Its been awhile seems to be the tile of the year!

It has been awhile since I last posted.
I feel as of lately I have been pulled into many different directions as of late. Thus, I am posting a new update

As of the semester, we all our in school. James is now a 2L at Georgetown Law, and I'm now at NOVA Community College , and the kiddos, well, of course they have school as well.

Why as mothers do we think that we can do it all; have a spotless house(to each his own image may appear in their minds),workout for a body that long to magically appear into something we've not seen since we left our high school days, and still get everything else done in between. Then when we don't allow ourselves to magically be human, we come crashing down.

I have alas been one of those women. Shocking I know! Last year was a very intense year for us with the transition. It was tight getting used to DC metro living standards, we were commuting a bunch for school, and really just taking on more than we could handle at the time. So like our parents before us, we handled it wrongly; just being stressed out monsters that barely made it through the day at times. We literally only had two dates that I can recall, we weren't making enough to justify the 10 bucks an hour for a sitter. It wasn't always horrible or grim, but it was a tough year and the Professors at Gtown wasn't kidding when they said it would be tough. However, I do think we took of more than we should.

We had placed the children in a Classical School last year and loved it. I would love to make this they way we always teach our children. They had an amazing facility and great families, some of which I will stay in touch with for years to come! However, it became clear to us that they would not be returning the following year. Around here to place your children in a private school you must do it a year or so in advance to hold seats. So there was no school to be transferring to. I also had just began to work at Target full-time at this point. It was an overnight position that was very hard work. I did it happily after taking a year to find a job. So after school ended at AFA last spring, my brother came to watch my children full-time for me over the summer.

At this point we were still considering moving further north to the Fairfax area. After realizing that we would no longer need to drive that far north everyday for the children's school, and that I won't be attending Mason until after NOVA, there's no need for us to drive north everyday.
We finally decided that we would stay here in our home for duration of Law School. It's a good size and nicely laid out. We're in the perfect spot to get into DC, but get up north anywhere we want too! It's also perfectly prices-the most important thing!

So, I decided after working all summer, I'd home school. I am able to take classes online and do whatever else through-out the week. Figured it would be the best solution considering we weren't able to secure a school. Knowing I wouldn't be able to do my schooling past a year for my AA, we talked and agreed that we would enroll them in public school here. Financially we are trying not to stretch ourselves to the point of breaking the way we did last year. There was no breathing room, especially since we used up most of our savings to supplement living expenses. We have learned may lessons financially over the last few years and wanted to do what we could to be as free and clear as we possibly could at the end of school.

We found an amazing coop for homeschooling this year. So we enrolled them into Classical Conversations and have loved our group! If I was to home school for their entire career in school, would probably be this way. Very organized and challenging. It is a great support for new homeschooling families and gives the children a great way to get to have friends to play with. Nice for me since my children asked if I could teach more children so they could have people to play with on break! LOL!

However, I have realized that I am not surperwoman.... shocking I know, I am but a lowly human. Who for all the best purposes cannot do everything. I wanted to keep the children close to home so we could rebuild our family's foundation and make our home a peaceful one where everyone wants to come home. I enjoy teaching them, and the school room, I must say, ROCKS!! I did soon realize that is I'm constantly being mommy and teacher I get frustrated far too easily and then take way too much time on school and then don"t get enough time to devote to mine. Let alone everything else Surprisingly, the house has pretty much stayed picked up-except my room where everything seems to be tossed. Which also makes for a rough study time since my room is also the office. I am woman enough to say, I'm not a called teacher. I love my children enough to let someone else teach them. I talked with James and told him I was struggling with getting everything done and wasn't sure if I can do it all. I felt like I was only giving half to both sides. We also had a death in the family where I had to drop everything for a couple of weeks to deal with the loss. Then our books came in late also. So it was even a rocky start to begin with. I am against homeschooling, no, but me homeschooling yes.

All that to say that we are enrolling our children this year into a local public school and are doing what we think is best for our family. It causes to regather ourselves and be better parents to our children. I am excited and nervous. I have wonderful memories of public school and think there are amazing people everyday who try to help children. Later on we were taught it's all bad and evil yada, yada, yada....This is giving me a much needed break as he is gone almost everyday all day , and into the late evening after classes. it gives them a break from us and truly see me at my best as a part-time mommy. It sounds horrible, but I do best that, and that's how I know I can take care of them best. No more traveling 45 mins to a campus; no more waking up at 445am to try and work out after staying up all night trying to look at a computer screen. If I errored on the side of 15mins, my whole day was gone- that's no way to live. I was stressed and brought too much on myself and my children. It wasn't fair to anyone. OBE is ranked highly in our county and it's one of the highest in the country. The principle is runs a tight ship and doesn't let anything fly. infactour landlords bought a house not far away so their children could continue to go to school here- after he grew up in McLean-McLean!! One of the richest cities in the country! I am happy with this though and my husband backs it up 100%. The children love the idea of riding a school bus everyday!! Megan and Ethan will be repeating however and I am glad. Megan struggled so much last year because AFA was so far advanced- like skipping a year for her. So I am glad she will get a good foundation to build on. Ethan knows everything from last year, but has the baby syndrome still and hasn't matured enough to fill in the gaps and would struggle in 1st- I am so happy with the principles decision.

I know that this may not be for everyone and I understand that. I know too that there will be some I told you so's; please cram it up your backside where it came from. I am not responding to anyone who is negative anymore-including family. If you're "concerned" for the children's well-being; don't be. I think having two happy supportive parents far out ways an possible swear words their parents occasionally use anyways. I was a little worried that I was being selfish in wanting to admit I can't do it and send them to school. My husband said he was happy that for once I wanted to out myself first. It's not normal for me and for years it almost cost my family when I put the churches needs over our own needs. I love the Lord,d and the churches I've been apart of, but always felt if I didn't give of myself until there was nothing left to give, I wasn't good enough. Then my family suffered as well. I appreciate all that was done for me over the years and love, but there is more to life than the church. I love hearing my children giggle after they where tackled and tickled by daddy when "raking the leaves" on a Saturday. Hearing my children cheer for a horrible football team but knowing it's there daddy's team- so they're the best in the world! I am happy to be finding balance in my life and loving the me coming out of the shell once again. I felt as I played the part of a "good godly wife" for years and lost who I truly was. God made me who I am and who I need to be for my family. Could you imagine a world filled of people who were just like you? I heard on the radio last year, would you date yourself? Would I entrust me to care for my children? Sadly, I had to answer myself no-I asked myself the second question earlier this week, and I think that giving myself some space in the day to not only get my homework done, but to workout and loose the weight I've beenstruggling with for years, and calmness of not commuting, but being home with my own thoughts, or the freedom to leave for the day,the best thing for my family at this point and am excited to see them off for the first day next week!!

Again, All this to say we're putting our kiddos in public school. My husband says I don't need to say anything because it was a decision we made for the betterment of our family and really doesn't care what people think. I however wanted peole to know that this something we didn't do lightly or half way cause I couldn't stand them anymore. It's done so we can be the best parents we can be. Period.

Leslie