good. Now my teacher won't keep telling me to slow down, I'm working too fast." You know, I didn't even know that was going on. (and it wasn't because she was making mistakes.) 


I clearly remember the excitement, fear, and all-out joy over choosing our new school books. Oh! And the fun of getting those boxes loaded with OUR books! However, and you might have experienced this, it wasn't all rosy. In fact, at times it was awful. Not as awful as keeping up w/ 7 - 8 different teachers and their after-school plans for my family, but awful nonetheless. Please note: MOSTLY it was wonderful. Mostly.


I distinctly remember having goals for that year. One child needed to be released from the pressure of perfect grades and the sense that a "B" was failure. One child needed to be free to explore the fun of learning and see all that was out there. And then one needed to be shown that he wasn't dumb (by anyone's standards!) and discover how very smart he is. They all needed to know how much was out there for them and that it was all accessible. 

Our first day of homeschooling! Taylor, Mike, Rachel

Back to awful. Each child, and this won't surprise you a bit if you've raised or taught more than one child, experienced school in totally different ways. TOTALLY. Even so, there was one with whom I tended to go round and round. On the aforementioned "awful days" I struggled to keep learning fun. I feared losing him academically and that was before I brought him home. I certainly didn't want to finish him off and cut off his potential or convince him that learning was some dreaded task. I  wanted him to thrive, no  flourish. But on an awful day, which may or may not have had a thing to do with the kids or homeschooling, but could've had more to do with me and my own issues, on that kind of day, at least once, I dropped the math book in his lap and harshly said, "FINE! Teach yourself math!" Son, right here and now I apologize. I was wrong.

However, all 3 of those same children are now full-grown adults. 1 is married and 2 are in college. Today was the first day of classes. My precious child, now 21 years old, a junior in college on a full academic scholarship, called home. He chatted about 15 minutes. I listened. He told me about driving issues, parking issues & cute girl issues. He told me about his schedule, his book buying and how badly his truck was running. He told me about his professors and who was in his classes that he knew.  Basically, he just called to tell me all about his first day of class. My heart is full. SO FULL!