Homeschooling….

One of my favorite things that people often ask me about is homeschooling. I’m definitely not an expert but I’ve learned a lot these last twelve years.

Sometimes when asked about homeschooling I want to issue a WARNING. I want to tell them that I might not be the mom they want to talk to. Ha!

There are different kinds of homeschooling moms.

There are some moms that want to recreate public school at home. They want to do school 8am to 3pm. They hang posters and alphabet charts all over the walls. They probably have a designated school room or area in their house. Public school is what they know and they might subconsciously believe that if it’s not just like the public they attended, then it’s not REAL school.

That mom is definitely not me.

There are also moms that desire to get their child into Harvard or Yale. 😉 They develop a rigorous homeschool curriculum that rivals the finest private school education. Their children are masters of all the advanced courses. They probably speak Latin fluently.

That mom is definitely not me.

There are also moms that are creative geniuses. They develop entire units around Valentine’s Day. Their children work on amazing projects the entire year. They probably make a working telescope out of marshmallows and pipe cleaners.

That mom is definitely not me either.

I’m the mom who backs up and punts A LOT. I’m the mom that’s willing to change when something isn’t working. I’m the mom that’s willing to do what works best for each CHILD, not what works best for me.

I’m the mom who wants my kids to have TIME to just be KIDS. I want them to have time to participate in the arts. I want them to have time to be involved in our church activities. I want them to have time to pursue what interests them, even if it isn’t “school” related.

I’m the mom that knew what my ultimate homeschooling goal was a long time ago and I’ve chased after that.

RELATIONSHIP

I want to have a solid relationship with each of my kids. I want to really KNOW them. I want them to be able to talk to me about anything. I want to have the kind of relationship where we can discuss hard things.

The relationship that I have with my kids is different from the relationship I had with my parents growing up. That was my goal.

At the end of the day, the relationship is more important to me than an A+ in calculus. Period.

KINGDOM IMPACT

My strongest prayer for my children is that they grow to know, love and serve Jesus. Out of that love I want them to want to serve him faithfully in whatever path they choose for themselves.

I want to see them grow in their faith and be strong in their convictions. I want them to be a part of changing their world without being OF the world.

I want to know that they have 12+ years of solid nurturing and guidance under their belts before we send them out into the world. I want them to step out into adulthood confident in WHO they are and WHOSE they are.

At the end of the day, I don’t panic about homeschooling. I want my kids to know HOW to learn. I want them to LOVE to learn. I want them to know that we are cheering them on no matter where God calls them. If He calls them to be a rocket scientist then yay for them! If he calls them to be a stay at home parent and raise their babies then yay for them!

I want them to know that we don’t judge their worth by whether or not they attend college. I want them to know that we love them the same whether they grow up to be a lawyer, a doctor or a hair stylist.

When my kids are done with their official homeschooling journey, I want them to have fond memories. I want them to treasure the time they spent at home truly getting to know their siblings and their parents. I want them to have a broad range of experiences that they hold close.

Pursue what you love. Love and serve Jesus.

Everything else comes out in the wash.

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This is a book that I’ve been wanting to pick up. It came highly recommended for anyone with children…whether you homeschool or not. I downloaded it today on Audible and I’m excited to get started.

Wanted to share for those of you who homeschool or who’ve had it on your heart to pursue something different.

Love You All,

Jenifer

Managing versus Living

What a weird season the world has been in lately. Things just feel different.

I’ve wanted to hide away and get out there, all at the same time.

I’ve wanted to mingle with dear friends and hole up with my little family, all at the same time.

I’ve wanted to bury my head in the sand and fight back, all at the same time.

How about you? How are things going in your corner of the world?

We’ve had a busy summer here so far. All fun things but SO busy. The big kids have church camps coming up, Ellie and Roo are excited to be in a play this summer, we’ve had vacation Bible school and other camps AND are excited about our annual reunion trip with Down syndrome/adoption friends. I’m exhausted just typing that all out!

My mind is thinking ahead to getting school curriculum ordered for this fall and one of the kids even mentioned CHRISTMAS today!!! Hold up and let me survive the summer first! Ha!

I love doing all the things but often I long for simpler times. I feel like I spend all my time managing life.

