Finding the magic in what we do

I always felt that I had oodles of enthusiasm for being a stay at home mum.  I loved Home Educating my children, and always felt that I had a really great life.  Ups and downs a plenty of course, but overall I enjoyed what I did.

We were always exploring, experimenting, playing, visiting places of interest, lots of socialising amongst other things.  We were free to do so many things, within reason, and we had a great time.

Moving away from the city had a huge effect on our HE lifestyle, and obviously the arrival of our cheeky monkey James did too.  But still we carried on, different location, further away from the hub of home ed, more structure needed in our getting out of the house and travelling around with a littlen in tow, but all very doable.

A long story later (which includes Epilepsy, redundancy, financial change, house on the market and a big let down at our HE social group*) and our life has changed.  Our eldest two being at High School  has left me feeling flat, and a bit disorientated.

I felt that I no longer wanted to go to groups and on HE outings, mainly because I didn't want to leave our town in case  Becky and Danny needed me, even though they were at school.  I also felt that I just couldn't bear to be  at groups without them there, and I felt extremely sad.  This also meant that I went out less with James, our little town is great, but there is only so much you can do. 
At the weekends our Sundays are taken up with Rugby, and because the older two have been at school all week they like to just stay at home on Saturdays and chill out, something they were able to do a lot of when home edded, but now it is a novelty for them.  So even family outings have become a thing of the past.

Home educating a 4 year old is at the other end of the scale tha teaching pre-teens.  It was great learning alongside them, getting into topics I had forgotten about since school which seemed more interesting the second time round, planning their education, despite the fact that our approach was always child led, we still had to provide a suitable environment in which they could learn.

So I felt a bit redundant once they went to school.  They have tons of homework, but they do it all themselves and do really well. Most of it is project based, which is what they have always been used to doing at home with me, so they have a good sense of organising themselves in this area of learning.  The only thing they ever need extra help with is Maths and French, and as Mike is better at both of these subjects than I am, he helps them out, not me.  Poor not needed any more and just left on the rubbish heap me!  (Violins please).

To add to this we have had a ridiculously mild winter therefore creating a million and trillion bugs which we seem to keep picking up, and it seems we have been ill for the best part of the winter.  So staying in, watching TV, eating junk and generally getting more stuck in a rut was inevitable really.

What has changed - I am not sure, time heals they say, so maybe now I am ready to start again, this time with my little boy.  Yes my circumstances are different and it maybe harder this time round but I want to be as enthusiastic as I used to be, and to do that I have to realise the importance of what I do, what we all do as mothers, whether it be home educating, or if you have kids at school, its  hard work and can get you down, but the good way out weighs the bad, its just taking time to find the magic in what we do.

Yes I will still miss my babies while they are at school, but the time has come for me to get back onto the saddle and start being a Home Ed Mum once again.

Lou x