I have decided to home school our boys!  Overnight I began seeing our home as an academy of sorts. Sure, the two big guys were already learning here; learning through play and puzzles, conversations, and prayer, but now I am more intentional with the opportunities to learn that so naturally abound.

But since I have entitled this blog "Chronicles of a Head Mistress", " I ought to do just that, Chronicle... and that means start at the beginning.  

The road to this decision has been a sort of pilgrimage and I've been sojourning for more than a year. It has required me to relinquish my own agenda as I seek more than just this one answer. No, this has not been a normal, cut and dry decision over where and how to educate our children, it's been a matter of how I make decisions in general... 

It all started about 14 months ago when I started asking God some big questions:  "Should we try to have more children?  Should we adopt instead of try to conceive?  What should we do for their education?"  And,  "should we move?"  I started asking the people I came in contact with had adopted or chosen to home school, "how did you decide to do this?"  And their answers always went something like this; "I felt called to..."  or "I felt that God was calling me to..."  And so I began to pray, "God, are you calling me to do any of these things?"

The initial answer came quick, but it wasn't really an answer to any one question.  I sensed that God was indeed calling me, calling me to BE OPEN TO THE CALL!  And that was the first step. I had to be available to His call either to adopt or home school.  But eventually I began to see that God didn't just want me to offer up these two areas for Him to dictate.  He wanted ME! He wanted ME TO BE OPEN TO HIS CALL... All of me, open to all of Him.  What a concept. Someone looking at my life probably wouldn't have noticed a drastic change, but it was a matter of the heart.  

Now, in the matter of adopting or conceiving, we almost immediately got pregnant!  Our past two sons were conceived with the help of fertility medications, this one was not.  So that was a pretty basic answer.  And since becoming a family with three boys, my husband has been very sure that we are indeed finished having children.  So I have left God calling us to adopt up to God calling my husband to adopt!  That would be as great a miracle as our conceiving this last child!

The road, however, that led me to take this full time position as "Head Mistress" was a little less like a lightening bolt and a little more like a long walk in the rain.  I kept seeking God in the matter of how to educate our kids, and felt that my initial plan would be the perfect way to begin... until I had heard more clearly what God would have me do.  So I signed Caleb (nearly four at the time) up for his first year of preschool at a really lovely Private Christian school.  I thought, if we end up choosing to go "Private School" with their academic careers, this will have been a good place to start our first son.

He was excited to start, but quickly lost interest.  He cried, asking to stay home with his Brother nearly ever school day.  I pressed him because we had just moved to a new city and I believed that he needed friends / a community / some routine.  But the only friends he longed for were his mother and brothers and the only routine we found was the constant struggle to get him out the door.  During these months he would often say, "why can't YOU just teach me, Mommy? I like it when you teach me things!"  Talk about missing the proverbial Lightening bolt and continuing along in the ceaseless drizzle...

Finally Caleb said to his Dad and me, "I don't like their toys, I don' t like their food, and I already know my letters!"  I finally I got it!  He was bored and wanted to be with us!  The learning that the other children were enjoying was stuff we had done two years earlier and the play things they had there weren't his familiar toys played with alongside his very best friend, his brother.  So we pulled him out of school a couple of months ago.  

Immediately Caleb's demeanor changed back from challenging and aggressive (which had only started this Fall) to the likable guy we love to be around.  Oh, don't get me wrong... he's still four and can wear me out!

Around this time I talked to him about trying other preschools and imagined him still attending a private Christian school when it was time for Kindergarten. It was around this time as well that I began to see the conflict.  I was telling God that I was open to his call, whatever it was, but I was so busy running my own play, I couldn't hear the obvious shouts from the sidelines:  Not God's, not Caleb's.  

Let me mention, however, that I was also reading books on home schooling, sent or suggested by various friends, and still wanted to "be open" to this particular call.    I was also starting to look at the really excellent public school right here in our neighborhood, as well as research the County's various private Academies.  I can't tell you how exactly it happened, but suddenly I became OKAY; open to anything God called us to do in this decision.  I wrote out my pros and cons for public, for private, and for a home education, and while I still didn't feel a clear calling, it was my first time realizing that I had total peace (and joy) with whichever CALLING God had for my family.  A few days into this peace I started grumbling (Stiff-necked, desert wanderer that I am!) "If I am open to anything, God, why aren't you GIVING ME A CALL?"

A day or two later I was "playing school with the boys," singing the months of the year and reciting the days of the week, when Caleb's eyes glazed over and he got this goofy grin on his face.  

"What's wrong with you?"  I asked.  

"You're just like my teacher, Mom.  This is exactly what I've been asking you to do!" 

The Lightening Bolt struck, and this time it hit me straight on!

It was the previous evening that I had been (pros and cons yet again) and discovered that I could get behind the public school option with my head, but I was getting REALLY EXCITED about home schooling every time I read a book about curriculum and different home schooling education models.   Classical Christian Education especially!  My heart engaged when listing the PROS for home schooling.

So that is where I am!  The past 4 days have been fun as we have begun reading our first Chapter Book, CHARLOTTE'S WEB, doing more focused workbook time (which both boys enjoy) and also playing a lot more baseball for Caleb's "playground time" as he calls it.  

I am going to my first home educators convention next month and have also met two (home schooling) moms in our neighborhood with boys around my boys' ages. They have been a sweet encouragement to me along with friends Malisa, Cynthia, Laurel, Bonni, Alison, and Shannon.  

The confirmation we Christian's like to call "PEACE" was short lived, as it was trumped by sheer, unbridled ENTHUSIASM!