A Week of Inward Struggles

Samantha: 69 Months, Week 2

Aedan: 33 Months, Week 4

After being gone on our trip to Great Wolf Lodge, it was kind of hard being back home and getting in to the swing of a busy work week again. Plus, it was nice being in a bigger city like Traverse City, and to be in a place where the snow was mostly melted. I think we are all ready for winter to be over. In fact, whenever Aedan prays, he prays for the snow to go away, and as our week started he commented, "My ready for the snow to go away..." Trust me buddy, we all feel the same way.

Aedan has been doing a really good napping at Miss Lisa's. In fact, there are even some days when Ben has to wake him up when he comes to pick him up. Here's a picture of Aedan sleeping away in his little bed. He usually sleeps on his tummy, so I was kind of surprised to see him laying on his back. Ben sent me this picture while I was at work, and it definitely made me smile. I'm glad that he is doing so well at Miss Lisa's, and now he's even sleeping in the same room as two of her little boys and a little baby in a pack and play. It was amazing how it worked out so quickly for us to find care, and I'm so glad he is being taken care of in someone's home. In fact, when we put him to bed at night now, he will often ask for us to "pet his back" which means to rub his back after he gets comfy on his tummy with his teddy bear tucked under one arm and his blankie under the other. I'm pretty sure that Miss Lisa started this with him and rubs his back every day before nap time. She also sings, "It's nap time, time to rest now." Aedan will sing that song for me occasionally and then gives me a cute little smile after he's done. Hopefully he doesn't get too upset when he has to stay home with Daddy after the semester is over instead of going to Miss Lisa's every day. :)

The rest of the week went by like normal. I had a pretty bad headache for part of the week. The days felt long and busy. I don't have many pictures or videos to share, and it was kind of a rough week all around with inward struggles and a lot of things on my mind.

Then on Thursday morning while I was in the bathroom getting ready, I saw a mouse run across the bathroom floor from the closet and out through the door that led to the main part of the basement. We put out a bunch of box glue traps as well as a flat sticky trap up in the hole in the ceiling in our bathroom. We figured since we'd heard noises in the wall, that might be a good place to try to catch one. Sure enough, on Friday morning there was a mouse stuck on the glue trap, so that's why we probably heard it scampering across the ceiling and in our walls. Our guess was that the mouse that I saw in the bathroom must have fallen out of the hole in the ceiling, hid in the closet when it heard me coming in, got really freaked out, and then ran across the floor to get away. It just freaks me out to think of mice crawling around our house at night or when we are gone, and I also don't like not knowing how many might be around and how they might be getting in to our house. This is definitely the part of home ownership that I don't enjoy.

The other struggle I have had this week has to do with Samantha's education and due to multiple factors, I started somewhat considering homeschooling, something I never thought I would seriously consider. I thought about it a lot, searched on the internet some for various homeschool curriculums, and even reached out to a few moms I know that homeschool their kids to see how they came to the decision to homeschool and what their experience has been like. It was difficult for me to know how much is just my reaction to something, or if it could possibly be that "that grass is greener on the other side." However, I have just been really unsettled with Samantha's experience in school throughout this year. At the beginning of the year, it was the behaviors in the classroom that were out of control. Now, most of the behaviors are mostly taken care of (even though I know that will always be an issue you deal with when in a class of kids). Samantha also moved to a different classroom when I started working at her school, which solved some problems we were encountering at the beginning of the year. However, still, the behaviors of some of the kids astound me, and it gives me a pretty clear picture of what type of expectations are probably required at home, if any. Samantha is not a behavior issue at all. She is sensitive to others and a respectful listener, so she does not require the discipline and redirection that so many other kids need. My hope would be that next year would be better with some of the behaviors worked out, but each kindergarten class has its own group of kids that greatly misbehave, meaning next year she is guaranteed to have some of these kids in her class again.

