"Just passing through"

I think one of my biggest adjustments to our 2-year rotation program is that we're always in the state of "just passing through". Six months is really just enough time to start to get comfortable somewhere, and then it's time to pack up and move on. It's a little unnerving!

I definitely felt the awkwardness of our situation at the boys' first homeschool co-op meeting today. I had originally e-mailed the organizer of the co-op to make sure it was OK for us to participate, since we'll be missing about 4 or 5 of the meetings toward the end. (And this is a big deal, because each parent is expected to actively help during the co-op -- if they're not teaching a class then they need to be a teacher's aide). The organizer never got back to me, so I went ahead and registered the kids, and then e-mailed and left a phone message with the organizer lady again last week to doubly make sure it was OK for us to participate. She didn't get back to me again, so I showed up today and asked the another co-organizer lady, and she kind of sighed and basically said in a put-out way, "Well, it's too late now to ask you to not participate, since we're already all filled up and we've been turning people away. So, it has to be OK, I suppose". That wasn't exactly the type of welcome I expected to receive at a Catholic homeschooling group, but oh well. (I mean, it seems like it would be more charitable to welcome the crazy moving family who is trying to homeschool in a strange place than to make me feel guilty for taking someone else's potential spot).

Thankfully, the other moms there made up for it -- they were much nicer and more welcoming. They were so friendly that I got a little stab of sadness thinking about our "just passing through" status. Many of these moms would be make awesome mom-friends -- they're Catholic, homeschooling, and our personalities seemed to click. There's just not much time between now and October to really cultivate a good friendship, and for some reason I feel like a shadow-family, one foot here and one foot in our next location.

One very positive side effect of participating in the co-op, however, is that I've discovered how very well behaved my boys truly are. I was working in the preschool room for 2 hours (oh my -- that's exhausting!), and let me tell you -- I came out of there thanking God that my boys are as well-behaved as they are! I know sometimes they can be a handful at home, but there were some *very* crazy kids in that class -- mean, disruptive, and outright disobedient for *other, strange moms*, and that flabbergasted me. Peter was with me (I opted to keep him with me instead of putting him in the babysitting room), and he was 50 times better behaved than some of the 3 and 4 year old kids in there.

Tomorrow we start back on our regular homeschooling curriculum here -- math, reading, phonics, the works, so we'll see how that goes. This Saturday, we're planning to head out to the Florissant fossil quarry (and giant donut shop on the way up), and the boys are super excited about that.