Curveball

In the past I've alluded to the fact that our oldest son hasn't been making wise choices in his daily life, and sadly that remains true even today. My middle kids are very good at just ignoring his antagonism and going about their business.

My youngest isn't good about ignoring anything, and his volatile little self often ends up in arguing matches with the oldest. Yes, my 21 y/o picks seeks out my 6 y/o to purposefully annoy him. Fun times, I tell ya.

As you can imagine trying to get anything accomplished in the midst of the resulting - and almost continual - chaos is challenging. We've been homeschooling for 9 years. And the past 3 years in particular have been HARD. Extremely hard.

This past May, the end of the schoolyear, I decided that enough is enough. I no longer enjoy educating my kids. I don't want to spend time with my oldest. And I dread when the youngest wakes up each morning while waiting a little too eagerly for dad to get home each evening so I can hide.

Who wants to live like that?

So I made the radical decision to send Shane to public school.

Those who know me well know that this is no small thing. And believe me there was a lot of prayer before I even brought the idea to Bill.

He was completely opposed to it and still isn't thrilled about it. But he has come to realize that a burned out, stressed out, and mentally and emotionally exhausted wife/mother really isn't a benefit to anyone.

Today is Day 2 and so far so good. I'm excited to get him up in the morning, and he's excited to start his day. Positive steps in the right direction.

It will take some adjustment - he'll have to bathe and change clothes on a regular basis now, but I think we're up for the challenge. [my facebook friends may remember my 'hamster' comments from yesterday]

.....You may be wondering why we don't just boot the 21 y/o out on his own. Completely valid question. For a variety of reasons, none of which I'll discuss here because they violate his privacy, it isn't practical at this time. We are encouraging, strongly encouraging, him to work toward a couple of specific goals which should equip him to live on his own by the end of the schoolyear.

So that's where we are. Getting here was no small feat and the blog didn't even take a back seat, it was left on the sidewalk while we sorted this all out.

We have some fun and exciting things coming up so I hope you stick around!