Ooh. My first post.

Alrighty. I have decided to follow the example of my most excellent friend Mary and start a blog about my adventures in homeschooling my rug rats. To begin, we are very Catholic. I'm a convert (2 years confirmed on May 1) so I'm not some mindless goober just doing what my folks did because of culture or whatnot. I hate that I have to even say that but I do actually get that reaction quite a bit. Anyway, the point in mentioning my faith is that a lot of what I post about is likely to be related to Catholicism, and our curriculum is a solidly Catholic one (Seton Home Study). So don't be surprised by references to various Saints or the Blessed Virgin or whatnot. And yes, I am paying attention to the conclave so expect excitement when our new pope is announced.

My Papa is awesome!

The second essential thing about me is that I am very conservative, to the point of being a borderline libertarian about a lot of things. Just be forewarned that if my political opinions make their way into my posts- and they are pretty much guaranteed to do so- they are going to come from that viewpoint.

Filibusters are cool.

 Oh, and I like Grumpy Cat.

A lot.

And there will be pictures.












So. Now you have been forewarned and no one can say they are surprised by any content here.

On to the family stuff. Hubby and I have two children. My oldest, who we will call "Boog," is a rambunctious six-year-old boy who is obsessed with Legos and Star Wars. I am fairly convinced he will be an engineer some day. My youngest, who will be referred to as "Girlie," is a three-year-old princess in training. And I don't mean that in an "I'm spoiling her rotten" way. I mean she actually wants to be a princess. As in tiara and ball gowns. This is a fairly constant source of consternation for me, as I am and have always been sort-of a tomboy. As bewildering as this is for me, my poor husband (one of three brothers in a family that has one girl born in every generation) is completely lost when it comes to the super-girl stuff. It is quite the domestic conundrum.

We are also the proud owners of two pets. Ein is our loyal pup. He is a 12-year-old tricolor Pembroke Welsh Corgi and is the sweetest dog in the history of dog-kind. Our feline companion, on the other hand, is the spawn of Satan himself. His name is Max, he is about 15-ish (hubby adopted him, and he was already full grown so this is our best guesstimation), and is an American long hair. Most likely an albino as he is all white with one blue eye and one yellow eye. Beautiful cat but mean as a snake. So we've got an interesting little dynamic going on in my crazy household.












Ok, so homescholing. What? Why? How? I am a firm believer that it is my job, as the parent of my children, to be their primary educator. Hubby and I are primarily responsible for preparing my kids for life. It is also my foremost goal as a Catholic parent to raise my children to be Saints in God's Kingdom.

So. The reason I decided to home school is multi-faceted. The first factor is general dissatisfaction with the public schools- which have gone completely insane. I have absolutely no confidence that my children will come out of public schooling as well-rounded and morally grounded individuals prepared for life in reality. I know there are kids who survive public schools. I am one of those people. But I don't want my kids to merely survive, I want them to thrive. I just do not see the public schools regularly producing those qualities, and in fact, I believe the public school experience actively works against the best efforts of parents to instill those qualities in their children.

"No one comes to the Father except through Elementary School Number 15." From Stuff Jesus Never said, Volume III.

The second factor was a one-year experience with private Catholic schooling that was underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, Boog learned quite a bit in preschool and his teacher was fine. The problem, for me, is that even most private schools are ate up with the PC at this point and that translates into some policies and practices that are, in my opinion, ridiculous. Like no-tolerance policies for "finger guns" (one example of MANY!!). Threatening severe consequences to small children for just being kids involved in harmless, imaginative play is absurd. Plus, the expense is a bit overwhelming. When we looked at the finances of it all and saw that we could send the kiddos to the parish school for a whopping $5K a piece per year versus between $3-500 per child per year to get the complete homeschooling kit....well, there was not exactly a whole lot of deliberation to that really. And taking on the burden of education at home is right in line with my parenting philosophy anyway, so it wasn't really that hard a step for us.

There are quite a few other things that came into play here, but in an effort not to bore you to tears, I will save those for some other time. And with the basic introductions out of the way, I will end this post so I can work on my lesson plans for tomorrow.