homeschooling & a little more....

Yes, I am a homeschooling parent & yes, I work part-time as well & I guess part-time again too. The fact is, I have always carried many different hats while being a mommy as most of us mommies do. It's not just taking care of babies, wiping bottoms, trying to discipline, teach & correct that fill my days or never really has. Ever since we married, we both have been involved in ministry, serving, working of some sort together & individually.

Our decisions to homeschool was not just one of those, knew we would homeschool forever moments. In fact, we may only homeschool for one or two years... it's hard to say. Life hands us many unexpected things at every turn it seems.

I guess... that's what keeps it interesting and definitely always guessing.

Inititally, I homeschooled our oldest 2 when they were still preschool age. We didn't really have access to a preschool at the time, so it was up to me to make a schedule, charts and come up with fun activities for each day. I don't remember all the details, but I know we did lots of crafts and reading together. It was fun, just the three of us. I also carried other responsibilities as the need arose and pretty much always met with other moms, had a group of girls to disciple and kept involved as much as I was able. Having two children, 16 months apart certainly wasn't enough, I suppose.

Then, when our oldest was ready, off she went to "Reading Class",which is very similar to Kindegarten, and she pretty much never looked behind. She loved school and she loved me, but she really loved her friends and new social life. Eventually, Josiah followed suit and suddenly, we had two elementary age children in school full-time. This enabled me to get a part-time job, which I did. A few months later, number 3 arrived. And life just sort of seemed to be put on pause for a little while....

Now, about 4 years later, I have one in preschool, homeschool the oldest 2, and have a precious little 2 yr. old that follows me like a shadow. In the last 4 years, I have taught a whole classroom, taught one at home, taught none, and now teach 2.

I still also carry other hats- such as; helping my husband with discipling the junior-high and highschool age girls, serving on the worship team, and most recently working part-time at our local Starbucks. I'm still trying to figure out how to balance all of that, but hopefully, the balancing act will become easier with time.