Last week seemed idyllic compared to how this week felt as I moved through it. We got off to a weird start on Monday due to a mid-morning physical therapy appointment. The appointment went fantastic, but morning appointments derail our day. Monday morning appointments can derail more than a day.

When I planned our kindergarten homeschool schedule, I purposefully put bible, math, phonemic awareness/phonics, occupational therapy/fine motor work, and our augmentative alternative communication (AAC) lessons in the morning. These are my highest priority for Nathaniel right now. I placed enrichment lessons - literature, science and culture, music, and art in the afternoon. For the last few months, I have been gradually moving all our appointments to after lunch. There is a natural break in our day if we spend the morning at home learning and head out after lunch for a PT, OT, speech therapy, or doctor's appointment. If we don't return to school after we get home, the enrichment lessons are easily accomplished after dinner or on the weekend.

I just completed the first week of my twenty-five year homeschooling. That is a sentence I didn't expect to ever write. Our seventh child, Josiah, graduated high school in the spring of 2016, and I anticipated for over a decade that his graduation would end my homeschool teaching. Decisions about our son Nathaniel's education have been a long (mostly kept private) wrestle over the last few years. Perhaps in time I will share more about the small decisions that landed us at last Monday - Nathaniel's first day of Kindergarten in our homeschool. But for today, I just want to share about that first week.

When we decided to homeschool this year, I did not want every piece of our day to be remedial and fixing weaknesses. I wanted to do something that built on Nathaniel's strengths and things we enjoy. His receptive language skills are fantastic. He loves stories. He loves being outside. This intersection is where I am building some fun learning into our day.

"Backyard Visitors" is the name I am giving to our nature study. We are learning about one animal a month through children's literature, crafts, and time outdoors. We are working on core AAC vocabulary. The first critter that we learned about was the firefly.

"Why don't you homeschool Nathaniel?" The question was the first thing my mom asked when I answered the phone early Tuesday morning. It was asked last Saturday by a college friend, who has close to thirty years experience in public school special education, after she read my blog post about a Christian school's denial to consider enrolling my son. It is a question Rich and I have repeatedly asked ourselves, and it is a logical one given that homeschooling has been our educational choice for our other children.  Answering the question and making any educational decision on Nathaniel's behalf forces us to reflect on his journey.

When placed in our home through foster care, Nathaniel was enrolled in early intervention services offered through our state Department of Education. We have homeschooled for twenty-five years. Our experience with public education was limited to our older two sons who attended while living at their mother's home. Despite the unfamiliarity, we continued the services. The intervention model identified the child’s greatest need and offered one therapist to address concerns. Nathaniel was assigned an occupational therapist. We loved her. However, together we quickly realized that Nathaniel had more needs than she could meet in an hour a week.  Speech and physical therapy were added. Nathaniel’s experience with early intervention speech therapy has been documented here. Not soon after we began sessions, we stopped them. We sought private speech therapy to tackle what we knew would be long-term communication needs.

December has been a whirlwind of fun for our family.  Rich spent hours in the garage making three maple saddle stands as a Christmas present for Andrew; Nathaniel and I spent those same hours in the kitchen making yummy food for everyone. We were able to see all our children over the Christmas holiday and made some great memories. I love this photo of Nathaniel's first experience ice skating! Unfortunately Nathaniel is currently in the hospital with a virus. Rich is with him this morning to give me time to rest. I have enjoyed the quiet moments to reflect on my writing and reread some of this year's blog posts. Here are the top five most frequently read 2016 blog posts:

I have been a stay-at-home mom for twenty-eight years. Next week I start my twenty-fourth year of teaching my children at home. Josiah was born into a homeschool family; he nursed through older siblings' math lessons and overheard first, second, and third grade reading lessons all the same year while playing in his high chair. He was the youngest before Nathaniel and is a senior in high school this fall.

Both Joe and I reap the benefits that he has never known family life apart from homeschool life. For us, there has always been a blurring of what is daily living as a Rankin kid and what is homeschool; Joe has always known his parents, and mother specifically, to carry the duel roles of parent and educator. There were no "before we started homeschooling" habits or relationship patterns to overcome.

I did something Monday that I have only done once since July 30, 2013. I drove alone with Nathaniel in the van. We went to the park and took a walk. We stopped by Barnes and Noble. We were away from the house for almost two hours.

It felt so good to be out together. Alone. Together.