I started reading a book this week that has been on my list for a while…

HANDS FREE MAMA

Man, talk about convicting! I feel like she is speaking directly to me. I’ve been listening to the book on Hoopla (if you don’t have this app, run…don’t walk and download it!!) so I haven’t underlined any quotes or favorite passages. But this stuck with me…

There is a difference in MANAGING life and LIVING it.

OUCH, OUCH, OUCH!

I feel like I am in constant management mode. I feel like I’m the only one who KNOWS all the things. I manage my own business from home, I work a part-time job for someone else from home, I know when all the things need to happen, I know when things need to be purchased, I know when the bills are due, I know who has to be where and when.

ALL.THE.THINGS.

But the things I do are GOOD.

It’s good when I remember to get my girls to ballet on the right days and at the right times.

It’s good when I remember we need to buy more peanut butter and fruit or that it’s time to swap out the washer and the dryer loads.

It’s good when I remember that I need to pay the car insurance by a certain day so that we still have insurance.

All good things.

But I’m realizing that I am focusing on management instead of life.

I don’t want to leave this earth and my kids talk about me by saying things like…

“Momma was so good at putting together a grocery budget…”

“Momma was so good at posting on social media…”

“Momma did a great job at keeping the laundry caught up…”

Cue the momma tears.

I want them to remember that I was PRESENT.

I want them to remember seeing me without my phone or my iPad in my hands.

I want them to remember me saying YES instead of maybe later.

I want them to remember me looking into their eyes when they spoke to me.

Some days I do really well…there are moments…

I love that all three of my big kids come and sit with me at night and talk about all the random things on their minds.

I love that I’ve created a different relationship with my children than I have with my parents.

I love that my children will remember that Momma always sang and danced at home and made them laugh and that I wasn’t afraid to laugh at myself.

I’m committed to making changes and admitting when I can do better…

I’m committed to spending less time with a phone in my hands and more time holding theirs.

I’m committed to making sure my children have memories of me DOING the things instead of just WATCHING the things.

I’m committed to finding a balance between connection on social media and disconnecting to make my family my top priority.

I’m looking forward to unplugging on an upcoming family trip.

I want to be a better steward of my time when it comes to work so that my children know they come first.

I’ve dabbled some on the Telegram app as a way to step back from Facebook. It feels good…if you miss me on Facebook, you can find me there.

I plan to spend more time here on my blog when I just need an outlet to write and share and talk things through. It won’t matter if anyone ever reads it. It will still have served its purpose.

I want to truly connect with friends and not just through social media. I want to go have coffee face to face. I want to invite a friend to a movie. I want to make that phone call to catch up.

Praying that God opens my eyes to the ways I can take off my management hat and put on my living hat.

I want to have a life WELL LIVED not WELL MANAGED.

I’m guessing you do too.

Happy World Down Syndrome Day!!

Happy World Down Syndrome Day!! 💙💛 Today on 3/21 we celebrate. See these three cuties below? While you have TWO copies of your 21st chromosome, they have THREE!

Want to know what comes in that third copy?

A lot of extra sweetness (most days) 😉

A lot of extra stubborn (every day) 🤣

A lot of extra love ❤️

That’s what I see.

Want to know what the world sees?

They see the r-word. 😔

They see a burden. 😔

They see incompetence. 😔

Today I love to see you wearing your crazy socks and yellow & blue to celebrate my babies. #rockyoursocks 💙💛

But even more, I’d love for you to stand with my babies.

When someone uses the r-word around you, SPEAK UP. Tell them it’s hurtful. Ask them to choose a different word.

When you look at my babies, see them for the blessing they are. Do we have hard days? Yes. But doesn’t every one?

When you interact with my babies, ASSUME COMPETENCE. They can do the things! Sometimes it just takes them a little longer or they have to do it in a different way.

Today we celebrate.

But we also want to advocate and educate.

We want you to see our babies as we see them.

You are creating the world my babies live in.

Do them proud.💙💛

Well, hello there….

Gosh, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been here.

Remember when blogs were all the rage? I used to check many of them faithfully every day. I followed the lives of families I didn’t even know. Ha!

Then along came Facebook. I remember being at lunch with a group of local moms who were chatting about being on Facebook. I chimed in that I was on Facebook too! One of the moms said, “You’re on Facebook but you’re not ON Facebook!” Touché…I had an account but didn’t actively post or even interact much.

