Homeschooling and Balance

I started teaching our boys a preschool homeschooling curriculum last fall and I finally feel like I know what I'm doing 50% of the time.  I have an easier time teaching college and grad students.  Two and four year olds are a whole different ballgame.  It takes more physical and mental energy.  Energy that I don't have on some days.  I'm so glad that I can have my morning coffee now that I stopped nursing.  I forgot how good it was and how much I missed that steamy, dark cup of coffee, no sugar, just straight up.

The curriculum I'm using is called Sonlight.  It was one of the few curriculums that I found has a strong faith component as well as a creative academic component.  I'm keeping it simple for the boys since they require a break what it is seems to be like every 15 minutes.  I've had to structure every subject category that we will cover that morning into 15 minute chunks.  I have also realized that boys learn completely different than girls.  I remember being able to sit for long periods of time with a book or an activity, whereas I have to wrangle in my boys' focus and incorporate physical movement into everything.  I have to accept that it will just take longer to teach what I want to teach and I need to be flexible.  At the end of the day, they always surprise me with what they can absorb.  They can certainly memorize those nursery rhymes better that I can.

                       

                                        

Now about balance.  It is something that I've struggled with since the boys were born.  I tend to submerge myself in the task at hand.  After finishing my dissertation, I felt I could dedicate all my time to Eli and then later Ethan.  I wanted to do everything, from baby/mommy classes to taking them to art/science museums and going through the whole baby genius set with classical music playing in the background.  But that wasn't necessarily the best thing for myself or them.  I started to miss my previous lifestyle, the interaction with colleagues, and time I used to dedicate to my research and work in health care.  I was jealous of colleagues who didn't have children and seemed to carry on with their careers.  If you are a stay at home mom, you know that these kinds of thoughts start to sprout resentment and that is the most unhealthy place you can be.  This quickly woke me up.  I feel that God has given me a passion to serve in the area of health care so I'm not giving up on it.   With lots of prayer and support for my husband, I'm again treading that path again, opening myself up to possibilities that will both allow me to be home with my boys and will also stimulate that part of my brain that needs the health care work challenge.  I ask that you join me in prayer for this.  

God has created each of us differently.  We all have different things that make us feel alive, but at the root of them all is a Father that loves us and wants us to live fully alive!

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. --C.S. Lewis