the Heart Approaches What It Yearns

Gosh I’ve been busy.

Middlest Boy can now read at the officially coveted Second Grade Level. That’s a good thing, because he just turned five last month. He’s past what he would need to know, should he enter first grade in a public school. And he won’t do that, if his daddy has anything to do with it.

I once asked Maggie why they were so adamant about teaching the kids themselves. “Accountability,” she said. “When your school fails, you can’t sue them. If it’s up to parents to make sure that kids get a decent education, then it’s up to us, especially to me, to make sure my kids get an exceptional one.”

This relates to the other day, as I was talking to Monsieur; he was talking about the future and I was talking about the kids. One day, he would like me to go to graduate school – but only if it’s what I want to do. I admitted that, although I once wanted it, grad school was more of a way to avoid life than anything else. Once I finish going to college, I’m supposed to do something, right? But now I’m doing something, so the pull of grad school is not really so strong. In fact, I never think about it unless someone else brings it up.

Now it seems that I measure my accomplishments using the school kids, and Monsieur’s kids especially.

I think of his children as mine, in a way. “Where are my boys?” I say when they need to come downstairs in the morning for breakfast.

One thing that I was never prepared for was the agony I feel when one or more of them is sick or hurt. They hardly ever really get sick, but Bigglest Boy gets allergies, and Littlest Boy has absolutely no fear when it comes to jumping off of the roof of the hen house. A persistent sniffle or a bruised head really tugs at my heart.

Land sakes, I’m turning into a mom. When did that start happening?