In the spring of 2010, Jeff and I decided to homeschool our two boys.<\/p>\n
Upon hearing the news, before asking why or how, most people asked us how long we were planning to keep it up. \u00a0Our reply? \u00a0\u201dAt least through November.\u201d<\/p>\n
We would test the waters and see how it went.<\/p>\n
So I bought a lot of cool school supplies. \u00a0And hired an Au Pair so that Jeff and I could both keep working while spending mornings with the boys. \u00a0I made color-coded spreadsheets to manage five people\u2019s schedules. \u00a0And reminded myself of the reasons we were trying this. \u00a0Because many days it seemed like a crazy idea.<\/p>\n
But the boys had started swearing \u2013 even more than I do. \u00a0And Ezra vowed he would become a lifelong smoker. \u00a0And Zach was growing up so fast. \u00a0And I was working in the afternoons and I missed the boys. \u00a0And my kindergartner kept telling me that he was stupid. \u00a0And my first grader kept saying that school was too easy. \u00a0And I wanted them to spend more time getting dirty and less time standing in line. \u00a0And did I mention that I missed them?<\/p>\n
So we put aside our fears that our kids would \u00a0become social misfits and gave it a go. \u00a0At least through November.<\/p>\n
Two years later, as we embark on our third year, much has changed. \u00a0Most important, we added Nafisa to our brood. \u00a0She\u2019s a fabulous teenager whose mother died and who needed a place to stay. \u00a0\u201cA place to stay\u201d morphed into us not being able to imagine our family without her.<\/p>\n
Other things have changed as well. \u00a0Spending so much time with boys helped me see some of their academic weaknesses more clearly. \u00a0So now we have one fewer job (mine), one less au pair, several new diagnoses, and a lot more time to hang out and raise bees.<\/p>\n
These days, I write about homeschooling the boys, helping a teenager navigate the crazy terrain of high school, and anything else that strikes me as interesting. \u00a0Homeschooling was all-consuming when we first started two years ago, and it is still the most common thing we get asked about at dinner parties. \u00a0The title of this blog not withstanding, though, homeschooling is just one of many things we have going on in a given day. \u00a0All of which I hope you\u2019ll stick around for. \u00a0Because the support, advice, and challenge I get from readers of this blog are part of the reason we made it through that first November.<\/p>\n
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In the spring of 2010, Jeff and I decided to homeschool our two boys. Upon hearing the news, before asking why or how, most people asked us how long we were planning to keep it up. \u00a0Our reply? \u00a0\u201dAt least through November.\u201d We would test the waters and see how it went. So I bought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n