Grateful

I am just siting at the computer just thinking about how grateful I am to have my 3 children. Yesterday we went to the library in down town Bklyn where F played chess and signed up for the RIF there and got 3 Magic tree house books, he was so excited to get the books it was great to see. Took the train there as well as home which was exciting for the girls who have not ridden a train in a long while, but J has a great memory and she remembered riding it to the zoo last June for her b day celebration.
We went for J's dance class today, then did some food shopping. F did 1 page of double digit multiplication today, finished reading the Magic tree house book: Revolutionary War on Wednesday and J did a food menu book where she drew various foods including sushi, and then wrote their names on her paper and then ordered from the 'book' as a customer prepared with her pretend food. She likes to write but only when she wants to, which is often so I don't worry about her not doing 'work' daily :). It's so much easier and better for their retention processes if they do the work when they are ready and more receptive of what they are doing. I noticed if we try and push them into doing something just because we think it's time they learned that (whatever that is) we get met with tension, whining, and the whole process is so much more difficult than if we wait a little longer(possibly months) for the child to want to learn whatever it is they need to learn. What's great about home schooling is that there really isn't this perceived time line of when the child is supposed to learn whatever it is they are supposed to learn. In a school setting of course you can't have that, everyone has to do the same work whether they are ready or not, so some kids end up falling behind, or just never really learning the subject, just going along with the motions to pass. Never truly retaining the subject material. I know in our case F and J seem to learn things a little faster once they are left to choose when and what in particular they would like to be doing. As long as the interest is there they will do the work. All this said and done, this is hard for us parents who went to school all our life and basically have it ingrained in our heads that children have to know this stuff (to read, to do advanced math) by a certain age or they are doomed.... :)
It is hard to just let the kid be and to just be the facilitator when they are ready to learn. But I am learning as we go to let go a little and just let it be at times....

Back to being grateful, I love my kids so much it's not possible to put into words... :) it's so amazing that I get to spend every day with them and get to see and be a part of their life. To watch them grow and learn and discover new things is so cool for a lack of a better word....