Why homeschooling

When people find out we're homeschooling Evan, they give me this really confused look.... and they get even more confused when they find out I left a good carrer to do it.
Unlike the other parents who can't wait for winter break to be over so they can send the kids "back to thier teachers, where they belong", were happily sitting on the sofa togher playing with the pretend food he got for Christmas.
Evan is a good natured kid, he loves pretty much everyone, and is happy with himeslf, which I did not want to risk by putting him into a peer-based enviroment yet. The schools here are awful, when he was 3 I was laid off from a coporate job (they closed the office & relocated the dept.) since I had cut my maternity leave short to go back to work, I planned on using some of that time to get to know my child, when i went to the school he would attend, and asked for the school's rankings (I don't know why more parent's don't do this), I found out the school was a solid 33% in math and 37% in reading scores, not good enough for my kids, and shouldn't be good enough for anyone's kid. Evan was already counting to 20 at age 3, and I just couldn't see not teaching him anything for 2 years, so.... we started preschool work. Every math/logic based concept he could wrap his mind around he did.... colour, shapes, sizes, ordering, sorting, it became very clear that numbers are his thing the morning I went to make coffee, and found he'd emptied the cans out of the pantry, and sorted/counted them by type, he was 4. At this same time I decided that I wanted to be done with baby having by 30, so it was time to get to trying, so with baby #2 on the way, may as well commit to working from home.
Evan is also a stand out physically from the other kids, he's as tall as the 2nd grade kids on the block, at 5, and is skinny with blond hair & blue eyes, in a town where blond children are rare (mostly hispanic and africian american kids), so with the combination of physical differances, and educational differances allready in place, I didn't want him subjected to teasing at school (he's a sensitive child, and although he plays with other kids, at this point they're chosen for him and know the rules for behaving).
At this point, looking at his year-goals from the charter school (teaching preschool for the daycare, and keeping up with Evan's math was 2 full-time jobs, so the charter school provides his currculim and I handle the teaching here at home).
Math 95% complete, starts 1st grade math next week.
Phonics 40% complete (his reading glasses have been ordered, soon as they're in we'll catch him back up)
Lang. Arts 45% complete
History 53% complete
Science 46% complete (Matthew teaches science twice a week)
Art 57% complete (the daycare kids do art & music lessons in a group with him)
Prep. Music 47% complete
Health 57% complete
He's on track to finish his kindergarten year in late May, and should be over 50% done in 1st grade math by then.
This year is our first done on a traditional school calandar, and giving him 2 weeks with no work is somewhat new, I think tomorrow he'll do some handwriting pratice (he needs to slow down and work neater).
As for the baby, well he's 19 months old now, and it's really too young to start anything serious, for Christmas he recieved several books, and some magnet-writing boards so he can do "coloring" with the bigger kids, and some wipe-off coloring books. At two we'll start on colors, and shapes, till then we're adding seasme street to his daily routine.

Becca, the brilliant one

Becca's my oldest and dearest friend, is perhaps the hardest to describe, our friendship has lasted for years and is complex and beautiful. We met back in 1999, in May, when we both started working at IBM tougher, I was hesitant to get too friendly with a woman both more skilled at the work, and better looking than I am (she's still breath stopping gorgeous, it just stopped annoying me), but she was so willing to help me learn and so pacient in teaching me, that it was hard not to like her. When we found out I was pregnant she was thrilled right along with us. The pregnancy with Evan was very iffy, most of it was a long series of different tests each raised more concerns then answers. Becca's inner peace during such time of chaos really helped to keep me grounded. Becca stayed with me for 38 hours of labor, sending matt home for rest, and then calling him back to the hospital, for the c-section. She went into the operating room, and saw her god son delivered, and knowing my fears, told me he had all his fingers and toes, and they weren't webbed (trisomny 18 was a concern, and webbed feet is a deformity for it). After I brought the baby home, she helped answer all sorts of breastfeeding/diapering/etc questions. Over the years geography has moved us apart, but I know when I need her, I can brew a cup of coffee, log on, and pick right up where we left off.

stranger still.....

