The Goolsby School for Boys is now in session .

I haven't blogged in awhile because I've been preoccupied with a decision Tom and I made. We decided to homeschool Harris for kindergarten next year. I have spent hours reading books, researching curriculum, schedules, getting input on what does and doesn't work, etc. I think I'm all researched out. I've told a few people and the reaction has been positive. Most people ask why. That's a complex question to answer but the underlying reason is that we feel this is what God has for us. I have been looking into it for a couple of years but wasn't sure if that was the best thing for our family. The more we talked about educational options, I thought Tom didn't want to do that, so I never pursued it with him. He came home one day and said if I was willing to do it, he thought it would be best for our family. Totally out of the blue. Crazy! I like the idea of dictating our own schedule. I really like moving at the student's pace. We know several families that do it and their kids are awesome! Bottom line, I really am excited about it and so happy Tom came to want this without my input.

So, since no one is going to come along and teach Harris to read or do basic math, we decided to dive right in. Harris is sort of reading.......ish. I think his maximum word is about 5 letters so I don't know if that really counts. He's doing VERY basic addition and subtraction. I took him to a homeschool group we're thinking of joining next year and he really surprised me! Every kid in the class had a presentation prepared and they went in order of how they were sitting. He would have been 3rd but the assumption was he wouldn't do it, since he wasn't prepared or part of the class. He immediately started whispering to me that he wanted to present a lego game app on my phone. So, he did! He did great! He got up in front of 8 other kids and a few adults he didn't know and gave an articulate description of exactly what the game did. They'll do a presentation each week so I hope it remains something that is very normal to him. I was so proud of his spirit, just ready to try whatever was put in front of him. Love that!

One thing that's happening that I didn't expect is that Walker is picking up things. He is just curious about what's going on and loiters around when we're working on things. That's a perk, for sure.

 I was bracing myself for the negative. The issue of socialization has come up. We know so many homeschooling families with great kids that I have no concern about that. However, I did research that to have statistics (by research, I mean google) and there are numerous studies showing that to be a non-issue. However, I'm not linking to any articles. The tone of most of the ones I read seemed to go so far in defense that I think they condemned other choices and I am not interested in doing that. I may be sprinting to the nearest elementary school at some point! We're homeschooling next year and while ideally we'd like to continue, I'm definitely not ready to proclaim that we will homeschool till the end of time. We'll take it year by year, kid by kid, and see what happens. I feel like this is how people feel before they have babies....planning how homeschooling might go. In my head, I have a plan but I also realize that I don't really have a clue what we're getting into, no matter how much I've read.

There are numerous things about homeschooling that are TERRIFYING to me. I won't even list them all but just know they exist.

In other news, Spiderman lives with us on occassion.

So does Batman.

And the Incredible Hulk! Please notice the thigh. Yes, I know there's food on his face. It has been wiped off since then.

 Walker has a recent obsession with that spiderman mask and wore it to Harris' pre-school drop off, shooting webs all over the place. Props to the dad that played along and pretended to be wrapped up completely in webs. Much appreciated!

"If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." Gal 3:29