Enough said.

I second guess my decision to homeschool all the time.  There, I said it.  I wonder if I'm enough.  Not just in general, but across the board.  Am I patient enough?  Smart enough?  Organized enough?  Have I researched curriculums enough?  Do I have enough planned?  Enough language arts?  Enough science?  Enough history?  Enough math?  Enough reading?  Do my boys get enough time with kids their age?  Is swimming, tae kwon do, and soccer enough?  Should I add more?  Can I add more?  When is enough... well, enough?

I struggle with all of this on a daily basis.  I wonder why I should struggle with this.  Why I've taken this all on.  I'm not anti-public school.  I actually had a really wonderful experience in school as a child.  If my current situation were different, I believe I would have my children in public school.  But, that's not the case.  We're a military family.  Since my boys were born, we've moved four times (with another scheduled in less than 6 months).  I worry about consistency in their education.  It's no secret that states vary in their public school success rates.  We have lived in states with excellent reputations, and we have lived in states that are at the absolute bottom of the list.  I don't want my boys to fall thru the cracks because of this.  I don't want our current lifestyle to create gaps in their education.  I want them to have, on some level, the consistency that I had as a child.  I want them to have the best.  I go around and around on each facet of my decision to homeschool on a weekly basis.  I wonder, when I will convince myself that I am enough?

I do have glimpses of it.  There are moments when all of my self-doubts are chased away... I see my boys reading a book together, playing with other children, and being confident in themselves.  They are curious, intelligent, giving, charismatic, and generous little boys.  And when they look at me, my heart knows that in their eyes I am not 'just' enough... I am everything they need. 

And that is most definately enough.

Take Two...

So, that didn't work out quite the way I had hoped.  I've come to this realization... When your husband is deployed, don't make any promises about doing ANYTHING!  Especially blogging.   Deployment was as stressful as one might think it would be.  We kept very busy with our schoolwork, classes at HC, swimming, tae kwon do, and meeting up with friends.  There were also moments of sadness as we said good-bye to two families that we had become quite close with, and of course spent several holidays feeling the absence of Daddy more keenly than average.  I won't lie.  The early winter months were hard, but we managed to pull ourselves through the end of May and FINALLY my husband's deployment ended in the early hours of the morning June 1st, 2012.  Since then we have been enjoying our time together as a family.   At the end of June we took a once in a lifetime family vacation on the Disney Fantasy to the eastern carribean (AMAZING!), and in July went camping for one night before being completely rained out (DISASTER!).  We are now quickly approaching the end of another summer vacation while anticipating the start of the new school year ahead.  The Crew will start their 2nd grade work on August 6, and while I have a bit of orgnanizing to do, most of the curriculum is prepared and ready to go!  And of course, it just wouldn't be 'normal' if we didn't have a move scheduled to happen in the midst of everything... I'll know more soon, but it looks as if another cross-country move is on tap for sometime between November and January. 
With all of that being said, I've come to realize that I really would like to make this blog a more consistent part of my life.  In the past I've treated it like something I was doing for others... friends, family etc. and while I'm more than happy to share my life with anyone whose interested, I also just really want to write this for myself.  So that when I look up and my kiddos are grown, I'll have this 'journal' to look back on and remember the details... I may ramble more.  The spelling and grammar may not be perfect.  It might even bore you a bit.  But it will be all me, all the time.

Fair Winds!