to homeschool or not

We have been waffling with the idea of homeschooling for a while in our home. On one hand, we have looked at the education system (both here, and across the country) and it just seems to be failing so horribly. Add that into our own personal experiences, and we feel like we would be doing a huge disservice to our children if we willingly sent them to public school.

Since private school for three (or more?) children will most likely never be in our budget, it seems as if homeschooling is the way for us to go. Luckily for us, we have some guidance with my aunt and uncle who have been homeschooling for a few years, and West Virginia is a pretty homeschool friendly state. I know that the paperwork to begin homeschooling is rather easy, the local YMCA offers weekly gym classes for the kids, and that public school sports & arts programs are all open for homeschooled children to join in. 

It all seems kind of perfect, right? 

Except not.

We all know that I haven't exactly felt in my calling as a stay-at-home-mom. I've been longing for the day that I can return to work, which has always been the day that all of our kids are in school because (just like private school) daycare is too expensive for our budget.

BUT, the big issue I have with being a stay-at-home-mom is that I have pretty much no adult interaction except via the internet, and that I don't feel like I am accomplishing anything by being here. Would those issues become moot points if I joined homeschool co-ops, and if teaching my children makes me feel like I'm worthwhile?

I don't know.

How can I know?

On top of all of that, I'm in the midst of (finally) finishing my English degree. Should I try to tack on a teaching degree if I plan on homeschooling? I wouldn't need it, but it would be helpful, right? What happens if I finish my degrees now, then homeschool for the next 20+ years, and then try to go to work? I would never be able to do it. My degree would be obsolete with that big of a gap. So if I homeschool will I be stuck as a stay-at-home-mom then housewife forever? 

I am fairly certain that I would not be happy with that outcome.

But I don't know for sure.

How can I know right now, at age 23, what I will be happy with 20 years in the future?

This is exactly why I could never decide on a college major. How could I decide at 18 what I wanted to do for the rest of my life?

Apparently, not much has changed in five years.

Cloth Diapering, Take Two

We had to stop cloth diapering when I got pregnant with #3 because I couldn't handle it mixed with the ridiculous amounts of 24/7 "morning" sickness that I was having. We ended up switching Genevieve back to up & up brand diapers, and potty trained Sebastian.

One of my two cloth diaper drawers.

Now, I am almost 21 weeks pregnant and the morning sickness is still frequent, but not constant. Hopefully this week we will be making the switch back to cloth. I'm really looking forward to it, because I actually missed the cloth diapers. They're just so pretty, and they have been sitting all alone in their dresser drawers for months. They must be lonely.

One problem that we had before we stopped using our cloth diapers was that we were having a lot of nighttime leaks. I did some digging around with some help from my favorite cloth diaper store, Bums N'beyond, and found out that our leaks were probably because we have tummy sleepers, and that AppleCheeks brand is supposed to be the best for heavy wetters. So, I sold a few of my current cloth diapers to a friend, and was able to purchase three used AppleCheeks from the owner of the store. I'm waiting to see what happens before buying any more, because apparently the "best" brand comes with a pretty high price tag. 

Wish us luck!

Pre-Schooler Chores

As I've touched on a few times, husby and I grew up in households with completely different parenting styles. One of those differences is chores. Husby always had A LOT of chores to do (they lived on a farm), and I literally had none. Well, actually, when I was about 15 my mom tried to start giving me a few chores (like unloading the dishwasher), but I threw a huge fit and basically refused to do it. It was a horrible case of teenage attitude mixed with it being too late to try to introduce me to them. While I know that I was spoiled, I also think that husby had way too many chores. So how do we find a happy medium for our children?  

 

 Sebastian Swiffering with an oven mitt on his hand when he was about 1.5 or 2.

Right now, Sebastian is 3 years and 4 months old. His current chores are taking his dishes to the sink, his trash to the trash, taking diapers to the trash, feeding his fish, picking up his toys, and putting his laundry in the hamper. He also sometimes dry Swiffers the floors for me, but that's when he wants to. Genevieve is 11 months old and has no chores, but she thinks that it is her job to take clean clothes out of the laundry baskets piece by piece.

So far, we have not paid him or rewarded him for any of his chores. We're torn on this issue, too. I feel like he should get something for helping out, but husby feels like they're family responsibilities and he should be expected to help out. I have to say, I understand husby's point of view, and having to pay three children for doing chores would get pretty expensive, but not rewarding them seems wrong. I know that I like to be acknowledged for my work, and I get discouraged when I'm not. 

 

Do your children have chores? Do you reward them for doing them?

Strike Against SOPA

On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need internet companies to follow Reddit's lead and stand up for the web, as we internet users are doing every day.

2012 Goals

I've never really been one for resolutions, I feel like change happens when you are ready to put forth the effort not just because it is a new year. That said, I do have some goals for this year that I have been thinking about for the past few months. 

1. I want to scrapbook on a weekly basis. I'm hoping to do at least two layouts (either one page or two) per week to help me get caught up with my scrapbooks since I have really slacked off this year. Along with this, I need to start printing out photos more frequently (right now I'm only doing it like once or twice a year). I'm also going to make an effort to post about the layouts I created, to help hold me accountable, and to keep up the crafty part of this blog.

