1st day of school

The boys started back to school on August 18th (way too early in my opinion!)  Here they are ready to go:

Tyler is in 5th Grade this year

Jesse is in 4th Grade

Goofy as ever

Ok so now for the truth.  It has been a struggle for me to send the boys back to school this year and here is why.  Last year Tyler was miserable.  He had a great teacher who we talked to a lot and we worked together trying to make school enjoyable  for him but for whatever reason he just was not happy at all.  I have lots of different theories on that subject that I won’t bore you with.  Tyler begged me last year to pull him out of school but by the time I was willing to do that it was so close to the end I just told him to stick it out for the year and we’d change things up next year.  I told him I’d do what ever he wanted to do because we were both at the end of our ropes. 

All summer long he told me he wanted to home school this year.  So I prepared for that.  It’s not something I haven’t researched before anyway so I knew what I had to do and already had a good idea of what I wanted to do (we nearly did this last year too).  Jesse thought he’d probably stay home too.  So that they’d know what it was going to be like we did “school” type stuff several days during the summer and they seemed to enjoy it.  I was geared up for it and got into the mind set.

Towards the middle of the summer he started swinging back and forth about it for several reasons.  We had some talks about it and I told him that we’d do what ever he wanted to….that’s what I’d promised him at the end of the year.  In the end he said he wanted to home school.  So I didn’t get ready to send them back.  A week before school started Jesse started deciding he wanted to go to school, then Ty.  Three days before school started I told them they had to make a decision.  Ty thought and thought about it and decided to go.  We hurried and got their things bought and got them ready.  I went to back to school night and signed Ty up for band (the one thing he is excited about) and rented him a trombone.  And so they started school.  So far Ty seems to be doing pretty well.  He likes band and hasn’t complained about being too bored or other kids being too mean yet.  Really I just want him to be happy, he was so down on himself last year and really negative.  Hopefully it goes well!  Jesse’s just a normal kid as far as school goes.  He has the normal ups and downs!

As for me I’m still a little lost.  There are days I’m so glad that I’m not trying to teach the kids on top of everything else I’m doing.  But probably more often than that I’m wondering what it would have been like and what we’d be doing, if we would have liked it, if Ty would be happier being able to speed up and on and on.  It would have forced me to cut a few things out of my life that I probably need to cut out anyway and simplify.  I still find myself looking at homeschooling blogs and looking at ideas of things to do with them.  I have started doing things again with Tracen to fill that gap.  And it wouldn’t hurt if I just spent that time cleaning my house either!

Anyway, we’re back to school, and so far we seem pretty happy about it!