Two Steps Forward...

• We had no internet for most of last week, and then I took the kids to visit my parents for three days. The lack of internet was a huge downer. I did have my iPhone but it's not quite the same as a functioning internet connection on my laptop with its full keyboard.

• I did manage to get a lot accomplished last week while the kids read a lot. I have more work I want to complete during the remainder of this week.

• However, last night when the storms blew through, a neighbor's tree fell into our yard, across the fence that is technically theirs. The good news is that we have no responsibility, financial or otherwise, for the fence to be fixed. The bad news is that we're dependent on someone else to fix the fence.

• This is how I feel:

How Long?

“How long will you homeschool?”

“Will you homeschool high school?”

“Are you going to keep doing that through high school graduation?”

Haven’t we all heard at least one of those questions, or a variation thereof? For whatever reason, it is deeply important to some people that they ascertain if we’re the homeschooler who is going to see it all the way through, until the bitter end. (Thank goodness these people don’t know about the possible ways to ‘homeschool college.’)

The answer for us, is yes, we’re going to keep going, and homeschool high school. In theory, we’ll make sure that there are not better options when each of the children is entering high school, but I am confident that there are not. I also feel like I will want the “reward” of teaching my teenagers. I love teenagers. It makes me sad to think about having a finite number of teenage children. I’m putting in the sweat and tears of grammar and logic stages so we can homeschool rhetoric stage. To be honest, on many levels, I cannot wait for high school!

Still, that’s a long time. In fact, counting from the “first day of kindergarten” for EG, to the projected graduation date for PC, I’ll be in the trenches for nearly 22 years. Sure, that includes weekends and summers, and other holidays, but if you homeschool, you understand: homeschool moms very rarely get true, complete holidays. I, at least, feel like I am constantly researching, planning, and evaluating, even if only in my mind and not on paper or screen. From today, then, I’ve still got about 16 years or so of this gig.

That, of course, assumes that I don’t have another child. The decision about that has not been made. Just for fun, though, if I did, it would bring my time homeschooling to about 26 years total.

I feel that, at the end, I should receive a pension and a plaque. At the very least, I think I’ll expect a gold watch or the equivalent thereof. Twenty-six years, y’all. Phew.