Tough Love

So, after my big decision was made, the next problem was "How am I going to tell the girls?" Kerri, I wasn't too worried about. She tends to just go with the flow when things change. Emma Lee, on the other hand, does not take change well at all. After talking about it, Andy helped me come up with the plan to do a "practice day" of homeschool with them and to make it as fun and exciting as possible. After putting it off as long as possible, last Monday was deemed "the day."

The morning started off great. The girls were very excited, and we had a lot of fun doing things like an alphabet scavenger hunt, a caterpillar math game, working in the Spanish workbooks I got for them, doing fun finish/create a pattern type things, reading, and creating little story books. In fact, things were going so well, that I decided to go ahead and talk to them about it before we took our "recess" at the park. I don't even think that Kerri paused in her coloring. She just smiled, said something like "Yeah, great!" and kept right on going. Emma Lee on the other hand, cried, wailed, and sobbed for about 40 minutes straight! I knew she was going to take it hard, but I wasn't prepared for exactly how hard. I was secretly hoping that maybe she'd even be excited about it from the beginning (you know - because she gets to spend more time with her mommy!) I was at least hoping that she would see all the fun we could have and not feel like she would be missing out on anything. Let me tell you, it's impossible to reason with a hysterical 5 year old little girl!

It's important to me to allow the girls to be honest about their feelings and to express their opinions when they disagree with things as long as it is still done with honor and respect toward Andy and I. However, at one point her crying was so loud that I felt like she couldn't even hear me talking while she was cuddled up in my lap. I sent her up to her room to calm down and then come down and talk about it. While she was upstairs I called Andy to let him know what was going on, and I unexpectedly starting crying too. (Through all this, Kerri is still coloring away as happy as can be.) Andy ended up coming home for a little bit, and by that time Emma Lee was calming down and they were able to talk some too. I think she was so upset because all the things that I'd been talking up to her for months had just been taken away. She kept talking about how she had seen her room and met her teacher and how they would all be doing stuff without her. She listened as we explained our plans, and she became calmer and calmer.

A little while later, we had to make a library run. While we were checking out, the first thing she said to the guy behind the desk was, "Guess what?! I'm going to do homeschool!" with a smile and an excited voice. Ever since then she's been fine with the idea. Sometimes she says that she is still a little bit sad about it, but I'm still optimistic that once we get in a regular schedule, she will have a great time learning with mommy this year!

As much as it hurts my heart to have to make decisions that upset her, it gave us some good opportunities to talk about things like how you have to trust that your parents are making the best decisions for you even if you don't like it and about how important it is to obey what God wants you to do even if it means changing your plans. It was honestly one of the most emotionally draining days that I have ever had. It also leaves me wondering how many other times I'm going to have to go through similar situations with her! How will I get through them all?! My prayer is that each time on the other side of the "drama" it will only bring us closer and closer together. Or, you know, maybe she'll learn all these lessons while she's five and the rest of her life with us will be perfect and drama free . . . yeah.