Being a mom is tough

I have said this several times lately.

I am sure i will continue saying it until my kids are grown HA, probably will be saying it then too.

This week we made a big decision in our family.

After only homeschooling our boys since August we decided to put them in school.....

Sometimes as mom we have a plan. As all moms know rarely do our plans turn out exactly how they are in our minds......

I plan my days the night before and i have 50 things on the list to do and am luckily if i get 10 done. it doesn't mean i gave up it just means life happened and those things had to shift and that's OK.

So when we decided last year to pull our kids out of private school to home school never did i think after 5 months would being putting them in public school ;) but you see once we got every one home and started homeschooling i realized this was not going to be as smooth as i envisioned. did we make a mistake at pulling them out? i don't think so. once we began homeschooling i realized our 7Th grader was really struggling in a few areas and i even spoke with my resource teacher who did some testing and confirmed what i was worried about, our daughter was actually pretty far behind in math, and needed a lot of extra practice in writing/ English subjects at that point i tried moving things around to help her out more but as time went on i knew i wasn't able to spend the time we really needed to spend with her.

So plans had to change. Liz is going to high school in a year and a half (yikes!) and she has to be caught up at that point, that is not a option. she is about 2 years behind in math so that is a little of a challenge, but not impossible. Liz HAS to be the priority in our school days. Now that does not mean we care about Liz's education more, it just means my boys are at grade level (or ahead) and they are 7 and 8 so school days with them are ummm long haha they require me to literally be sitting there with them making sure they do every single thing if i don't they start goofing off and thus Liz gets further behind. Let me just say Liz is a AMAZING kid, she is a blessing to have as a child so helpful she always gives 100% etc she is a great student she does all tasks and does them with all she has the problem is she must have missed some basics some where along the way and it was never noticed (probably because she is such a great student and never causes any kind of problem).

So we had to regroup and the conclusion we came to is that the boys would go back to school. I would home school Liz still. And we would hire a tutor to help Liz get caught up in math.... You see i have heard from so many people that one of the things you have to do when you are homeschooling is you have to constant reevaluate where you are and what is best for EACH child, I know not all homeschooling moms would agree with me on that one but i don't think there is anything wrong with some kids going to school and some staying home. I have always said i wanted to home school for junior high, i think that is the toughest age and i wanted to really know (and experiencing) what my kids are going through at this crazy age i want to develop our relationship even more and i want John and I to have more of a direct approach on who and what my kids are doing at that time, so we have been talking about homeschooling since before Liz began school and barely felt the OK from the Lord this last year and Gods timing is impeccable.always!

So here is a little about the road to school.

David is probably my most sensitive kid, his has a big exterior and such a soft heart. David is a good student but take a little while to catch on to new concepts and change. So i was really worried about him going to school. I tried EVERYTHING i could think of without having to lie to get the boys a transfer to another school in our district, you see the school closet to my house is a fairly low performing school. well apparently it is VERY tough to get a transfer. So my husband said just take them to check out the school you never know. Well one of my very best friends taught at this particular school and told me what teachers i would want and told me that there are some amazing teachers at the school.

So we went to check it out that Friday, the principal was amazing and turns out she goes to our church YAY God, and her daughter is in youth group with Liz! she took us on a tour of the school introduced us to teachers and told me before we left that our boys would be well taken care of and that she promised they would get great teachers and we would be happy with there experience. And i learned something about myself, i was a school snob and i felt so bad, because i pray all the time for my kids i want them to have the best experiences (like all moms) but i want them to be on my terms like i was saying "OK God the kids are going to school BUT it has to be the place i chose" like hello Raquel who are you to tell the Lord what is best like he doesn't know where they would go and where the paths there lives were going before they were born! But God is so cool and so gentle in how he shows us things.

David was nervous and not sure of it and i told him well we could try it and then if it is not the right place for us we will go back to homeschooling, his nerves seemed settled....

Johnathan is a REALLY smart kid, he can learn something today and masters it quickly, but he gets very easily distracted he needs a teacher who is firm and attentive. He was a little nervous but he tends to not mind new situations and tends to move to the beat of his own drum so school was just another fun thing to do.

So they started on Monday and they got the EXACT teachers i wanted (and my friend had told me i wanted) and Johnathan even had a kid in his class he know from church God is so amazing i tell you. The boys love it, Liz seems to be enjoying it much better, and the little ones who i thought weren't affected either way seem to be having so much more fun (probably because i have had time to sit and play and hold them a little more) So for our family, at this time it has been a fabulous decision and we are so at peace about it