Homeschool: Here we come!

Well, after a few years of really researching, pondering, praying, researching some more and talking with lots of homeschoolers, we have officially decided to homeschool Mason.  He liked 1st grade.  He liked his teacher.  He wasn't struggling.  But, he came home grouchy and tired at the end of the day and had no time or energy to do anything.  I was certainly not going to try to convince my 6 yr. old to do homework and read after a full day of work.  I mean, he is only 6.  So, among approximately 1 million other reasons I have been thinking about homeschool, this was the final straw.  I talked with Dan, he gave me his very nervous, but supportive approval and I pulled him out.  His last day I felt so so sad.  I felt like I was taking away a lot of fun experiences from him.  I had to really think and feel hard to make sure I wasn't doing this because of my own issues with public school and actually doing it because I think it is what's best for him.  In the end, every time I thought about homeschool and all of the awesomeness that it allows a whole family to be involved in, I would get really excited and happy.  But, when I would start thinking about what he was missing out on, I would start to feel really nervous and sad.  I couldn't quite tell why these feelings were coming.  That night I saw a few quotes on Facebook that were just for me. One talked about change and the other talked about looking to the future joys that come with change instead of looking at the joys in the past that we are leaving behind. I am so excited to get to teach my kids at home.  Today was our first day and I loved it.  Mason loved it.  Logan loved it.  Logan is eating up all of the learning that Mason is trying to teach him.  There were lots of moments of joy today.  I felt so happy to see my cute little kiddos talking to each other and interacting in a teacher/student type way.  It was just adorable. I didn't even ask Mason to work with Logan, he just naturally tried to teach him what I was having Mason work on.  Every question they asked, I tried to answer with a really good answer instead of just saying "I don't know" or "we'll check on that later" and then forget to check.  It was a great day. Was it a hard day?  Sure as heck was.  I kept thinking about how quiet it was when Mason was at school and Logan didn't have anyone to fight with.  I still am mourning the loss of that quiet that I only had for a few days.  But, I also feel really good about the adventure we have ahead of us this year.  There is no better time to try this out than right now, so I'm going for it.  So, Here's to a new adventure. My main goal is pretty much to see how weird we can get them before we send them, unprepared into a harsh world where they have no idea how to deal with humans from the outside world.  But, hopefully, they will learn a few things too ;)