My blog tells me how many posts I have published. I have published 1837 posts. My first post was October 9, 2008. Some of my pictures were over-edited, especially in the beginning. I began blogging about homeschooling my then third grade, nine-year-old daughter. She has now graduated from high school and is an adult. At the time, my youngest was a toddler, only 18 months old. She is now in sixth grade. I had three older daughters at the time. Two were in high school and one was in upper elementary. All three are now adults. Two are married. One has had a son of her own and is pregnant with a second. Two of my older girls eventually came home to be homeschooled and graduated.
Like looking at a photo album or old home movies, rereading posts and looking at the pictures over the years that I posted here is a reminder of all that this journey held. I remember the nervousness of those first weeks of homeschooling. I can read about the health issues that we all went through. I can read about the fear and frustration with unemployment, and how scary it was to try to homeschool at a time when we could barely afford food. I blogged about loss when my father-in-law and grandmother passed. I blogged about the pain of moving out of our home when it held such mold issues that we were getting ill.
Then there were the lighter moments. The science experiments, the books we shared, the math woes (there were plenty), the projects. Homeschooling becomes such a part of life that it can be difficult to differentiate between "school" and "home." A homeschool mom will begin to see all of life as learning, not just the book work that happens. The swim lessons, the theater participation, the Sunday sermon, the bedtime story, making Christmas cookies... all of it suddenly takes on new meaning. Experiences count towards life and learning.
Oh my... yes!
One day my homeschooling days will be done. I pray my children can look back on this blog as a glimpse into their lives, as well as into the heart of their mother. Perhaps one day a grandchild will read about the journey their grandmother embarked on with her children and gain a sense of their history. Homeschooling has become a part of our family identity, even for the child that graduated from public school. She married a man that was homeschooled with his siblings. She wants to homeschool her children.
I have several more years of homeschooling ahead of me. My youngest is my only student now, but she has seven years left before she graduates, unless she graduates early. That means there is seven years left of homeschool adventures.
I didn't blog as much about my girls when they hit their high school years. Their independence meant that I wasn't as involved in the actual process of their learning. In fact, in the last couple of years, I slowed down my blogging immensely. The reality is that, I began college and life got busy for me. I had my own classes to take.
Recently, I realized that homeschooling moms all over the country often have other things they do besides homeschooling. Some work. Some are in college. Many were like me, with a broad expanse of ages and grades. Most of us homeschool moms have full schedules and even fuller hearts. I used to blog about those "extras" that were a part of my life. I stopped doing that, putting it all in different blogs or just not writing about those topics. Now I wonder if my experiences can help others.
After all, going back to college after twenty-five years brought a bunch of lessons for me. Doing so while homeschooling and helping care for a chronically ill daughter has also taught me much. And so, I think I will go back to adding some of my personal life to this blog. Homeschooling and life mix so much that it is difficult to separate the two at times.
No comments:
Post a Comment