Fast forward to now. Troy sent me a text today asking if I was still planning on homeschooling Lilah. He then said that if I was, he thinks her last month at the CDC should be May. I was sort of taken aback at this. She hasn't even been there a year, why would I take her out now? Then I realized why he said May. We are planning on going back home for a long vacation in June and if I'm not mistaken, we will probably have to pay while we are gone to hold her spot. That tacks on another $300 to the vaca budget, which is lame. Not that we wouldn't be spending it if we weren't on vacation, but... You get the idea. If I homeschool her in order to get her into kindergarten a year early, when she is almost five, I will have to start this fall, when she is almost four. Yikes, my kid is almost four! I guess I just didn't realize it was that imminent.
So I found a website I like and printed out a bunch of information. The website Time4Learning was suggested on that website for curriculum and also recommended by my friend Jenni, who is homeschooling her daughter as well, but for other reasons. I need to talk to the school district here and see what the rules are and what kind of testing she would need in order to be able to attend kindergarten when I want her to as well. If I can just keep her at the CDC and work with her here and there on our time and have her test anyway, I would like that the most.
I've even contemplated applying at the CDC, which I believe would get me even cheaper rates if not free, or maybe volunteering. I have the sub job already, and it's nice and everything, but if I homeschool, I won't be able to do it anyway. At the CDC, I'd be around younger kids, which I am fond of. Little kids like me too, always have.
If I don't keep her in the CDC, I could search for a part time preschool program somewhere to balance out the mommy time. Now that she is mostly potty trained, it's a lot easier to find something. There is one at the gymnastics place downtown that is $200 per month, three days a week, from either 8:30-11:30am or 12-3pm. (They should trade me preschool for website work...) I also know a few gals on base here doing the in home daycare thing and could probably work out a part time or as needed schedule with them given they have the openings. One elementary school has a Pre-K program as far as I can tell from the district website, despite a directory site saying all the elementary schools offer it. There are a bunch of "private" schools, all of which, of course, are church-y. There are a few others that are the local drop in places, and a few that are just "private" preschools with no religious affiliation I can tell; Falls Junior Academy, Discoveryland and the Montessori school.
Part of this is also that recurring back and forth desire to spend more or less time with her. It was all the time with her when she was born, then I started working again, then hub left and it was just us. I took her out of daycare before we moved here and it carried on in the first few months we were here. When there was an opening at the CDC, I had just gotten the sub position so it seemed logical to put her back in daycare otherwise I wouldn't be able to work. I'm not working as much as I originally planned and, as I mentioned before, sucking at school. Now there's the nagging feeling in the back of my head that I should spend more time with her again, especially with all this homeschool talk.
I love that little bug so much and I just want good things for her. I want her to be smart, successful and have the opportunities to do whatever she wants. I want to be there for her, but not be all up in her business. I want to be a good momma, but how to go about that best right now is somewhat unclear.
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