(My mom and my younger sister)
Then, on July 31st, L-girl started her junior year in the local public high school.
This same week, D-man left to spend a week in Washington D.C. for a conference and then on August 8th, moved back to his apartment on campus.
On August 10th, L-girl and A-man left for a 3 day leadership retreat.
On August 11th, we moved A-girl onto her campus - not the same one as D-man.
It was very strange not to have the whole gang there to move her in and say goodbye...and somehow with less people there, I still managed to forget to get a picture of she and I. (Oops.) The drive home was even weirder with only 2 kids. We were like a "normal" family driving down the road in our mini van!
We are down to a 4 kid household and let me tell you it feels very strange. It is very quiet. Even though the two oldest are not exactly our wildest/loudest children. Somehow their absence makes it very, very quiet around here.
We started our homeschool year yesterday. We still have three doing school at home. (I will be honest, I would like to continue homeschooling through high school. I suspect I am going to be outvoted though.)
Rainman and I are doing things a bit differently this year and I think it is going to work out well. We have actually divided the subjects, so he will officially teach/be in charge of some and I will officially teach/be in charge of some. We didn't do a good job of co-teaching/communicating last year and things got lost in the shuffle. His work schedule has changed in that he is off most Mondays and Tuesdays and most of his other shifts are from noon to 8 p.m. so he will have plenty of time to teach. He does work a few 7 to 7 shifts, but, I don't think that will mess things up too much.
I am actually excited for the school year. I think it is fairly rare in the homeschooling realm to have a husband/dad that actually wants to teach and be involved in the day to day things connected with our school. Rainman has gotten more and more interested and involved every year. But, what I think has happened in the last few years is that I have felt a little pushed aside by his interest and his own excitement to teach. He is the kind of person that jumps in with both feet and doesn't test the waters. So, he ended up jumping past me and took off swimming with the kids at his side, while I was still carefully hanging onto the railings and climbing into the water. They unintentionally left me behind.
I mean, I was still involved, but it was more often than not having work delegated and assigned to me by Rainman. Like, "Make sure they read this chapter." "Here is the science quiz." "Study the capitals with them before they take the test." If you know me at all, you know I really don't like people telling me what to do....even if I am married to that person. Or maybe I should say, especially if I am married to that person! Ha!
Gone were the days of me designing our days and taking off for a fun field trip to get donuts or popsicles, just because I felt like it or something meshed with my lesson plans. Instead, I spent quite a bit of time just waiting for someone to need me and then when they did, having to catch up and figure out what they had been working on with Rainman because I wasn't as involved in the nitty gritty details of what they were learning. Kind of hard to explain.
But, anyway this year, we are splitting the course work. We are each creating our own lesson plans for the kids. I will still have to see how I can work on the spontaneous field trips that won't interfere with Rainman's school day plans. But, I am more excited for this year of school than I have been for quite a while. I am hoping that our two approaches and teaching styles will help our kids become even more well rounded in their education. We shall see, I guess.
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