Anyway, I know I left you hanging with my last post, so here are some small details... to ME they have been huge!! This is where my homeschool journey started..... We ended public school on October 31 this fall, but I have to go back a little further to set the scene... let's see.... we will go back to Mid-May 2008 when I began my last trimester of Sahara's pregnancy. Suddenly, I was drained and feeling unable to find my energy. A month later I found out that my iron level was low. For whatever reason I had all the symptoms of someone that was severely anemic. I would get up to walk 5 feet and be breathless. I could not take care of my kids! That is hard for me to admit, but I felt like I had some serious life threatening illness. This is coming from a person that can NOT stand when people treat pregnancy like it is an illness. I LOVE to be pregnant. Fortunately, for me and my kiddos my husband is a teacher and he was able to pick up the slack as summer began. I was around and trying to appear useful, but I simply was not much help around here. That meant that a lot of things were not getting done. Imagine the desperate feeling of nesting, but being unable to accomplish much.
Now let's jump to July 30th! My sweet Sahara is born and I immediately start to feel wonderful... good pain meds do help. Hehehehe! No, really I did feel better all around. In the hospital they thought I was super human because I did so well with my recovery and kept telling me to take it easy and how impressed they were with me. Looking back it was quite impressive, but I get huge adrenaline highs after I have a new baby. We went home from the hospital and time rocked on no matter how high the adrenaline is there is only so much you can accomplish after being somewhat down for the previous 3 months! I had a lot of catch up to do. Summer ended a couple weeks later for public school and my husband went back to work leaving me here to manage the baby and three other kids. A new scenario, but we were making it! I had to manage getting the two older girls prepared for back-to-school time and that two weeks passed quickly. Soon I was balancing all the schedules of my bunch and running like a mad woman. I did not like the juggling of schedules, but decided I could survive it. I did not like it, though.
All the while we are in Hurricane season in Southeast Texas. And let me say this... I lived all 36 years of my life here and until the last 3 years we really have not seriously given thought to hurrincanes. Three years ago changed that with the EYE of Hurricane Rita going over our town. This year would be eventful, too. So, on with the story... When Sahara was a few weeks old we had a serious hurricane threat in the Gulf. We were under mandatory evacuation! I could not imagine evacuating with such a tiny baby, so we waited it out until the last moment. A couple of days before it would have been necesaary to evacuate we realized this hurricane was making landfall well to our east. That made it safe to stay. As fate would have it another "system" started to develop and much our shock it started barreling towards us. Hurricane Ike made landfall when Sahara was only about 6 weeks old and this time we did evacuate VERY QUICKLY and as close to the last minute as we could. We drove two miles away to our the in-laws house and spent the night and then, we headed out the next morning following my parents where we spent the night and waited it out in Waco for the day. That night we headed home to see the damage. Not really just to see the damage, but to avoid a disaster of a different nature. Imagine... no electricity, which would mean a thawing freezer on wood floors. Not only did we decide we did not want to have rotten food in our house. We did not want to have to replace that food or that freezer or THAT FLOOR. My husband even commented that we could maybe get new floors out of the deal, but I did not see the humor in having the busiest part of my home in destruction with a baby and three kids in the mix. EXHAUSTION! All was well with our home, by the way, but the yard was a mess and needed lots of yard work time. Did I mention that we were exhausted from the travelling during evacuation. The other thing I did not mention is that this event would change our lives FOREVER. When this "sytstem" STARTED forming my Savananh began to pray diligently for this hurricane to hit our area!!! @!@!WHAT!@!@ Yeah, that is what I said... imagine that. Her reason was so she would not have to go to school. Most people would laugh this off, but I was appalled that she disliked school that much! Click here and read a previous post about this and the decision we made. It really goes along with this post. Anyway, we did decide after some weeks pondering it that we would make the switch starting November 1st.
So, we have the new baby, a few Hurricane events and a lot of decisions to make about homeschooling and a lot of research and uncertainty. We jump in feet first! ... at the busiest time of the year.... lots of birthdays happen in our family at this time and I go overboard for their parties.... along with Thanksgiving and two rounds of houseguests.... then, Christmas... another round of birthdays follow and all the while I am trying to figure out how the balance all the changes. If I had it to do over... I would do the same... maybe... maybe not! :) I would definitely not recommend it this way! It has greatly added to my stress, but like I said in the beginning some things just do not HAVE a good time and sometimes if you wait for a good time you miss part of the benefit of making that change!!!
Okay, off I go to my DISASTEROUS house to start the afternoon portion of schooling around here. Did I mention I have had a good week? (Read the last post.) Also, there are those that may think they are seeing a huge change in me.... you are... I hope you ALWAYS will. After this trial God will move on to another area of my life... this is just the current issue!!
"And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galations 6:9
That was some story! Crazy having to evacuate with a NB! That had to be so rough on you!
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the no electricity thing, we were w/o power for over a week in the fall - on my DUE DATE! And I was doing my first homebirth. Providence saw fit to leave me with child through the whole ordeal and I didn't have to give birth by flashlight. LOL!
I'm glad that you posted this - I actually really needed to read it. Got me thinking as I am the same way about constantly being dissatisfied with who/where I am. Often makes me moody and depressed. You've shown me that it's not such a bad thing after all to be unhappy with ones self. It's the Lord doing a work in us. Thank you!
This is our second year of HSing. Believe me, it will get easier. I don't have a NB, but I can tell you that once you find a rhythm, no matter what age they are, all will be well with the world. My first year I cried at every moms night out I went to, and they were once a month. I'm learning to chill a little bit. But I still stress that my soon to be 2nd grader hasn't mastered reading yet. I'm hoping one day it'll just click. Have fun at you HSing seminar. What curriculum have you decided on? We're using My Father's world Exploring countries and cultures. I like it cuz they're together for everything except LA and math.
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