Wow! Where have the last 2 months gone?

I seems hard to believe that is has been so long since I posted anything here... I was doing so well at getting something up at least once a month, too. Oh well...

Life goes on around here. I thought about posting something last week, but the only thing to report was everyone being sick with whatever virus has been going around, and I really didn't want to write about that. Everyone seems to have recovered now, with just the occasional lingering cough.

I guess the biggest change in the last couple of months is that I'm working basically full-time on the phones now (39-40 hrs/wk) and Mo. has been going to my friend Julie's Cottage School/Daycare. She is just getting ready to open up officially to the public, but she is watching him as a start while she gets things set up. She is such an inspiration to me. She knows so much about the little details of child development and learning, that I have never really paid attention to. Of course, she has been homeschooling for years, but it still blows me away when she tells me the things that Mo. has been doing and how that is an important precursor to being able to count, read, etc.... very cool stuff!

I have been really thinking a lot about homeschooling the kids. I have quite a few friends who homeschool, and the attitudes that I see coming home with Ma. and L. from school make me think that it (homeschooling) may be a good thing. (The attitudes are definitely NOT a good thing!)

I'm a little nervous about jumping in to homeschooling on my own. Not that I can't comprehend the materials or anything, but I worry about whether I have enough patience for my own kids to be able to teach them. A couple of options that I have considered are 1) enrolling them in Julie's school and work there with her to teach the kids between the two of us, or 2) homeschool on my own, but go to Julie's to trade off, a couple times a week... I can teach Spanish while she teaches my kids something else, or we can do something all together... or 3) Do some sort of correspondence program, where the kids are actually enrolled in a school like Maeser Academy, but do the work either online or in the home. All 3 options have their advantages and disadvantage. One of the major factors in deciding on any of these will be the economic factor. Since I will not be able to work full time and homeschool as well, (unless I sacrifice my sanity!) we will have to do a lot of numbers crunching to find the best option. Luckily, with my job, I do have the option to work nights and/or weekends, and can set my own schedule. the big thing is that when I work on that basis, I lose my hourly minimum wage, (but the per minute rate for the calls is higher) so the income from my interpreting would have the potential to vary widely. That makes it harder to budget. There are lots of things to consider, and we are thinking of heading this direction maybe next year, or the year after... We'll see how things progress. For the record, DD#1 (Ma.) is VEHEMENTLY opposed to homeschooling, because she "wouldn't get to see her friends"... hmm... given the way some of her friends act, that may be a very good thing!