Well, SURPRISE, we are still here!
To "sum" it all up...
I have four amazing and beautiful children who the delight me every day with their schoolwork! While I am busy grading papers, or love notes (see below), my husband is busy saving lives!
I made the challenging and grand decision to keep my two young girls home this year with me. I pulled the boys out of school a year ago and started homeschooling them in all of their subjects last year. I had planned on putting my oldest daughter into school this year so she could learn the basics and the foundations of becoming a fluent learner, but as the summer approached I felt God pulling me into a direction that I didn't want to go! However, I typically don't fight the promptings that are given to me, and this time was no different, I didn't fight! My girls are home with me, and everything has fallen into place perfectly; I regard that as God's hand in my life. What I thought would be one of my greatest challenges, has turned into my greatest blessing! Being a mother is hard enough when you don't see the fruits of your labor's immediately, but being a mother who schools your children in all subjects becomes even harder because the fruits of education take years to plant, and then even more years to harvest! It is amazing, however, that being an effective educator with little children is quite honestly like being a wonderful mother! We play, we sing, and we sit together to draw and write! I see the progress in my children with daily repetitive routines, and then I realize that I wouldn't want my life to be any other way! My son Aiden informed me last year that his worst subject was math--he loathed it. I took that fear from him, and gave him significant one-on-one time to build a confidence in the subject. This year, though it seemed bizarrely inappropriate according to the standards we were all raised on, I started him on the same book he had been working on last year! (Bizarrely inappropriate relates to the thinking of the world, I am guided by the thinking and the desires of our Heavenly Father for my children!). When he started the book this year, everything made perfect sense! He writes the problems with out hesitation, he completes his work with a smile on his face, and then he happily confirms to me that he now likes math! I am incredibly grateful that I can be an instrument to allow his mind to work at the pace it is required to work to gain knowledge and understanding! In the end, it doesn't matter how much, how great, and even how fast we have obtained knowledge, it will only matter that we put 100% effort into it! I have been caught proclaiming the great load of the work that is on my shoulders as a mother to all of my children who are with me 24 hours a day, seven days a week! I will not lie, it is hard!!! However, when I really lay everything on the table, I realize I have been given far more than they have taken from me! I am able to receive their love, their adoration, and their gratitude on a daily basis! A mother could ask for no more! The icing on the cake comes in little moments like this--after a week of cheerleading my son in his math assignment, I found that he not only did his work on this day "solo", but he did it in about 15 minutes, and with the thrill and love seen below!
I say my life is completely full! It is full of beautiful blessings that I can enjoy company with daily!
The "sum" of us is far different than the "sum" we are taught in school:
HERE-- 1 (mom)+1(dad)+ 5(children)+1(savior)= ONE
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