Obviously I took that as a challenge and stepped up my game. She might have created a monster. Ha!

I went on to use Facebook to connect with current friends, old friends and even to make new friends. Facebook helped me share my love of oils with you and helped us through the hardest seasons during our adoptions, job loss and so much more.

It has been a blessing in many ways.

But it’s also been a curse and a distraction.

At times it has drawn me in and wasted my time. It’s made friends enemies when I shared an unpopular opinion. It has raised my blood pressure. It’s trapped me into comparison and made me feel less than.

I’ve taken breaks throughout the years and sometimes I’ve just wanted to walk away completely. But ugghhhhhh….it’s so hard. It feels like an addiction. Knowing what’s going on in your friends’ lives, seeing cute pictures of their kids and reading funny stories. It feels like Facebook has become such a source of education for me too. So many great groups I belong to where I have learned so much. When I took breaks from FB, I missed those groups so much.

I see so many friends jumping ship for other apps.

I’ve tried a few of them but it all feels the same. Like I’m feeding an addiction….an addiction for information maybe? It’s just a weird feeling to try and unpack my relationship with social media.

I hardly remember not having it.

How did I interact with friends before social media?

Wonder if Yahoo groups are still a thing?🤔🤣🤣🤣

Anyway, I’m rambling at this point. Not sure what the future holds for the way we connect.

I do know that I love the connection I have with all of you on social media and I’m not sure how to foster that without it.

I don’t think there’s a perfect answer.

I think for now, I’m going to evaluate the ways I really want to connect with friends, businesses and educational groups online.

I want to spend more time writing here even if it’s only for me. (Maybe my mom reads it too. Ha!)

Blogs can feel so one sided….if you hopped over and read this post, I’d love for you to comment and say hi.

I think if you scroll up above my picture, you can click “Leave a Comment”. Maybe one of these days I’ll master all of this! Ha!

How do you really connect with friends near and far? Is social media overwhelming for you too right now? I’d love to hear.❤️

Love You friend.

Jenifer

Your tribe…

Continuing to enjoy my social media sabbatical. Day eleven. Today’s a dreary day in North Alabama. Rainy and cool as I’m sitting at ballet class. Not MY ballet class mind you. I can barely walk and talk at the same time. I am definitely not coordinated enough to dance.

While I’m waiting on my two biggest girls, I’m devouring “You are the Girl for the Job” by Jess Connolly.

The book was a gift from a dear friend and it was just what I needed in this season. I’ve made sure to have my pen handy and underlined way more of this book than is normal or recommended.

In my reading today she touches on COMMUNITY. I think she might have even read my mind possibly before she wrote this particular chapter.

She mentions that she finds women fall into basically two groups:

“A. Some women feel left out of the tribe mentality altogether, like they missed that lesson in elementary school. I had one friend cry to me a few years ago because no one ever taught her how to use foundation or host a great slumber party. I remember telling her: Me either. I don’t think those lessons ever took place.

B. I’ve found that there is a host of women who do have a crew of tight-knit friends, but they still feel alone, and maybe even anxious that their tribe keeps them from thriving and living their most abundant life.”

I feel like I’m a mix of both. I’ve never felt as though I found my TRIBE. Do I have friends? Absolutely. And some pretty amazing ones. But their numbers are few. I would venture to say that only a handful of women know me at my core. Like truly KNOW me.

I bet many THINK they know me, but they don’t.

As an extrovert, I feel like I quickly make friends, but maybe they’d qualify more as acquaintances.

There are more times I’ve felt the sting of loneliness more than the warmth of friendship.

The circle that I keep closest knows all my stories. Good and bad.

But I hold that close. I don’t let just anyone into that circle. What if they knew the REAL me? Would they still like me? Would they want to be my friend? Would they stand in judgement?

I’m good at letting others in just “enough” while keep them at a safe distance at the same time.

A defense mechanism I think. It plays into the feeling that, at the end of the day, I can truly only count on myself.

My thoughts are whirling but I want to continue reading….I’ll be back soon.

What about you?

Have you found your tribe?

Do you feel like others really know you?

Do you still feel alone even when surrounded by friends?

Scroll back up and leave me a comment…I’d love to chat.