Prepping for School

It's that time of year again when we get ready for the kids to go back to school!

While other parents are heaving a sigh of relief, homeschool parents are heaving their kids' school books out of its packaging.

While other parents are making sure their kids have new backpacks, homeschool parents are making sure their kids have new art supplies.

While other parents are organizing the details of the carpool or bus schedule, homeschool parents are organizing the details of a subject schedule that juggles a range of children's grades and ages (example: kids from 3 months to 7 years old!)

My husband asked me if I thought we were depriving our kids of the "school experience" by keeping them home. My response is that our kids will be having their own school experiences that just happen to be different than the ones we grew up with. Whereas we may think our experiences were good and they should be experienced by our kids in the same way, the truth is that ultimately no two experiences are the same anyways because we are all different people!

We public schoolers may have loved the "first day of class" feelings of nervousness and excitement, or the joy of an assembly that got us out of class, but they will have other things they will love. Maybe it will be the feeling of having an entire museum all to themselves. Or the feeling of doing their schoolwork in the backyard with a fresh autumn breeze ruffling the pages of their book.

Hmmm...

They will be different experiences than the ones we had, and that's ok. In a lot of ways when I think back to my schooling I wish I had been homeschooled. I could have been napping in between subjects! Ok, granted, I still nap in between anything I can manage, so maybe sleep is just on my mind lately.

From a parental perspective I am pretty excited about the upcoming school year. Books are bought, schedule is made, and the coffee pot is ready to brew a fortifying concoction of pure love. Forget fenugreek, coffee is the new "mother's milk". I should market my own brand of coffee and call it "Mother's Milk", ha!

Ok, let's not go down that road because I'll never come back from it, but suffice it to say that coffee is absolutely ESSENTIAL to motherhood.



Whether public school, private school, or homeschool -what is your favorite thing about "Back to School"?

(PS - I just wrote the word "school" enough times and its late enough that it is starting to look bizarre and really funny!!!)