Thursday, August 17, 2017

Here's the Thing...

So here's the thing...it is hard. Anyone who ever tells you that this whole "homeschooling thing is easy" is lying. LYING. Although, to be honest I have never heard anyone say that homeschooling was easy or for the weak at heart.  Rewarding....YES (well...maybe, ask me at different moments and receive different answers.).  We are finishing up our first week, how? Well because I decided long ago that if I was going to homeschool and I was going to be with my children A.L.L. day I was going to schedule in some perks. So if you send your kids to school a perk is that you have 7 hours. For me, my perk is that I am scheduling Fridays as light days. We will use it to catch up and move on. I need it, they need it, y'all the world needs it. 

But here  are a few things I come away with. I can say all day long that I want to live in a glass house, but I live with 5 other people who don't want, or know yet if they want, to live in a glass house. Their lives are their stories to tell and I can't showcase their struggles to the world. I surely wouldn't want that. So, don't let my insta stories fool you. It is hard, it is raw, there are tears and banging heads and clashing moments. We are figuring it out, we are forging our way through to what feels right and normal for us.

One day at a time. This has to be my motto. I can't think ahead, I can't think about future, I can barely think through to tomorrow. Today. That is all I got and I have to be ok and content in it.

It doesn't look like what I thought. But isn't this true of most things?  What we picture...is never what it really will look like. In some ways it is better, they do learn, they do listen, we do have sweet moments...but when we came down on Monday morning and started our day with a huge meltdown .2 seconds in...whoa I was not expecting that.  Its okay though, I am learning to have grace, give grace and receive grace for each moment. It doesn't have to look a certain way... Grace....coffee...repeat.

Its to early for me to say "I love it...or I hate it.." And maybe I will feel differently each and every day, but I will say this, "I am suppose to do this." And my reality that this is exactly what Jesus is asking me to do did not come because of a moment of "wow this is good" or one of my children saying "Wow mom this homeschooling thing is AMAZING.."  in reality we have more "I hate this..." from them then anything. It came because of a true moment with Jesus when It became clear just why I am doing this for each one of my boys. I saw it and Jesus clearly said "This. This is why." 
I told Kevin this morning, I know they will learn, but this isn't about what they learn this next school year, this is about investing in my boys hearts in ways I know will impact their future and our future relationship for years to come.

And lastly the thing is. I am tired. There is not enough coffee in this world. However, my two littles were home with me this week for school, they start next week and I think that will change a lot of things.  Can I also say I might be tired because we got a puppy...ha, a puppy and he has been just as demanding as the kids. Bless it to my tired and weary soul Jesus.


Sunday, August 13, 2017

Yeah So This is Happening...like tomorrow.

Holy Crap, bless it, Jesus be near....Tanner Crew is bringing school home! I can't even. Let us all take a moment to really think about that. Whoa, my stomach just flipped a thousand times. I am not even joking. Close your eyes...wait for it...did you hear it? That really dramatic theme song music that lets you know something is about to happen...the atmosphere changed...something is happening? That's coming from this corner of the world.

Some have called me dramatic....some...I have fought this, I am not dramatic...no no...I just feel things very deeply and things are very big and very much a BIG HUGE GIGANTIC thing. Also. My educational status of my brain is very much on a 1st grade level and that is being gracious. How many times I have had to look at my very smart and intellectual (had to spell check that word...) husband to make sure I am explaining something correctly to my children... Yeah...that girl and that brain is bringing home her two (TWO as in at the same time) Boys to teach. Holy crap, Bless it, Be near Jesus.....I can't even.

But, Jesus. always and forever people BUT JESUS. It wasn't an overnight journey. It wasn't a split second conversation. It has been happening since my Sweet Tyler, and then my Sweet Jaden. Things...signs, that stirring in your heart that something was just not ok. And we pray, and we pray, and we talk, and we agonize.  So I invest, and investigate. I become room mom (uh....yeah don't do that.), I make it a priority to be IN the school and IN the classroom and IN the cafeteria. I warm (beat, bang, kick and knock down) my way into the front desk receptions cold heart and receive finally her grace and occasional kindness (Yes...elementary front desk.). I watch, I listen, I have 5 IEP meetings where I cry and bang my hands on the desk and literally FIGHT for my son. I come to the end of two years of that school and feel just as much an outsider looking into my children's education and its not ok.

I watch one kid fall further behind and not because he is not smart...no, he is very smart.... and I'm not just a proud mama...but that brick and mortar school is failing him.

And then there is my other kid, the one who is listening and watching EVERYTHING. I could handle the "what does this mean?" As my 1st grader waves his middle finger around, and I could handle the "I learned a new word, what does Shit mean?" But the day my 7 year old bounded into the van and before the sliding door of the mom van could close he says "mom, a learned a new word...Fu**...." Why couldn't of been Fart. I was ready for that word.  I sat there paralyzed, literally, teachers kept waiving me down the line and I couldn't even move. I have always tried to prepare myself so that I didn't react in a way that would make my boys not ask me questions...but I couldn't stop the tears, I couldn't form a word, I just sat there and let the tears fall from eyes. I was witnessing innocents  robbed from my children and it made me angry.  I am not stupid or naive y'all.  I know its coming, but not at 7, not for the ears of my 3 and 4 year old...where they ALL took turns saying it because mom wasn't breathing or speaking or responding she was sitting in the carline crying.

On that day, my heart begin to break. I knew something had to change. I begin asking all my friends their experiences and I couldn't find a similar story...not in 1st grade...not in the little hallway before moving up with the 5th graders...but this was MY reality and OUR story and Jesus was calling me to something beyond myself. 

Then one night in our 1,000 conversations I say to Kevin "Here's the thing, my only job, my only focus right now for the next 11 or more years is these boys. This is my mission field, my job, my reality. I am being asked to do something outside of myself because I know its Jesus. I am weak, and will have gaps as big as the ocean, BUT JESUS..."  We had exhausted every other single thing. We cannot afford another school or a move to be in a different district. This is where we are.  It was like peace once I came to the point that I realized Jesus was asking me to step outside of myself.  I would sacrifice anything for these boys and that is just what Jesus was asking me to do.

I know my limits though people, I am not a teacher. I also know my children...one does not respond to me as a teacher...So I begin researching the online public school. And before I knew it I had a classroom in my home and was registered as a Georgia Cyber Academy learning coach, and had students attending for 2nd grade.

We start Monday. I don't know  beyond today. And I don't know what the future of the next year will look like. I wake in the middle of the night sick to my stomach as I adjust to what's about to happen.  So come along, why? Well, I have said it before and I'll say it again Jesus has always asked me to live my life is a glass box, because I know that when I share what is happening in our lives chances are...someone can relate. I love it, I love being real and honest and inviting people in. I have looked for anyone who has done this and allowed people to experience their experience and I can't find anyone.  So I am that person hopefully for someone else.  I also miss writing and with having the boys home and on a school routine it is allowing me sometime to sit and write.

So here is your invitation- come along. I am also planning on documenting some of this by video on our YouTube channel...uh...don't think this fancy or that I am planning on getting famous for this...that is not my hope or desire. My desire- authentic reality. Can we all stop pretending. That is intended to be a statement not a question. (my editing and spelling probably drives most of you crazy..yeah sorry about that.)


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdSMVd28GTywSg9CwiAY9CQ

I also love Insta its the best way to document a day in the life of chaos- so find us I believe we are Tanner Crew