Updates and Thoughts

I realized this morning as I was reading through my old blog posts that I need to update a couple of things. One of my firsts posts was about a wonderful encourager named Lynn who blessed my life with her words at a time when I really needed it. Lynn went home to be with the Lord just a couple of months ago and even though I didn't know her well, she had a profound impact on me during that first trying year in Mexico. The power of a word spoken in due season is truly miraculous.

It's been 18 months now since my VBAC water-birth in Mexico and it was one of the most healing experiences of my life. I now have a beautiful daughter and I enjoy her more and more each day. For those of you who don't know, I had a very traumatic (unnecessary) C-section with my third son, so this journey toward a VBAC water-birth was very significant for me. God answered my every prayer and exceeded my every expectation for the kind of birth I was desiring, and I look forward to doing it again this August when baby#5 is due.

Okay, back to the present...

I am already in curriculum research mode for next school year. The curriculum craze hits me every February or March and I spend the following months looking for home school catalogues in the mail, perusing used curriculum websites like vegsource.com and homeschoolreviews.com and making notes in my notebook. Each night I settle down to my hot tea and catalogues and am entranced for hours. It's intoxicating; beautiful new materials, exciting possibilities for learning, reading other mom reviews who used this or that writing program last year, putting together dream plans for each child. I get starry eyed just thinking about it. Have I mentioned that I love homeschooling? I do. I don't home educate primarily because I feel like I should or I have to, I home educate because it excites me! This is my dream job!

Of course there are days when I want to throw in the towl, morning sickness for instance has to be the biggest de-motivator there is. The first three months of pregnancy are just survival for me, and many other home school Moms with several children afoot, but there are lessons to be learned in every season and this 'morning sickness season' has produced some good fruit in my boys. B(8) and A(6), have learned how to carry their little brother and sister to the van and safely belt them into their car-seats. They have learned how to change diapers and put socks and shoes on the little ones and have even spent a few mornings rubbing my back or playing with my hair to try to ease my discomfort. I have been so blessed in these moments and tried to remember that all is not lost if we don't get around to math that day. They will not go into adulthood without knowing how to borrow and carry, it will just have to happen another day. And don't let the previous few sentences paint a perfectly rosy picture; we have also had days where someone dropped and exploded a whole gallon of milk on the kitchen floor, a certain 3 yr old did not take his 'business' to the bathroom (several times), and they fought like cats and dogs until the veins on my forehead were popping out. Such is life. Still, I wouldn't trade our home-education adventure for the world. Life is messy any way you look at it, the blessing is being in the mess together!