Moving, Adoption, and High School

So the house! Michael is SUPER awesome. He is the family project manager. I mean, I pay the bills, but he handles big thinking projects like overseeing R's adoption and our home purchase right now. I like that I can depend on him for things like that so I can just focus on this little family without having to make/take phone calls, stay on top of people, etc.

Our loan agent with our bank is stinkin awesome! We are 2 weeks from closing and already our loan has been through underwriting. Every home purchase or refi we've had in the past, it was in underwriting the day before closing and then they tell us if don't find every cancelled check since 1947, our neighbor's tax returns, and hair samples from all family members, the closing will be off. Everything has been smooth, smooth, smooth. I attribute this to Michael's project management and a loan officer that is no-nonsense and hates proctrastination.

There are always delays with adoption and so we are not fixated on every minute passing on the clock with R not being home yet. I wholeheartedly believe things happen in the fullness of time, and there will be hiccups until it is finally time for him to come home.

I am pretty sure Hannah will go to high school next year. She will be a freshman and will be attending a brand new high school. There are a lot of reasons why I think this will be best for her. I've never been anti-public school; I've been pro-superior education. Hannah CAN continue to be homeschooled and IS getting a good education. She is at that age where she is insatiable mentally. She is more my equal intellectual than she is a student anymore. She is independent and wants to branch out on her own.

Truthfully, Hannah is far better suited for community college at 14 than she is high school. She is a very mature young lady, a hard worker, and an independent learner. I have been having Hannah and Tara work on fastfoward this school year to keep them busy, honestly, and Hannah is still working through it super fast.

So I have two options...I can have her go through 2 school years every school year and graduate at 16 and then go into community college, but I would have to work hard. Meaning I would have to calculate credit hours, pay for her to take Apologia science and labs because I wouldn't enjoy teaching high level science (and it is really college level for high schoolers). I would need to keep up a transcript comparable to those in the group schools, maintain an active portfolio of her educational exploits in case she wants to go to a University instead of starting off at a community college. Do I have the time to do that? To play guidance counselor for a precocious young lady?

OR, I can send her to high school for 4 years, education I am already paying for. I don't think she would really learn anything outstandingly new; but I think learning in a different environment with different expectations would be stimulating. And this girl DOES need stimulation. She's a busy, busy, busy person..and I can't keep up! I wouldn't have to pay for art, choir, science class/lab or Spanish/French because guess what? Its already paid for at the local high school. So she can have all the electives she wants for all of the interests she is bursting with.

I think it would be good for Tara and I to have some time as the only big people in the house. Tara is such a quiet girl. She is enamored by simple pleasures, just like her mom. We are no frills kinda people. We could sit on a porch swing for 2 hours staring at a tree and reading a book and feel like we had the best time together. Becuase she is quiet and Hannah is bubbly and outgoing, I think Tara would benefit from having me all to her self, if that makes sense, even though I would have littles. I would be teaching one less person and could focus on Tara's educational needs.

I also am going to be teaching virtual triplets from now on. We have therapy 5-6 times a week. Hannah gets done with her schoolwork, she reads Les Miserables in a half hour, and then wants to go window shopping, but the little ones have this therapy and that doctor appointment and then nap. We are all cramping Hannah's style and ambition, truthfully. And you know what? Its ok!

So I have always heard anti-homeschoolers say that kids need group school for socialization, that they need independence from their parents and all that. I have always said if we send our kids to group school to be SOCIALIZED then what a freaking mess we have for an educational system.

But in part, I am sending Hannah to public school next year (we think) because she's smarter than her mother, is pretty sure she is smarter than her dad, she is bored out of her gourd and wants more challenges, but she is not yet old enough to work a full-time job (boy that pisses her off) and go to University (that, too). So the next 4 years we will probably send her to high school NOT because she'll get superior education. She will be in a great school as far as we know, but really, its just for stimulation she desires...she wants to leadng kids to Christ. She wants to take every elective they ever offer. She wants to have a prom, a home coming, a senior trip. So ultimately, I think a lot of her going to high school may very well be socially and emotionally based.

So does that make me a hypocrite? Lol I don't care if it does. It isn't that she needs to LEARN how to socialize. IT is that she just wants more opportunities to meet people, explore interests, and lead them to the Lord. She wants the emotional highs of high school rites of passage, and also, we can help her walk thorugh those high school lows as well.

Really, I wish I could sign her up for college. She's probably more ready at 14 than I was at 17 when I went. But here we are, going with what we can do. And I think we are all getting excited about it!