It’s 3:49 am and I have been up for hours. Yesterday we enrolled Lydia in Kindergarten. I am sad.
It started last week when I realized, as Lydia devolved into a puddle of screams during our reading session, that certain aspects of home schooling are not working. I had to face the hard reality that I think she would do better in a school environment. I feel bad because some of it is my fault for not being more patient and fun.
Mostly I am sad because (in my opinion) Lydia has a great rhythm to her life right now. She goes on one field trip a week with her school and spends another entire day at school doing fun hands on activities. She does ballet, dance, musical theater, and an hour or two of harp practice every day–and she still has time for hours and hours of play time. I am sad that we will have to trade that play time for school.
But we toured a charter school that is very close to our house today, and they could not guarantee us a spot for next year. The only way to make sure she would have a spot was to enroll her in their one kindergarten opening now. So I came home, filled out the forms, and bam!–on Monday, Lydia will start school.
I am comforted whenever I think of how our reading sessions have been going. Lydia has been making progress, but it has been so painful. I know Lydia, and she is (most of the time) her best self around other kids. She is also very respectful of adult authority (except for her parents–ha!), and I just know she will progress a whole lot faster in school.
I’m just sad at the change, I guess. I’ve learned a lot from this home schooling experiment, and I guess the good news is I could always pull her out again if things don’t go well in school. I am also excited to focus more on Mary, who actually begs me to give her reading lessons and actively wants to learn. So far I have had very little time for her because I was so focused on Lydia.
Here are some pictures from yesterday and the past couple days.
