Armadillo Rodeo

Today the living room has been a children's museum, a rodeo, and an armadillo rodeo. The children have played mommy and daddy, statues, and cowboy. The dining room chairs became a horse and a car. The stool became the car seat for the baby dolls.

I am really enjoying these last days before Allyssa goes to school. I mean, we school, but going to school is different. In just a short time, there will be one fewer armadillo running around my house, one fewer mommy, one fewer mess maker, fewer coloring pages to be colored, fewer dress up clothes to be donned.

School at home has become a little more spread out. Instead of doing it all at once first thing in the morning, I spread it out later in the day so that I'd have time to watch Allyssa teach David how to do color in the lines, use her stamp set, read a book.

She's still learning, of course. She can now count by 3s to 30, 2s to 20, 5s to 100, 10s to 100. She knows what a verb is, an adjective, and adverb, and a noun. She can pick them out in sentences. She knows the first 10 books of the New Testament in order, the 10 commandments and their meanings. She's memorized several hymns and throughout the day we recall them and sing them. She can read. I have asked her this week to write my grocery list, a card to a friend, a note to grandparents. 

Soon it will be someone else teaching her the books of the Bible and what a pronoun is. I hope to hear about some of it at home. I know that I'll usually hear that she learned nothing just the same as that is what she tells everyone else she has learned at home. I wonder if she'll be much ahead in reading or behind in parts of math. Is her handwriting as atrocious as I think it is? Will the other kids will think that it is odd that she doesn't know who the latest cartoon characters are or what an Xbox is (if kids even still play with those)? Will she forget her dreams of playing Little House in the Big Woods in the new backyard or will that be her favorite after school thing to do?

I think that these are things that every mom wonders in some form or another as they send their oldest off to school for the first time.

I tell myself that it is normal to send your kid to school. I tell myself that it is a classical Lutheran school, just like what we do at home. I hope that her excitement about school doesn't wane too quickly.

She told me that she might cry the first day of school. She assured me that she is excited about going. She is excited about eating lunch in the cafeteria and that Daddy can sometimes eat with her. She is excited about meeting other kids her own age. She is sad that she won't spend more of the day with me. Such a sweet heart. Makes me question letting someone else take over this part of my vocation.

I know that it has so many perks. I am thrilled to not have to pick out curricula again. I did not like the humanities curriculum that we used. Oh, she learned a lot, to be sure, but having to sort through the theology...ugh...and to have to go to the library so much (far away)...boo. I try to remind myself of that and that I really wanted to send her to a classical Lutheran school in the first place. I just couldn't because there wasn't one near us. Homeschooling was the last resort. We did enjoy it though.

Now we get to look forward to enjoying something new. 18 more days.