DITL. Homeschool edition.

7:00am Sutton wakes me up. She asks for milk and to watch something. I turn on Little Angel and give her milk, hoping it'll buy me another 30 minutes. No luck. She's back in 10, saying she wants a pancake. Scott is still asleep so I also go down to the basement and feed the dogs. 

While the pancake is warming up, I get out the very sticky bottle of syrup (these people cannot keep a syrup bottle clean and I don't know how to solve this problem). I make coffee and here comes Wells, asking for a pancake. They're leftover from yesterday. It's not even 7:30 and this is, regrettably, "sleeping in" for my kids. We were up til 11pm watching the Bills/Ravens game the night before. I also had not cleaned up the kitchen before bed. Great start to a Monday and my allergies are killing me after a day outside at the zoo on Sunday. 

"Who closed?"

Also they both like their pancake different ways, I can never quite remember, and someone is always unhappy (Sutton: cut up, to dip in syrup. Wells: NOT cut up, syrup on top but "not soggy").

7:45am  Everyone is settled, so I sit down at my computer to do a few things and look over my to-do list for the day. I also drink coffee at this point and start in on folding the laundry I've been ignoring for days. 

I always set the homeschool work out the night before but it gets pushed aside and they watch tv and play until about 9am. (This doesn't and won't bother me but this is not how the internet tells you to homeschool, you know?)

9:00am Wells sits down to do his independent work and so does Sutton. She lasts about 10 minutes. He usually finishes as fast as possible but for the first time ever, he's really into the drawing/sketching part and he goes for like an hour with it. 

At some point in here, I gave up with Sutton and she takes the iPad to go watch something. She  asks me for food multiple times, Unfortunately, grocery pick-up is coming up so we don't have her favorites on hand. Wells and I eat leftover pizza (my breakfast) and then she settles in to draw. We painfully finish Language Arts around 11:45. It was a very hard morning. Mondays aren't great and it makes me rethink taking Fridays off for co-op. We lose too much momentum with a 3-day weekend. 

11:30am I switch out laundry, clean out the fridge, run the dishwasher, and then get ready while Wells does his independent reading time. 

12:00pm I pack up all the dog things and we go for our walk. The park is a 5 minute drive and it's flat and fine for a 3 year old so that's why I do this route. This includes prepping a backpack with water, bags, dish, electronic collars, leashes, remote...it's an undertaking but I've streamlined it. But since Sunday Kristin had not cleaned out the car or the backpack after the zoo trip, Monday Kristin had to spend extra time dealing with that today. 

12:45pm Head home from the park and drop off the dogs. I make Wells gather up the toys he left all over the yard the night before and deliver a stray shoe to his friend's house (yes, a shoe) and then we go to Walmart for our grocery pick-up. Blessedly, this is also a less than 10 minute drive. We go in the store because I forgot to add Flonase to my order and then we also looked at shoes. Then we pick-up and go to the post office to drop off a Poshmark box for an item I sold. 

1:45pm Get home, unpack, make lunch (they eat pb&j and crackers and fruit just about every day because that's what they want)

2:30pm Wells does his math work, independently. I'm pushing him through quickly to get to the more challenging curriculum I bought a couple of weeks ago, so we're doing 2 lessons a day. Sutton falls asleep on the couch. I check the math and then I take a quick nap while Wells plays. I try to get him to watch a Youtube video about Mars (we're supposed to be studying space but I don't like the curriculum) but he doesn't want to. 

3:45pm The neighbor kids get home from school and Wells shoots out the door with his walkie-talkie. This means I have to be awake and I know I will not see him til dinner. They ride scooters, play in backyards, build things, dig holes, whatever. I start prepping dinner and pull out cookie dough I'd planned to bake the other day and never got around to doing. 

4:10pm Scott gets home. He quickly takes Sutton outside and grills the chicken I have ready. He has a meeting online at 5:00 so he hides out in the basement. Sutton watches a read aloud and plays some games on The Good and the Beautiful app while I make dinner and talk on the phone. I also bake those cookies. Eventually she goes out in the backyard with the other kids and they catch a toad and make him a habitat in a bucket (no idea where this toad is currently residing). Sutton also helps me feed the dogs. 

I make this pasta salad a lot. I don't like artichokes so I substituted broccoli this time. Usually I just leave them out. 

6:00pm I eat dinner, I make plates for the kids, Scott eats and then takes Sutton outside to do some things with him. She eats strawberries and a banana. Wells eats what I give him. He goes back outside. I work on cleaning up the kitchen while I listen to Ben Shapiro on The Breakfast Club. 

6:30pm Scott goes out for a motorcycle ride and I get Sutton into the tub by giving her a cookie and she plays in there for at least an hour. I'm cleaning up the kitchen, the floor, etc. Scott comes home and I convince him to hang these shelves in Sutton's room by asking nicely and also saying it's "for Sutton". This works. 

7:21pm The battle of getting Wells into the house begins. His friends are outside. He wants to play. He will not come in without a fight. It's really hard to say no to this rationale. They ride their scooters until dark (8pm) and finally he comes in at 8:22. He can't get the garage door shut. Scott has to go look at it. The trailer is blocking it. 

8:20pm I get Sutton to brush her teeth and into bed. We read one book. She calls me back in multiple times. It's Wells' turn to play in the tub for an hour (apparently). I work on this post.

