Let the crying begin, er, continue

Well, this is the week I’ve been dreading looking forward to for months now – graduation week. Okay okay, I’m not really dreading all of it; we have 28 family members coming in from all over the country and we’re going to have a great party all weekend long! Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, New York, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois will all be represented. We’ll definitely need a few extra rows of seats at church on Sunday to accommodate our precious visiting family.

On Sunday, I mentioned to Sean that while this is a big deal for Michael, it’s really a big deal for us, too. We never planned to homeschool. Then when we made the switch, we never planned to homeschool through high school. And now, we’re about to graduate our first born and we’re going to hand him his diploma. Amazing.

I am not a model homeschool mom. I am not organized. I never have the right school supplies on hand. I barely know what classes my kids are taking. But I managed to keep enough together to get Michael to graduation. I’m just saying that truly, if I can do it, anyone can do it.

No, really. If you are considering homeschooling, believe me when I say you can do it. Yes, you can. And you will never regret it. Well, you may on a short-term basis. There were days I saw the school bus go by and I thought, “If only I had the day to myself.” But now that I have older kids, I do have occasional days to myself. And they’re great! But I wouldn’t trade. Because I got to be with my kids. I got to see what they were studying. I got help them understand that everyone has a worldview and I got to teach them mine. I got them a teacher for math (gotta know when to fold em’). But I got to be with my kids! I would never trade that.

I’m sure there will be some tears this week – I’ve been crying about this since January, so why should this week be any different? The kids are ready. Many jokes have been made at my expense. I’m sure I’ll be compared to a leaky faucet on several occasions. But I have found a secret weapon against the waterworks: I simply think of the bill the college just sent us. Nothing like the thought of writing that check to keep the tears at bay. For a while, anyway.