We moved to our current home that summer. I started work at my new hospital. My husband church shopped and found us a new church home. We found a dance studio for my artsy girl to pursue her dream of being a ballerina. We found an art camp for her to make art for a week and (hopefully) make some friends. We drove the 4 hours back and forth to my parents' house a lot. We enjoyed being near the beach. We soaked up our new environment and learned everything we could about this new place we called home. Our goal? To NOT relocate again for a looooong time. This had been our 4th major move in 3 years, and we were tired. We had not lived in one place for more than 5 years our entire marriage (4 years medical school, 3 years residency + 2 years as staff and part of fellowship, 1.5 years for more fellowship in an apartment then a house, 1.5 years in Florida, and now back to my home state).
We researched the local schools. We read about them online. We drove past them at various times per day. We visited them. We asked about them with anyone we could find. We even filled out an application or two, but when the time came, we just couldn't send our Kid to school. We realized that we liked having her around. We liked being together as a family. With my crazy work schedule, if she had attended school during normal school hours, I would not have seen very much of her. I wanted to know my Kid, and I wanted her to know me. When we asked her what she wanted, she asked if we could continue homeschooling. It was unanimous. We all wanted to continue this homeschool life we had been enjoying.
Over the next few weeks and months, we worked out a system. The LoveBug (our little one) was walking by now and was a major distraction during school time, so we put her in preschool from 9-1 at our church down the street. She is a homebody Mama's Girl, so forcing her to separate from me and be with others was good for both of us. I was free to focus on her sister. She was able to learn that Mommy would still be there when she came home for all the snuggles she wanted. My husband works from home as an uber computer geek. When I needed to work or sleep, the Kid would either do some computer-based learning or continue her lessons that I had assigned her to do. She read a lot. She painted a lot. She danced a lot. She did what she loved most, and she learned while doing it. And THAT is what made us decide to continue homeschooling.
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