Where to now?

What a huge learning curve. 

The homeschool world is bigger than I could have imagined. 

So many different 'reasons' people are choosing homeschooling - child's temperament, family lifestyle, opinions on the quality of schooling delivered en masse, religious, special needs...

And so many different approaches - classical, traditional, bought curriculums, distance ed, natural learning...

My head is spinning as we find a 'fit' for our family. 

Planned start date is Monday next week. 

[learning about air resistance]

Starting over.

Here I am at a new juncture in life and considering again whether its wise for me to keep a digital record of my journey. 

The truth is we forget. We adapt to change so well that its hard to really remember what life used to look like. 

Back when I started this blog I had two children (2&3) and was working about 8 days a fortnight while juggling them in different care settings 2 days a week. 

I honestly can't really even imagine that life now. And I've been on such a journey including adding another boy to the family in 2012 and having my firstborn go off to prep in 2013. 

And now another new change. This time a realization that school is not where my sensitive, inquisitive nearly 6 year old should be... and making the big decision to homeschool him. 

And so here we are. Right at the start of that journey. As green as can be. Fired up and ready to be transformed. Again. 

Sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation is something all mums experience at some point. They do say that it can be used as a form of torture. As a shift worker, I've always felt fairly well prepared for any sleep deprivation - but I am also well aware of the mind altering effects of 'overtiredness'. Every week when I drive home from night duty I have to find a space of mind where I don't over or under focus on driving. If I focus too much, I feel more tired. If I focus too little, I can loosen my grip on the steering wheel.


So why do I put Mr 2 through similar pain? You see both my boys have got to an age where any sort of sleep during the day greatly affects their ability to go to sleep in the evening. Mr 2 began to experience this lately. At first I worked at reducing the length of his sleep - waking him after an hour... but that hour still added 2-3hrs on to his bedtime. So now I try distracting him through his tired time to keep him awake. If he has been awake all day he falls asleep within minutes of laying down with us at bedtime.


This plan is foiled by any trip in the car for any more than 15 minutes or, by Mr 2 sneaking away quietly while I am distracted and falling asleep almost anywhere...


It's a work in progress :)

Sleeping across the threshold!

But it's a button

Next week is preparation week, and the following is our first week of our new routine. At the moment I am so tired from a busy week of work that I can't imagine having time to sit and be with the boys.


But it doesn't have to be hard.  Last week we were having a challenging day - both boys were a little tired and we were doing that horrible thing where the more I wished they'd play with something the less likely it became.


So I pulled out two containers filled them with rice and some loose buttons and gave one to each boy to rummage through. Mr 3 separated all the buttons and then spent another 20 minutes pouring rice into different containers. Mr 2 ate some rice, found some buttons and then just enjoyed mashing the mix around in his fingers.


Simple and easy and it allowed me time to take a breath, have a cup of tea and watch and enjoy the boys.

Overlap

Well the boys are no longer in care, and we've had our first week at home.


It feels like we've all taken a big deep breath of fresh air and we are all starting to relax. The difficult thing is that I haven't finished work yet, so there has beeen a bit of overlap where we are just sort of juggling our work around them being home. Because of that I've noticed that Mr 3 is really missing the stimulation of kindy. I look forward to being able to create time and space at home for him to engage and learn the way he was at Montessori.


We are moving in the right direction, wheels locked like the Tonka truck...

Two little meat heads

I always worry about how I am going to get my boys to eat what I cook.


I choose my words carefully when describing what we are having - the idea being that it has too be truthful (so they don't reject it based on it being a lie) but also sound yummy.


So tonight when Mr 3 asked what was for dinner I could have said "sausages, rice and carrots" but "yummy meat heads with sticky rice" apparently is much more appealing.


It went down in a flash!

Last week of care

Today is Monday. The boys have 3 more days of care (including today - as they've just left).


I am off to bed post night duty. I am tired and achey but I just want to get to bed, so I can get sleep over and done with and go to pick them up.


Mr 3 always requests that I pick him up first. He likes to see where Mr 2 has been all day. It is lovely when I'm able to collect them in that order because it gives Mr 3 some time to re-attach and connect before picking up his brother - he then meets him with a warm embrace.


Generally they request a trip to one of the local parks after care, they need to shake it all off... and it does help me get into the 'swing' of things too - excuse the pun!


Here they are watching the ducks and turtles at one of our local parks;

Now off to Zzzz.....