9:00pm Wells is out of the tub and onto second dinner. This happens every night and drives me insane because it means he never gets to bed. He barely eats earlier because he's busy playing so, post-bath, he always eats again. 

9:20pm Scott and I watch the last episode of School Spirits, season 2 (because the Bears and the Vikings are completely uninteresting on MNF) and I do some stretching on the floor. He falls asleep, I research science curriculum for a bit and then go to bed by 11:00. 

At least I went to bed with a clean kitchen. 

The decision to homeschool.

I'd say, round February-ish, I started becoming completely disillusioned with the public school system. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy teaching. It wasn't the students. It's not the school itself. It was the system. The system that dictated how much your kid was going to learn in a given school year: Knowledge being doled out on the terms of snow days, virtual learning ("learning") days, and sick days. I first realized this was a problem back in 2020 when my students were being quarantined when they weren't even sick and even when I went on maternity leave and, though the teacher who took my spot was hardworking, they couldn't find a certified teacher to finish out 4th grade for my students (going as far as asking me if I were going to take the "whole 6 weeks off" because they were out of options). 

Education was been gate-kept. Not intentionally or with malice, but it has. This year, our school had 17 school days off between January and February due to district sick days, snow days, and federal holidays. That's 17 days of 1st grade my kid won't get back. That's 17 days of 3rd grade my students won't get back. Imagine how much content could be covered in 17 days. 

Something happened in 2020 where we decided school was "extra", like organized learning wasn't one of the most important parts of childhood. And that trickledown effect has come with us into 2024-2025 and I honestly don't think it's going away. 

So anyway: All of these thoughts and experiences were being mulled over in my head, and then I started to think about curriculum. Curriculum is the element of school I'm probably the most passionate about. Especially in elementary, if you don't have a solid uniform curriculum available to all students, and taught by all teachers, you get a mish-mash of skills and standards being taught. Each curriculum is organized a little bit differently, so if you switch from one to the other, especially moving state to state, you might miss a skill or standard that's already been taught. For example, if you don't get "telling time" at the end of 1st grade, you may not see that again until the end of 2nd grade. That's an entire year of not being given explicit instruction by a teacher on how a clock works. That's a lot when you're 7 years old. This is how you end up with gaps and it's how I ended up with a class of 4th graders on a military base who had had wildly varying experiences in 3rd grade in 2020 (some never seeing a classroom that year...Hawaii...). And then the kids didn't even have a certified teacher to carry them through the last 10 weeks of the school year in 2022. 

So, thinking about Wells, specifically: When I considered that we'd be moving 2-3 more times before we "settle" somewhere and I thought about how many gaps there would be in his education because of that, I felt like homeschooling would be the right choice for next year. I wasn't planning on working next year, and this way he can get what he needs to be a successful 2nd grader and we'll see where we are when it comes time for 3rd grade the next year. He's one of the more advanced kids in his class and it would crush me to know he's missing bits and pieces if he gets, God forbid, a lazy/unskilled teacher or just has a major gap in whatever curriculum is being used. I've seen a lot lately online about how schools are failing our kids and, with the new school choice laws coming about in 2025-2026, I want to point out that you, the parent, are still 100% responsible for your child. You do not get to blame the school. You get to decide. You have to decide. You can't blame the doctor or the dentist if you don't like them; you find a new one. You need to find a new way for your child to learn, whether that's a new school or taking it into your own hands. You are their advocate. 

I made this decision around the end of February. Scott hopped on board really easily for some reason, even though he hasn't liked the idea of homeschooling in the past. I ordered everything we would need to do 2nd grade and it's ready to go. I did do a lot of research and talked to many homeschool moms I know, mostly military, to get a feel for their "why". My "why" seemed kind of selfish at first ("it will be inconvenient to find him a new school and I don't want him to have to deal with that transition") but the WHY popped up after I'd already made the decision...

I'm relieved I made this decision when I did. It's a whole separate long sordid tale, but we probably won't be scuttling off to our new location (Kansas, guys, so not super exciting) as soon as June rolls around. Scott doesn't start work until later in the summer so we will list this house, try to sell it, and then buy a new one in Kansas. Financially, it makes the most sense. So we won't have an address by the time school starts! Meaning, I don't even know how I'd register him. He'd have to start 2nd grade here most likely or miss a huge chunk of 2nd grade. All that transition, when you have two kids who aren't particularly excited about moving in the first place, would make it worse. This way, we have the freedom to basically do whatever we want (like travel) until we find a place to live in Kansas. 

It's a lot of change in not a lot of time but the relief in knowing I don't have to have it all figured out today is worth it. I've discovered that homeschool is just the way you do life and you make it fit your life, not make your life fit the local school schedule. With the military still dictating our every move, this is what makes the most sense right now. 

But anyway, I'm excited. I will have a lot more to say after we get going but I have a loose plan and I have a curriculum I'm excited about...We still have a lot of life to get through in May, so I'll probably start plotting out the fall sometime this summer. 

**Note** Wells has made tremendous progress in the last two years. He had a great two years of preschool, to start, and then he had wonderful teachers for kindergarten and 1st. He actually asked me why I'm taking him away from the school that has taught him so much (*crying emoji face goes here*). I gently explained that he wouldn't be at this school next year anyway since we're moving so it doesn't really matter. I would have no problem with him continuing onto 2nd and then me being his 3rd grade teacher but that's not the way army life works. (he also absolutely hates getting up for school at 6am so, win-win)