When I was pregnant with Lilly Belle, the tragedy in Newtown happened. It broke me. My heart hurts still for those families. When I was pregnant with Lulu, tragedy hit here in Orlando and even more – I knew I wanted my babies close. I know I cannot live in fear and that it is literally impossible to keep them safe always, but I will try. Can I just wrap them in bubble wrap forever? No?
I have been excited about writing this post. I feel so passionately about homeschooling our girls. Right now we are taking it one year at a time, but I do have hopes of continuing to homeschool them all the way through high school – for so many more reasons. If my only reason for wanting to homeschool our girls was to keep them safe with me, Matt would never go for it. He’s the level-headed one. But when I came to Matt to talk to him about wanting to homeschool Lilly Belle for VPK (Pre-K) this coming Fall, he agreed with me 100% and agrees that continuing for Kindergarten will be great for her. One year at a time.
I want our girls to have the opportunity to be themselves and to never have to conform to their peers. I want them to have the privilege of learning in a safe and comfortable environment. I don’t ever want them to feel that they are who they are because of a letter on the top of a paper; they are not a grade. I want them to get to fully soak up childhood. I want to get to fully soak up their childhood. I believe fully in letting them be little. I don’t ever want their spark to be dulled by sitting in a desk taking test after test. I want them to learn because they love what they are learning and experiencing, not to learn to pass a test. I want their imaginations to soar. My dream is that they always dream. I want them to experience the world around them. I want them to have the opportunity to naturally bloom into their strengths and to run with them. I don’t want them to be confined to learning what is put in front of them, but rather to discover their world and for me to help them to delve deeper into what excites them. If they have an interest that they are passionate about, I want them to get to learn about it as deeply as they’d like and for as long as they’d like and is many ways as we can. Equally, I want them to have the opportunity to have time to grow in their weakness. In areas where they are struggling, I hope that we will be able to take things slowly to make sure they fully understand and learn before having to move on. I want their education to be full, deep and big. I want to surround them with beauty, experiences, culture, arts, nature, and so much love.
Watching Lilly Belle learn and grow has been my favorite part of life. It makes me so excited to think about Lulu getting to do school with us in a couple years. Thinking about our girls getting to learn together makes me so happy. It just seems right for us. Homeschool is coming so naturally for our family. Yes, it is just preschool right now, but it is becoming such a part of our lives and daily life together. It’s perfect and so beautiful. It has brought us all so much happiness and so much beauty and even more love into our home.