A long, long post about preschool for my kids

Our family has had a complicated relationship with preschool. When our oldest was 3 we sent him to preschool at our parish school. We weren't quite sure what the compelling reasons were for sending him, we just thought it would be good for him. I was pregnant at the time and also had a 2 year old. He ended up doing really well, despite our worries over his behavioral problems at home, and he really enjoyed going to school those two mornings a week. We, however, didn't love the school, and had heard through the grapevine that the school was probably going to be closing in the near future. So at the end of that year, we decided we wouldn't be sending him back. We toured a few other schools, but I just really could not wrap my mind around any of them. So we didn't make a decision. And then we still didn't make a decision. Until finally we realized that the decision that we *had* made was actually that we would be keeping him at home the following year.

I had been going back and forth in my mind already about whether or not we would end up being a homeschool family, or send our kids to a traditional brick and mortar school. Truthfully, before kids, I swore up and down that I would *never* homeschool and I could see us thriving much better in a traditional setting. But somehow once we started actually considering the very real possibilities, I fell in love with the idea of what homeschooling *could* be. And so that year when our oldest was 4 I decided to try it. And by try it, I mean, moderately ease into doing some "preschool type stuff" at home with more intentionality, to see if I thought it was something we could actually pursue.

So I planned ahead. I bought a very cute and non-stressful looking Catholic preschool curriculum, and some materials and started off on a pretty strong foot. The wrench in the plan was....life. It was a very difficult year for our family. Having our oldest at home was such a blessing. It felt like it might be (and actually did probably turn out to be) the last year our child would be at home with no other commitments, and not in school 8 hours a day. I tried to cherish it, and make the most of it. But his behavioral problems at home ratcheted up to an all time high, and we weren't keeping up with our work the way that I had wanted to. In the end we ended up scrapping everything non-essential, and focused on working through a reading cirriculum.  We made it about halfway through before I could tell that he had had enough and wasn't ready to progress.

That spring we had a big decision to make. Did I feel like I could go on to homeschool him for Kindergarten, or did we think it would be best to send him to school?

Obviously, we ended up opting to send him to our wonderful Catholic school, and it was unequivocally the right choice for him. He has thrived in that environment in a way that we only could have hoped.

But that year of keeping him at home taught me a lot. And one of the things it taught me was that it was *okay* for us to not send our kids to traditional preschool. I truly believe that there is nothing wrong with sending kids to preschool. It was a valuable experience for our oldest son that year he was three. But it was also a financial burden, and doing it just because "that's what people do" didn't ring true for me, and that's pretty much why we did it. It also taught me that, if you end up not sending your kid to preschool, that doesn't mean you have to overcompensate by somehow recreating the experience at home. I am not the kind of person who has the gifts or the patience to craft with my kids, and I am also a person who is easily overwhelmed. It just hasn't worked for me so far.

And now here I am, with my oldest in kindergarten, and another preschooler hanging out in my house. Our daughter is about to turn four, and I *do* have a desire to start teaching her more intentionally. Slowly (and mostly because she really wants to be able to do the things her older brother can do) we've started working on letter and number identification, and writing her name. I'm also trying to hammer home the *actual* words to the Hail Mary and the Our Father, in hopes that we can get our act together enough as a family to start a family rosary (or a family decade). And...that's it. And while I'm always on the lookout for ideas, and ways to connect her with the things I'd like her to learn, I am also taking it incredibly slowly with her, and I'm more confident this time around that that is okay.

She won't be in kindergarten for another two years. We are toying with the idea of sending her to the new preschool that just opened at our son's school, for maybe a few mornings a week. We do have another baby coming in June, and sending her might be a really good thing for everyone involved. But we also might not. But I've learned that as hard as it can be only having little kids at home, I really cherish the years when ALL that you NEED to do is just keep them with you, and love on them at home. Those years actually *do* end. I know, because now I have a child who spends most of his waking hours at school, without me, and boy is it bittersweet.

10 Weeks and counting

Woo wee, I had the best of intentions in starting this blog, that I would be able to use it as a good outlet for myself, and I was hoping to stay consistent with it. But...the first trimester does things to you.

Yes. We're pregnant. Baby number four!

I don't even know where to begin with everything that's changed around here in the last couple months. But I'll say this: This baby was a bit of a surprise.

If i back up about a month and a half before I got the positive pregnancy test, I find myself out at a bar with a girlfriend, telling her about how I accidentally dropped my phone in the toilet, and subsequently lost alllll of my NFP charts, which were not backed up. She joked that I would probably get pregnant the following month. And I totally did.

I knew something was up when I got 8 days of positive ovulation tests in a row that month (Just an FYI, we use a super scientific- NOT- method of NFP where we are conservative with days and I take some ovulation tests a couple days there in the middle of my cycle, and we usually discern correctly which days are safe and which ones aren't). Silly as that method of NFP sounds, and no NFP instructor on EARTH would approve of it, it had been working successfully for us, since my cycles are regular, and we almost made it a year of successfully postponing another pregnancy, which is our longest stretch to date.

Oddly enough, we had also just sat down and had a big heart to heart about the state of our family, and our need to postpone another baby, possibly for a couple of years. It was a difficult thing for me to come to grips with, but mostly because I am just so darn used to being pregnant, and thinking about entering a new phase was freaking me out. Also, I am the one who tends more towards making sure we are being generous, and Pat is the one who tends more towards making sure we are being prudent. But I had come to accept that it might be a while before another baby.

Imagine my surprise to see that positive pregnancy test. Don't get me wrong, I am always excited to see it. But every other time it hasn't been quite as...well, surprising.

It's definitely been a roller coaster ride accepting the reality of this pregnancy. There were a few weeks there where after I got that positive test, I went off of my anti-anxiety medication for the sake of the pregnancy, and tanked hard. I was not coping with life even a fraction as well as I had been on that medication, and I was downright upset that while this new baby (an exciting, joyful thing, but also a big life change) had been placed into our lives, an important coping mechanism had been taken off of my plate. I eventually did decide with my doctor to go back on my medication, because...well. I still have three kids outside my body and a husband and myself to take care of for the next nine months, and white knuckling my way through this pregnancy without my meds didn't seem like a smart choice.

As time goes on I am more and more excited, and I think the thing that really brought it all home for me was telling the kids. Isn't that always the most stressful thing? It is for me at least: how will the kids react? How will this new baby affect them? Will they be excited?

The kids (well, the older two) were absolutely thrilled. My five year old gave me a big hug and told me how "proud he was" of me for having a new baby in my tummy. My three year old is very excited about all the things she will get to do with the new baby (feeding it milk, tucking it into bed, hopefully learning to be gentle in the next 8 months so she doesn't smother it), and wonders regularly where we will put it because, do we have room in our house?

Our youngest, who will be 2 in February literally has no idea, but is making me wonder whether or not he can sense that something big is coming down the pike, by waking up constantly in the middle of the night to scream my name and the refusing to go back to sleep.

I feel so blessed and so thrilled to be adding this new life into the mix of our crazy family.

6 years of marriage. 4 moves. 4 job changes. 4 babies!!