Torn

This week is the week to register kids for preK and Kindergarten. At the moment 2 of my children go to public school. My oldest who will start high school next year, and my 5 year old who is in PreK this year. Why is the title of my blog post torn? I can't decide if I want to register my 5yr old for Kindergarten or not.

She decided in Setp/Oct that she wanted to be homeschooled and lasted a week. She cried and said she missed her teacher and friends so I took her back to preK. The Kindergarten teachers are WONDERFUL at the school she would be going to. We've had all but one of the Kindergarten teachers. I know she'd be in good hands!

I homeschool 2 out of 6 of my children (2 public schools, 2 babies). I enjoy doing homeschool with them. Even though nothing ever goes as planned and I feel totally lost some days. My 2nd grader goes back and forth on if she wants to go back to public school next year or not. My 1st grader has already said she's staying home with me again next year.

I have this HUGE guilt trip going on at the moment. I feel like my kids aren't around other kids enough. The best thing that I can't seem to get over (which might seem pety) my girls don't get invited to kids parties anymore. They got invited to one party since we started homeschooling. I know doesn't seem like a big deal, but I just feel sorry for them.

I baby sit a girl my 2nd graders age and a few weeks ago she was invited to spend the night with a friend. My girls don't get invited to spend the night at friends houses. This upset my girls because they don't get invited to spend the night at friends houses.

We aren't in a co-op or activity day this year. When I started homeschooling it was too late to sign up for anything other than the activity day. Because I couldn't bring the kids I baby sit I decided against it. At the time I would have been losing $80 for taking off that day. My baby sitting is what buys our groceries, so I couldn't afford to give that money up (no matter how good I am with coupons).

My 1st & 2nd graders are in Girl Scouts. We were going to church every weekend but have cut back on that after I had my son. It's really hard for me to get 6 kids up (sometimes 7 when I baby sit), going, ready and at church at 8:45am. I don't like our 11am service that much.

Another factor (this is going to make me sound totally lazy and I really don't care)is that my husband works nights now, in January he is going to days and will be working M-F. Right now he works 2 nights one week and 5 the next, but he can help get the kids ready for school. In January that will all change, I'll be the only one to be getting kids ready for school. I'm totally not digging that. I don't like being rushed in the morning.

What to do? What to do?

Jess

Bedtime

Bedtime around my house is killing me. I finally got both babies to bed last night and thought the other kids were laying down to sleep. My oldest left the light on in the living room along with the TV. How hard is it to turn these things off when you are done? I turn the TV off and hear 3 of the girls downstairs playing. I go to the top of the stairs and tell them to turn off the light it's bedtime. The response I get "We didn't get to play enough today so we are playing". WHAT??? I tell them "No, playtime is over go to sleep".

A friend of mine told me last week that he hates bedtime that the hours 5-9 are the worst in his house. I completely agree! We both talked about how hard it is to do dinner, baths and bed alone. We are both married, but his wife doesn't do much in the way of helping him. The kids are basically his responsiblity. My husband works nights and isn't home most of the time. He is home about 7 nights a month. (He works two jobs).

I dread once it hits about 5pm. I don't like having to cook dinner while entertaining the kids, clean up the little ones after dinner, and do all the things that must be done at night before going to bed.

I've got some night owl kids who love to give us a hard time about going to bed. It's slowly breaking me down over time. I didn't really notice how bad it was until my mom came to help out when I had my surgery. My 6 year old is staying up sometimes as late as 1am. This is killing me and I don't know how to end it.

It doesn't matter if we get the kids up early they seem to have endless energy and can still stay up late. I'm at a loss! I can't handle late nights and early mornings!

Jess