My issue now is that Samantha is advanced in math and reading, and just all around academically. She has basically topped off in the testing they do for kindergarten, and she is at least midway through 1st grade in her abilities, if not farther along that that. Samantha is very smart and picks up on things easily, so I feel like much of her time in school is wasted waiting for others to finish or to behave. Not much of an effort has been made to address her advanced skills. In fact, they have pretty much come out and said that they have to focus so much on the bottom 30% that they don't have much time and don't have much in place to encourage the learning of those on top. It's hard for me as a teacher because I know how school is, and I know how teachers have to help every student learn, which often means bringing up the low kids and spending a lot of time on remediation, which often results in the kids on the high end of the spectrum being left to learn more on their own. I know because I had to deal with it myself in my own classroom, but it feels so different now that it's my own kid affected. But, I don't want Samantha to just be pushed to the middle, and this is only kindergarten, so this problem is probably not going to go away as she goes through school. I want Samantha's love of learning to continue and not dwindle because she is not being challenged at school. Plus, she is at school from 8:00-4:00, and oftentimes I feel like she doesn't learn very much for all the time she spends there away from home and her family. Then, she comes home so exhausted after a long school day that our evenings together usually involve some play time, dinner, bath time, and bed time. They go by so quickly.

Now I'm sure all the schools in the area would be similar, so I don't think putting her in another school would change anything. I have never really thought of homeschooling as a serious option because I have always thought I would go back to teaching in my own classroom some day, and I think it's important for public schools to be good, to be better, so taking good families out of public schools is not going to help them out any. However, my mind has come back to homeschooling more and more this past year now that we are confronted with the education system in our own family. I am a licensed teacher, so I feel like I am doing a disservice to my children by not using my educational background to ensure they have a good education.

I am currently a lot more interested in the idea than Ben is, I think. He thinks that Samantha would be bored at home, that she would miss the social interaction with her peers, and that she would miss out on things like specials and just learning how to interact and deal with people that are different from her. However, I see her a lot at school, and I think she is probably bored at school. I would worry some about the social interaction she would miss, and that it would just be me responsible for making sure she knows everything she is supposed to know, so that's a lot of pressure on myself. However, not all the social interaction at school is positive either. Being part of a co-op group would help some with that, but that would only be every other week around here. However, if I were to take Samantha out of school to try homeschooling next year, then she would lose her spot and Bahweting, and what if I regretted my decision and it didn't work out to homeschool? Then, I probably wouldn't be able to get her back in again.

My other hesitation with pulling her out and doing homeschooling is just thinking about how long I would want to do it, and if I don't want to do it for the long haul, would it be better to just leave her in the schools? For example, I don't know how well-equipped I would feel to teach some of the middle school and definitely high school subjects adequately. Plus, there are so many groups, organizations, and sports, that they wouldn't be a part of it they were homeschooled. In addition to that reason, I think about how it could negatively impact our family financially if I homeschool instead of going back to work sometime in the next few years and make money for the family. Also, just dealing with young kids and maybe even a foster child at some point, while also still trying to teach Samantha everything she needs to know could be rather difficult and stressful at times. Maybe I wouldn't be able to do any better of a job than the teachers do at school with a class full of students.

I just feel so torn this year because I know it's not all about the education you get, life it not about trying to be as smart as you can possibly be, so I don't know how much of this is just me overreacting or if I need to be more trusting of the schools, the teachers, and Samantha being "okay" regardless of how she learns. I don't know if I need to stop looking for something "better." Or, if this is a stirring in my heart for a change for her. I am always so torn between knowing if how I feel is from me or possibly God speaking to my heart, and I have a really hard time distinguishing the difference sometimes. I don't know what is the most important factor to consider when thinking of Samantha's education, and this is definitely a decision that I need to think about and pray about more over the coming months.

On Sunday at church I was approached by a lady who is also a foster parent and was currently taking care of a two month old baby. However, she said it was looking more like a long term placement, and they weren't that interested in fostering babies anyways, so she was wondering what our interest would be in taking her on. Ben and I talked about it, thought about it, and prayed about, ultimately telling her that we would be more than willing to take the girl. We don't think we would be too interested in adopting at this point, but we would definitely be interested in a long-term placement. So, we will see what happens with this and what they decide about moving the girl to a different foster home. Regardless of what they decide, we will have the opportunity to babysit her overnight in a couple weeks to give the foster parents a chance to get away together. We are very excited to get our first opportunity to foster, and I think I feel a little anxious about it.

On Sundays we often take advantage of our time to rest and relax, get caught up on laundry and housework, and also just hang out together as a family. Here is Aedan putting on a little concert for us that evening before bedtime.

(Blog about February 21-27, 2017)