Inpsired - By My Oldest

I'm homeschooling my babies. I don't want to miss it. This learning. The light in there eyes, the joy, the excitement. I don't want someone else to see all those things in my kids, and for me to miss it. Angelina was in school for 2 years, and it killed me every day she went off to school. Someone else was getting the best of her, and I was getting this tired, cranky kids at the end of the day. And there was school work to do, ect. And I wasn't there to protect her. Save her from the bullies, big and small. That scared me. So, with much ado, hubby agreed to let me go ahead. Keep my sweet girl home, get the best of her, watch her eyes light up, enjoy, and teach her to luv learning.

I wasn't prepared for the battles, the tears, the "Do I have too?" Having to tell her the whole page of math problems were wrong and she would have to do them again. Correcting spelling, and asking her to write them out and the *sigh* that followed, and the scribbled attempts of corrections.

No one told me how I would question myself. Am I doing the right thing? Is she keeping up with grade 2 work? Why isn't she getting this math? What am I doing wrong? How can I explain it so she understands?



And the socializing. *Big SIGH* That is the 1st thing mainstream people mention. "It's a nice idea, its just that socializing is important too, right?" Or "Well, how do make sure she is getting socialized?" And, "Does she have friends her own age?" Some people are open discussion and listen what I have to say. Some people even nodd thier heads in agreement that yes homeschooling is good, and socializing isn't such a big concern, as they once thought. A few people, a very few people, shake their heads at me. "There are things you can't teach her. She needs to learn to socialize without you. She needs to learn without you always there." These people turn away from my attempt to explain. (this goes into a whole other topic of ignorant people - but I will save that for another post)




Despite people's concerns, and my own questioning, and the battles, I see it happening. She is growing and learning. We have had our struggles. Just before Christmas she made a very poor error in a social situation. This made me question myself huge. But with the help of my 'village' we picked up the pieces and moved forward. She made amends, and learned some important lessons.



Along with this, math has me questioning over and over if I can do this. I have fought the fear of not BEING able to do this. I have worried that I will fail her. She she won't get pass this...that I'm doing it wrong...if I could just figure out how to explain it to her....but through it all I've kept plugging away. Adding and subtracting numbers, talking it out with her, hours and hours of math. What else would I do? Admit defeat? Send her back to school?



But I - we must be doing something right. Her and I. Last week, just last week, she said math was fun. "This is easy," she laughed. Her math work was done quickly every day. Suddenly she gets it. So this is where I'm inspired.




It has taken 7 months of plugging away. She has struggled, fought, even hated math. But kept at it. And she 'gets' it.

Sometimes the struggle is long. Hard. Sometimes we hate it. Sometimes we fight it. But in the end, if what we are fighting for is good, it is worth the struggle.

She said to me last week, "I luv math!"