Little Me Tot School

Woke up early this morning and meant to blog before the little monsters woke up, oh well.  Today is "Little School".  That's what Samuel calls the Pre-K homeschool group we go to 2x a month.  Mother's Day Out is "Big School".  Amazingly, I came to the realization this morning, that Samuel likes school.  Samuel LIKES school.  He likes the reward system, he likes the kids, he likes learning, he likes his teachers...His joy is infectious and I find myself having a momentary lapse in judgement about deciding to homeschool.  The daily daisy petal pick is exhausting and I still have a couple of years to decide.  Little Me is a foot wetter and so far I've been diving in.  At least in a group setting where I get to drink coffee and commiserate with other women about potty training and discipline.  I hung up his 1st AWANA "lesson" that we did together yesterday and something washed over me.

I was quick to scrub it away of course :)  Ok, maybe I helped him a little bit :) But now I look again at that lone little picture and wonder. I will admit right here that one of the MANY reasons (and it is not even in the top 3) I consider homeschool, is because at some point my own experience with public school became excruciating.  I can remember all the hoops my mother went through to accommodate my disinterest in academics.  I was much more excited about entering drawing contests than learning times tables.  I can also vividly remember all the social traps that I continually fell into.  I was not strong in my identity, and it caused me to make many many poor choices.  I don't look back on parochial school with faint melancholy of simpler times, I look back with horror and disgust.  That is NOT what I want for my kids.  On the other hand, my husband, Dudley Do Right, has mostly good memories of school, was popular, ridiculously moral, and well adjusted.  Bottom line, its a decision that will have to be made outside of experience.  Even outside of belief, because many beliefs are born from experience.  I will have to actually look at my children.  Really look at them and be in tune with what they are experiencing positively towards their character and education and endeavor to duplicate that as much as I can.  I will have to gasp, be a grown up.  Alas, it had to happen sometime.  To be continued...indefinitely.