News on Brett. Brett’s family is overseas meeting him and Randall (the other child they’ll be adopting) right now. Pray for good travel mercies for them.
Amusing cat news. My mother-in-law has a nickname for Edda (my black cat): Bellatrix after Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter books. The reason: Bellatrix’s maiden name was Black. (She was a cousin of Sirius Black.) It fits Edda to a T. My little black cat has also become a little black bully and is antagonizing one of my in-laws’ tabbies who is living outside. I’ve been trying to tell her that she needs to be nice as she is a guest in their home. CATS!
Daniel news. My mother-in-law and I have embarked on a project to catch Daniel up as much as we can before he starts school for the fall. We went to Lakeshore Learning last Saturday and got some posters and books and are working with him throughout the day. We’re also working on life skills and adaptive learning so my little munchkin is dealing with potty-training boot camp and also things like learning how to drink out of a regular cup. So far, we’ve got the drinking from a cup memorized and we’ve managed to teach him days of the week/months of the year/how to use a calendar without any of the insipid songs/videos that his home teacher from the school district used.
Thoughts on Homeschooling. As I’m “homeschooling” right now, I’m kind of looking suspiciously at some homeschooling moms who talk about how they don’t want to send their kids to public school because they’ll miss out on all the stuff like reading Beatrix Potter with them and reading all the great literary classics in high school. Guess what? My mom worked full-time, sent us to private school (K-5) and public school (6-college)… and still did all of that with us. It’s called “being an involved parent”. Seriously, if you want to be a housewife, be a housewife and own that decision. Just please don’t try to rationalize your life decisions by using your kids as a pawn.
And for those who might surf on here and start a flame war about how I hate homeschoolers, my mother-in-law homeschooled my husband and sister-in-law from K-12. The woman has an “anything-they-can-do-I-can-do-better” attitude toward the public school system… and she *did* do it better. Both of them graduated high school at age 15, graduated college at 20, and have Master’s degrees in their fields. Believe me, I know a pretty decent spectrum of homeschoolers and homeschooling parents; but there are some parents who I just don’t respect because they’re living vicariously through their kids.
Baseball. My boys are #1 in their division and are 1.5 games ahead of the Dodgers. (They’re like 11.5 games ahead of the other teams in the NL West.) *sticks her tongue out at her husband* I’m hoping my boys keep doing well. Another World Series title would be lovely this October.
Summer in the desert. It was 104F today. *sighs* I hate heat. It’s why I never went to the state fair when I was living up north — it was always over 90F and I had no desire to walk around when it was that hot. I love four distinct seasons and am kind of hoping that we’re called to a place that has them for Jon’s next parish.
Speaking of such things… The circumstances around my “special intention” are heating up so please pray that things keep moving in a positive direction. Thanks!
For more Quick Takes, visit Carolyn at Svellerella who is guest-hosting this week while Edel is going on.
#4. A-men! We chose to homeschool, because some of the unique challenges our kids faced were not, or could not be addressed in a regular school setting. I read with the kids when they were in school, and I enjoyed the classics again with my high schoolers, but something was missing and we started home school. With access to Open University courses, some in our kids’ first languages, we have been able to not only fill many gaps, but some of our kids got the chance to excel in many areas. While my kids won’t graduate at 15, Craig is on his way to start military service at 18 with a double BSc in Computer Science and Cognitive Science. I am, however, aware of my limits, and I’m sending my little kids to school for next year to learn to read and write Hebrew.
Aaahhh, so according to #2 YOU are a cat lady! My apologies. My family already teases me about talking our lizard. I can’t imagine how bad it might get if I had cats! Have a great weekend, friend.
Your thoughts about homeschooling are much appreciated. I sometimes feel like I’m “less than” because I want to run my own interests alongside those of my kids, and because I like having them in school. Not because anyone tries to make me feel that way, but because I feel that niggling “you SHOULD want to homeschool your kids!”