"all done!"

This week Samuel learned to say "all done." I have been trying to teach him the sign language as well as the word, so he can tell me when he is done eating and ready to get out of his highchair. What he does now is say the word "done" somewhat intelligibly while waving/closing his right hand in the air - not very close to the actual sign for it, but you can tell he's trying to do something like it. Then he smiles a huge smile while I cheer and clap and get him out of his highchair.

Incidently, this week I also learned to say "All done."

Heath came home Thursday before last and said, "I think we should enroll Jacob in school." This time, instead of dismissing the idea or at the very least saying we should wait and discuss and think about it more, I said, "Okay, we can try it."

As those closest to us know, despite all the reasons we support the idea of home schooling, the atmosphere in our home has been very difficult to manage at times, which has led us to consider other schooling options several times over the last 10 months or so. There have been a couple of times that we have been really close to doing something different for school for Jacob, but for one reason or another we haven't gone through with it until now. On previous occasions, we decided to delay and give ourselves time to try something different at home first, and then we would have hope of the situation improving, and perhaps even see signs of improvement, at least for a little while. But I will admit, there have been some difficult issues - with managing our home environment, not with the teaching itself. The actual process of teaching Jacob (and Ethan, as he came alongside for the parts that interested him) has been very satisfying, and I will miss that. I certainly would still encourage others to try home schooling if they are drawn to it, as I think it can work very well, depending on your particular situation at home. However, it was time for us to do this, and I think we are already seeing some positive results. I'll probably be able to speak to that side of it more as more time passes. I just thought it was time to let my blog friends know of our decision, since you have all walked with me through the process of reasoning it out and considering our options. It seemed we had settled on one side of the fence after rehashing the philosophy and reasons behind the decision a few weeks ago, but in the end we decided differently.

So, now you know! Like I said, I expect to be able to tell you more about how it's going as more time passes.