Confession: Mommy School

Leila showing off her bubbles (2013)

I have a confession to make: I've homeschooled before. When our daughter was three, Wes and I decided not to shell out the thousands of dollars for preschool but instead I created "mommy school" and we did homeschool preschool. It helped that my own mother was a preschool teacher before becoming a mommy and she shared with me all kinds of great resources to teach colors and numbers that she had saved. It also helped that preschool is awesome and lesson plans were easy by just going through the alphabet, one letter a week. I found free worksheets online (yay pinterest!) and had Leila practice tracing and writing the upper case and lower case letters and the rest of the time we just did activities that started with the letter of the week: B is for bubbles, C is for Candy Land, G is for (mini-)golf, etc. We had a great time mostly just playing together. However, Mommy school also happened to be during my "angry mama" phase I mentioned, so things weren't always as cute and smiley as they are in the picture and I didn't follow through very well once I ran out of ideas and steam. We still read lots of books together and visited the library weekly, something we continue to do now, but there was also a lot of television time instead of hands-on activities and days we just stayed home instead of pursuing adventure or a new experience because I couldn't handle the thought of dealing with both kids outside of the house. Now, of course, I'm wistful about the easy (curriculum-wise) mommy school days and sorrowful that I was angry so much of the time.
When the time came to enroll Leila in kindergarten, Wes and I briefly considered continuing to homeschool, but at the same time we were looking forward to our first foster placement and the thought of sending at least one kid out of the house for part of the day was very appealing to me. I've said before that Leila loved kindergarten and so I don't regret sending her, and it maybe extended my sanity in the fostering months to have that break. In any event, I have sought forgiveness from God and from my children for my anger and I look ahead with joy and anticipation of the blessings to come. I know homeschooling my now elementary-age children won't be all giggles and games, but I'm confident that my heart is in the right place (thank you Jesus) and I'm eager for the opportunity to do better this time around.