2. I want to be a better cook. We all know that I'm not a great cook, and I rely heavily on boxed & frozen meals, takeout, and fast food. Since we've been taking small steps towards eating healthier and doing a lot of juicing, I feel like I really need to start producing better meals for our family. I'm going to try to cook one new dinner recipe each week. It doesn't have to be fancy or impressive, and hopefully I won't get too stressed out since I have such kitchen anxiety.

3. I want to get back into our routine. Sebastian and I used to have a nice, relaxed routine. Breakfast, chores or shopping, lunchtime, nap, playing, dinner, playing, bed. Since Genevieve arrived (nearly a year ago!) it has been more like breakfast, sit around, nap, lunch, sit around, nap, sit around, dinner, sit around, bed. I think that is part of why I've had such a hard time adjusting to two kids. I kind of feel like I don't know how to get back on track, and I've been so lazy for so long that now it's hard to get myself up and going. For our sanity, and for the sake of handling three children, I need to get us back on our original routine.

4. I need to get us all out of the house more often. As I mentioned above, we don't really do anything these days. I would say that on average we leave the house twice a week. It's terrible, and it obviously has a hand in why we're all so grumpy and blaaaaah. We have a quiet little park/playground just a short five minute walk away. I need to start taking the kids there anytime that the weather permits. There are also two bigger parks just 10 minutes and 15 minutes away by car. There's no reason why we can't go there once a week around lunchtime and have a picnic. There's even a large pond at one where you can feed ducks, which Sebastian loved to do when he was younger.

So those are my goals that I hope to work on this year. I think that perfecting each of them will help our family function better. Of course, there are plenty of other things that I would like to do, but I'm not counting on having the time.

Buitoni Review & Giveaway

As you may know from my tweets, I am a pretty big Buitoni fan. All of their products are fabulous for helping me create easy and impressive meals. As someone who is a terrible cook, I LOVE them for this. Since I tweet about my undying love for Buitoni so much, they contacted me in November to do a review and host a giveaway for my Twitter followers. I immediately said, "YES! My followers will love that!" 

So, they sent me two vouchers for free frozen meals, and I ended up making a feast for my husby & our kids, my mom & my brother, and my grandparents. I cooked four pasta dishes (because I couldn't make just two) in about an hour, using just one pot. Everything was so easy to make, but it tasted so good that they all thought I had been slaving away in the kitchen all afternoon. Seriously, it was as simple as boiling water, cooking pasta, draining, tossing with sauce, done.

Here's what I made:

 

Left: Classic Fettuccine Alfredo (pasta & sauce found separately in the Buitoni refrigerator section)

Right: Butternut Squash Ravioli with Brown Butter Sage Sauce (a Buitoni frozen meal)

 Left: Shrimp & Lobster Ravioli with Garlic Butter Sauce (Buitoni frozen meal)

Right: Wild Mushroom Agnolotti with Pesto (pasta & sauce found separately in the Buitoni refrigerator section)

The aftermath. As you can see, the shrimp & lobster ravioli was completely gone, and the mushroom agnolotti was quickly polished off by my husband right after this photo.

Without making this post too terribly long, what is boils down to is this: everyone loved everything that we tried. There were eight people at my dinner in ages ranging from 58 years to 10 months, and not one single person had anything bad to say about any of the four Buitoni dishes I made. I think that's a pretty successful dinner, don't you? I will say that the two favorites were clearly the Shrimp & Lobster Ravioli with Garlic Butter Sauce frozen meal and my own concoction of Wild Mushroom Agnolotti with Pesto Sauce.

So, onto the giveaway part. I have six vouchers to give away to three winners. That means each winner will be getting two vouchers for FREE Buitoni Frozen Meals. That's about $20 worth of free food for you and your families. How awesome is that?!  

All you have to do to win is follow me (@elletheheiress) and Buitoni (@buitoni) on Twitter. At 7 PM Eastern on Tuesday night (tomorrow), I will be begin the giveaway. Everyone should use the hashtag #ETHBuitoni so that we can keep track of each other better.

Life...and an upcoming giveaway.

So, here's the thing. I haven't been doing very well or feeling very well lately, which has kept me away from blogging since I posted not too long about about refocusing. I want this to be a happy, crafty, mom-blog type of place. Lately, I haven't been happy, crafty, or bloggy.

If you follow my Twitter, where I'm obviously more candid and loud-mouthed, you already know what's been going on. It's nothing major, nothing life-changing. I'm just in the midst of pregnancy #3 so I'm feeling run-down, stressed, sick, tired, moody...the whole deal. 

I've also discovered that even though I still have six more months to go, I already feel like I did at eight months pregnant with Genevieve. My hips hurt, my stomach feels stretched, I'm just exhausted. Plus I'm so nauseous that I can't keep down anything, I can hardly cook, I can't chase the kids...I'm just a big blob of no fun right now, and no one wants to hear about that every day. Except maybe an OBGYN.

So that's what is going on here. 

BUT I do have some fun things coming to the blog soon, including a Buitoni review on Monday and an awesome coordinating giveaway on Twitter on Tuesday at 7 PM EST. Now would be a good time to follow my Twitter account if you don't already: @elletheheiress