ouch!

Having a VERY LAZY day today so I went through my schedules and shopping lists for the homeschool convention I am going to in a week and a half.

There is a speaker there who will cover parenting kids from the "hard places"-fetal alcohol syndrome, attachment disorders, foster care, etc. that I plan to listen to a few times. I will also be going up a day early to hear Home School Legal Defense Association's "Homechooling through High School" workshop on Thursday. I am not as worried about high school anymore, but as much extra info I can get, the better. There are just SO. MANY. CHOICES!!!

Friday morning I will be working the registration table. By doing that I get into the conference free. And anything free is GREAT! I totaled up my shopping list of needs, and OUCH!!! Cybil is now hitting high school so we need all new curriculum for her, and there are electives she will be taking of course. The other kids are starting the cycle of curriculum we already have over again, but there are some upgrades needed. We saved over $250 by finding a friend to borrow the Biology lab microscope and slides from thankfully! There is also Spanish, which will be another big killer. I am very grateful that most of our curriculum is non-consumable so we can just start the next kid on each one. The next 4 years will be more expensive obviously as we have to purchase high school material. With tax, I am probably looking at $1350 in curriculum! Ouch! (And that isn't the hotel room or food for the weekend either!)

Looking at that big number, sure there is a part of me that says send'em to school-you're paying for that anyway too! But as crazy as things can get around here every great once in a while, I enjoy learning with them and having all the kids around. The two oldest girls are gone this weekend for a conference and all the other kids are missing them (and my workload is bigger too :-) ! ) I actually can't imagine them NOT being here anymore. I really don't think any of them even think about public school anymore, and they have never even asked to go. It's more of a threat-if you don't fix the attitude, keep up your work, etc, etc...I'll send you to public school where you have to just sit all day... (it's a joke-no comments on that please!)

And yes, there is another part of me that is a little sad that they aren't involved in sports or music programs like I was. They've never really asked to be, I suppose because they just don't think about that either. We are hoping to get back into piano lessons next year (for the four girls) too. It's a toss-up it some times seems-I so don't miss out on driving kids around in four different directions or more on any given night or weekend. But yes, there are great things about the activities too. This is the choice we've made for our family though, and we are just gonna do the best we can with what we've got.