It's Official, Sort Of

I'm pregnant! No, I'm joking. But I'll bet I gave a few of you a bit of a start, didn't I? Well, the news I'm about to lay out might be quite the same kind of bombshell for some of you, though I have shared bits and pieces of it with many of you already. What's official is that two of my kids are now enrolled in private school. Let me explain:

The church at Woodland West offers a scholarship to the children of members who would like to attend Pantego Christian Academy. PCA is an academically rigorous Christian school "dedicated to promoting lifelong learners and followers of Christ in all areas of their lives." When we came to Woodland West in September for our interview, several people offered information about PCA and just sang its praises to the skies. And I took that information and politely put it in File 13. After all, I wasn't interested in putting my kids in school--I was perfectly happy homeschooling, and so were my kids.

But God, in His infinite wisdom, spoke to my heart and reminded me that I'm not the only decision-maker here. He quietly and patiently guided me to seek the counsel of several key people who would pray with me and for me as I suddenly found myself wrestling with the question: What if?? What if I stopped homeschooling? What if I put the kids in private school? What's the best that could happen? What's the worst that could happen? What do I think? What does Randy think? What do the kids think? Advantages? Disadvantages? For seven days I pondered these and many other questions, albeit "in the abstract," because we really weren't going to consider putting our kids in school, were we?

After receiving and accepting the offer to come to work at Woodland West, the idea that we might be about to make more than one major life change began to take root. My friend Tracy, whom you should know well by now, was instrumental in getting the ball rolling when she spent about an hour and a half on the phone with me one afternoon, answering all my questions and filling in a lot of gaps in my knowledge of the school. At that point the idea started becoming a whole lot more attractive to me.

I should probably mention that as happy as we have been in our homeschool setting, I can say with absolute assurance that this year was the first year that I really started to suffer from a lack of confidence. Yes, the kids are getting a good core education, but I'll be the first to admit that I have for the most part become the kind of homeschooling mom that I always said I'd never be: the kind that stays put inside her four walls all day. "After all," I used to proclaim, "we can go here and we can do that while everybody else is beholden to the school calendar, we can be free as birds, taking advantage of small crowds at museums, the zoo, etc., while the other kids are in school." But did we actually do all those things I said we could do? Of course not! I am schooling three kids with Sonlight AND have a preschooler, for crying out loud! It takes all day! We don't have time for anything else!

Seriously, this is a personal decision for every single person so how I feel is entirely my business, and the way I feel is that especially where Tyler and Darcy are concerned, I was finally starting to get this niggling feeling that they were being "deprived." Again, agree or disagree with me, it really doesn't matter. I feel how I feel. The bottom line is that yes, if I tried hard enough I could probably make more opportunities available to my kids, but left to my own devices it just wasn't going to happen. Then there's the whole "socialization" issue. Anybody who knows my kids knows they have NO trouble making friends; in fact, it's just the opposite. They make friends everywhere they go! And even that became a sore spot for me: I wanted more opportunities for my kids to spend time with friends other than their siblings. And sports? Perhaps a musical instrument? Band? Orchestra? School play? Yes, homeschoolers can do all these things if they know who to talk to and go through the proper channels. Maybe I just didn't try hard enough.

BUT . . . I have absolutely no doubts about the "rightness" of putting the kids in PCA. Well, except for the cost, maybe. Thank goodness for scholarships! When we got to town we set up an interview with the Director of Admissions, who took us on an informal tour of the school and let the kids go in their prospective classrooms as well as other parts of the school (the library, music room, art room, etc.). Even though the kids had been gradually warming up to the idea of leaving their homeschool cocoon for the first time since I first posed the idea to them back in September, by the time the tour was over Tyler was saying, "So when do we get to start school?" Let me tell you, that was HUGE for him. And Tracy has invited us to just about every possible event at PCA in the last two weeks: A special Christmas Chapel program where the 5th and 6th graders performed a program that they also performed out at Six Flags over the weekend; the high school's production of Oliver Twist; the band's (Elementary, Jazz and Secondary) Christmas concert; and Tyler has been to most of Brennan's (Tracy's son) basketball games and Boy Scout meetings since we got here. This has all been for the sake of helping the kids to see what sorts of things they might be able to get involved in.

So today was the final step in the admissions process and Tyler and Darcy are both set to start school on January 3rd when the rest of the students return from Christmas break. But here's the hitch: Poor Peyton's class is full. Both classes, actually. If there were three 2nd grade classes we wouldn't have this problem (maybe), but because there are only two classes and they're both full, it looks like she's stuck at home until the fall (or until an opening is available). And bless her heart, she is completely fine with it. Not that she's not excited to go to PCA, but she has been so good-natured about the whole thing, saying that no matter what happened, whether she was enrolled in school or was homeschooled for the rest of the year, "It just doesn't matter to me." So I will continue to homeschool her for the next five months or so, and of course I will homeschool Sawyer most likely until he is ready to start 1st grade, maybe even 2nd. Who knows? As I have said since Tyler was six years old, we'll just take it a year at a time and see how things go. Finally, FINALLY maybe Peyton will get the attention she deserves! And I might even have time to teach Sawyer to read like he's been asking me to do since August!!!