A friend of mine needed a babysitter for her little man last week so I agreed to watch him.
It was much harder than I anticipated for many reasons.
First, it's hard to throw an 8 month old in the mix! Life is pretty scheduled around here and an 8 month old is a lot to just add out of nowhere. Second, I couldn't help but think about what life would be like if Zoe were going to be here soon. The boys both loved the little guy. And his toys. And playing with him. And pretty much everything. It was tough. Third, I was completely and totally unprepared for babysitting a little dude. We've gotten rid of pretty much anything even remotely close to baby related over the years. So finding things to occupy his time was quite challenging.
But we survived! And I think I learned a lot from the experience.
Although last week was painful in many way it was also a week of a lot of personal growth. I think I can for the first time confidently say that maybe it's ok that we will only have our two boys. Life is certainly easier with one kid per adult. And my boys are growing up so quickly. It's hard to snap back into "baby mode." I certainly would and could do it if we were given the opportunity to have another baby. But I think I have a new found appreciation for life as we know it.
I've also been meeting with our Priest weekly. It's been really great. Jacob and I are going to start alternating weeks so from here on out it will be every other week but I'm really looking forward to it. He rarely tells me what to do, what not to do, what to or not to think, it's much more a guided exploration of my faith. He gives me all sorts of new prospective on life and God and I always leave with so much to think about. It's truly been a blessing!
Friday night I attended a barbeque at Jacob's boss's house. I was absolutely dreading going. I find stuff like that just plain painful. And quite frankly, I was exhausted! I could think of a million things to do instead, highest on the list being getting some dang sleep! But it turned out to be wonderful!! His boss's parents were visiting and his dad is involved in special education helping to make adaptive software for kids with special needs. We had some great conversations about Autism and he had some great suggestions. He also gave us his business card and offered to talk to some people back home (in Michigan) and see if anyone had any good suggestions of avenues to get some additional help out here. You can never have too many connections! Overall it was a fun evening even if I did stay out WAY too late.
Jacob and I have been talking about homeschooling our kids for quite awhile now. We're considering it for many reasons. We've finally progressed from talking about it to actually digging down and doing some serious research. We picked up a wonderful book Saturday evening filled with wonderful insights and suggestions plus some great tables and charts to fill out to figure out your "plan." We're still a long ways from making a final decision but I honestly can say that I'm starting to lean towards actually doing this! It's all very exciting. Both of my kids are so smart and I want nothing more than to raise them into the amazing men I know they can be. So many things are part of doing that- much of which won't be instilled in school. So why not just teach them myself? We've essentially been doing that with Jack for almost 2 years now with his tutoring programs which I think gives us a huge leg up in this all. It's not going to be easy by any means but I'm confident we can do this. We haven't decided 100% to do this yet and Jack continues to be in school full time and will continue for the foreseeable future. We're gearing up for his annual IEP review and we're going to continue to create the best education environment for him there while we sort through our options. We're praying for guidance in this new endeavor, it's a huge step that will change our lives. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated too!
So that's pretty much last week. Today's a little off still, Jack's tutor is sick and Jacob's going to be gone at work for most of the day/night. But still closer to normalcy than last week was and I'll take it!