As I have often said, it's never the kids, but always the parents that's the problem ones. Tonight was perhaps the best example yet. It's 10:30 pm at night and the doorbell rings, i think it's my last pick up for the night, but nope, it's Chris. Last summer I had his two kids for two weeks, which ended on july 1st when his ex shows up on my doorstep (joint custody) and is in full freak out mode. She thinks instead of his babysitter, I'm his new GF, and she's screaming out words unfit to retype. I finally get through to her that I'm his sitter not his honey, and that i don;t care who she SAYS she is, I need some ID and custody papers stating it's her day to pick them up. Apperantly getting carded made reality dawn on her, and she produces the documents. As all this is going on, Chris arrives from work, and she loses it again, and proceedes to assult him on my sidewalk, (while I'm calling the police AGAIN to come calm things down, takes them 20 more mins to show up). Well he apologizes profusely, files a report I give a statement, and he says he'll move the kids to a new sitter. Haven't seen him since then, untill tonight. He's on my doorstep with a dog, shivering. He's in a fight with his new GF and walked out (apperantly she "forgot" to tell him they were getting evicted, and she spent his paychecks on drugs), and he has a suitcase, and no place to spend the night. Allright.....
So we (hubby & I) agree to spend some of our AMEX gift cards from Christmas (goodbye new food processor) to get him a hotel room for the night (tomorrow he'll make arrangements to stay with a co-worker till he can get his own place). So I make him hot chocolate, explain that he can't stay here because of daycare regulations (techinaclly it's no unapproved guests for longer than 2 weeks, but I dont get technical). So Matt drives him to the motel next to his work, and tomorrow it's back to another day in this looney house.

Steve - the calm in the chaos

Everyone needs one person who's calm when things are swirling about them, who stays sage-like in contemplation, who has the basic faith that it will all turn out alright, for me it's Steve. He has just enough distance from my chaos to have perspective I lack, and dear enough to be able to offer insight that I listen to. He's also as stubborn as I am, which makes for an excellent guy-bud. Over the last few years I've learned to be selective about my friends, in High school I was "popular" had tons of "friends" but didn't really know any of them. Steve, Becca and a few others are all very dear to me, able to get me to take a deep breath, back up, and realize I'm being a complete spaz. Steve is just a little too attractive for my peace of mind, and yet has become such a solid part of my life that I would not trade that serenity for anything. I think a huge chunk of that may be the 10 years age difference between us, and that at his core he's a pacient man. He's also what I call our "mac-truck contigency" see neither of our biological families are in a position to take on 2 orphan children if anything happens to us, so when we chose their godparents, we made sure they understood that potential child rearing was on the table (Steve had the good sense to ask for a week to think about it, to be sure he was comfortable being an instant daddy). Steve loves our children dearly, and they adore him, so it's a great set-up. Part of asking a non family member to accept your children, or even a family member is to makes sure that's not going to put him into bankruptcy, so I bought a good chunk of life insurance (easy to do when you're in ok health in your 20's). So part 1 of my finances is in order, there's a will & life insurance, problem is, it's the only part in order, and does me no good alive (my preferred stare ~.^).

The haircut

At Christmas, all of my family was blown away by something, me with short hair (just at my shoulders). Once I figure out how to post pics, I'll load one up.normally my hair is at my waist, but this year was different. Last November a dear friend of ours passed away suddenly from cancer. He was 25. In the last few days he & I spoke about oh everything, from his childhood, to how he just finished college, and only got 6 months to use the schooling his parents paid for. As a child he had leukemia, and he said he was always worried that the disease would win. After he passed on (the cancer had spread to his brain stem, and there was nothing that could be done), I was at a loss for both my friend, and what to do. So on Dec 23rd, I made the appointment to donate 14 inches of may hair to locks for love (which makes wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy). I think Ray would approve, and I feel both honored to know such a wonderful man, and sad that no one else will be touched by him.

why monkeys?

It's like herding monkeys, that's what I say when someone asks me how I do it. By "it" they mean run my nutty life, it seems there are two types of people, those who love spending every moment with swamped with kids, and those who think I'm nuts. Disclaimer: I really am nuts, but I enjoy the insanity ~.^. The holiday season in 1/2 over so I didn't teach today (homeschool winter break), but the flip of that is, all the neighbor's kids know there's no school, so they start knocking earlier (we had to disconnect the doorbell, as it rang non-stop last summer). Oh, hi I'm Chris. My life is utter chaos, but this year I'm going to get a plan togher. See I woke up a few days ago and realized that I'm closer to 30 than to 25, and like everyone self employed there's no pension, no medical, no dental, no safty net. I have $21 in savings, and energy, which I need to get things started. So a few basics:
Job: self-employed child care (I do "specialized care" ie. non traditional hours, when you live in a retirement town, as I do, there are alot of nurses, waitresses, nurses aides that need 2nd and 3rd shift care, I take those kids, get paid more because it's off-beat hrs, and the kids sleep 1/2 to 90% of the time they're here).
Married: yep, Matthew, he was laid off last October, and is now trying to rethink his carrer in the middle of all this mess.
Kids: 2 of my own sons, Evan & Erik, and 2-4 "loaners" (I've had these kids long enough some of them call me mom too. boys: 12 & 8, and a girl 4)
We live in 900 square feet in the CA dessert, with 2 cats, and a mess of fish.