Birthday and Pig Flu

Last Monday, I officially entered into what will be the last year of my 20s. To be honest, I was somewhat put off about this birthday. Not upset, but not excited. My last year of still being "young". At least that is my husband's definition. He loves to tell people he went for the trophy wife the second time around since I am 12 years younger than he is. I was only 20 when we started dating. Whoa... that's seems like a lifetime ago now. Anyway, he always calls me his hot, young wife. I am not worried about turning 30 next year. I am actually kind of excited about it.

Well, all birthday plans to have a nice dinner out with my husband and children were put on hold when Leila came down with flu-like symptoms early Saturday morning. I immediately took her into the pediatrician which is totally unlike me. It has to be pretty darn serious for me to go into the dr. In fact, each child has only ever had one sick visit, and Violet's resulted in a hospital stay. You get my drift. So, Leila was running a ridiculously high temp that OTC meds would not bring down. It was up to 105* in the office. They did a nasal swab, and it most definitely came back positive for flu... swine flu. Oh, excuse me... H1N1. Don't want to offend the pig farmers. We did manage to score a Rx for tamiflu which I was able to track down rather easily compared to others I have heard about going all over town to find it. Thankfully, her fever broke sometime the next day. We would only be confined to the house for 5 days with a low grade temp.

So, instead of an evening out my sweet husband made me a delicious dinner of kobe beef, homemade crab cakes, bacon wrapped scallops, and asparagus. Mmmm... delicious. I was also presented with a delicious brownie cheesecake for dessert. I was also surprised with my husband spending days completing random tasks around the house and getting me whatever I needed to help get our house organized the way we need it. That means the world to me given how our disorganization has not been helpful lately. Mind you, my real life friends are probably laughing at me reading this and thinking about how "disorganized" we are here. None the less, it is disorganized for me and was creating a tremendous amount of stress for things like getting out of the house and not being able to find what I need easily. So, getting a handle of these things was a great gift on top of the gift cards they already presented to me.

My birthday was very low key this year, but it was honestly one of the better ones. I had my wonderful family around me and a great husband spoiling me. I can only hope for more of the same in the coming year.

Working on our future

Over the past couple of months, my playgroup has established a home school co-op group for our pre-k age children to participate in for the summer. Being a part of this group has really opened my eyes to how exciting schooling my children at home could be, and how it can really create children that are interested in learning whatever they can. This has had me in full-on research mode trying to figure out if this is something I like more in theory or if it is something I can really do with our girls.

There are a few obstacles I am having to work through. First and foremost, I have been trying to get Daniel on board with the idea. I think he is really intrigued by the idea of developing our children to be thinkers instead of children that can just regurgitate information for a state exam. We are seeing a lot of the downside to public school with his daughter who is in the fifth grade. She is doing fine for the most part, but we certainly don't think she is learning at her full potential. We have very little control over that, though. His other concern is just the stigma home school education still has and if that will create any issues with college admissions down the road. Thankfully, I am finding all sorts of promising information that supports colleges desiring home school children because they are well-developed thinkers. In fact, ivy league schools are even recruiting them for that reason. I have been trying to put together information for him to read through that will help his concerns.

This does lead to the other concern Daniel has about it. We have always discussed the fact that I stay home will end once the children are all in school. We definitely could use a second income eventually to secure our financial future. So, I am trying to really put together some skills that I can use in a work at home capacity. Photography is something that has me pretty inspired at he moment. The creativity and flexibility are very appealing. I am really working on improving my photography skills in the next few years to put some kind of business together.

Looking into all of this has had me more inspired than I have been in recent years. I am trying to put together a list of goals to meet. I am also spending a great deal of time coming up with lessons for the girls. We are going to San Antonio in a couple weeks for Madison to do a school choir performance at Sea World. I have a two weeks worth of material to work on with them about sea life and the Alamo. I am really excited about it all.

I am just trying to take things one step at a time to see if this idea is right for our family. I am hoping it is the start of something wonderful for all of us. I love the idea of teaching our children in ways that work for them in particular, and that they will be exposed to the things we feel are appropriate for them at such young ages that emphasize our values. It would also be a way to really grow and bond as a family. After all, Daniel works evenings and often weekends. He would be missing out on so much time with our girls. We are very tight knit, and I want that to continue. I suppose time will tell now.