so, we have snow. it's mid april.
'nuff said.

things are rolling along here. Our house is under contract- we even met the real live buyers today! Kevmo actually spent the morning with them and the building inspector so they were not mere apparitions. Seems that things went well. Next step is to scheudule our building inspection for up in Appleton, get a builder to give us an estimate on making a dormer on the upstairs bedroom (the one bedroom we will all share as a happy family. even more happily if there's some head room), and maybe a new roof. The maybe being whether we hire someone to do it, or we do it, but it's gotta be done.

so, wow. yeah. moving to apple-town!
it's hard to believe that it is really going to happen, in many ways. or that we've been planning this for nearly a year. i'm getting excited... and a bit nervous, i do admit. apple-town is kinda out there. last week i went to visit the apple-town school with a friend who is considering buying the other chunk of land that our friends are selling. another mom tagged along as well. she and her family are also house hunting.

i left with the certain feeling that we will be homeschooling.
this is a decision i've been hemming and hawing about for awhile, not feeling too pressured to make a decision one way or another as long as Raelin is happy at Ashwood, which she is, and if we wanted to, she could go another year of preschool and then 2 years of kindergarten, buying 3 years before commiting to some program or other. plenty of time to work out the whole school business.

but being in the appleton school really zeroed in on what needs to happen. we gotta do it ourselves.

it's not a crappy school. true, it's small and there's only one class per grade. the principal who has been there 3 years now said it was a nightmare when he first arrived. from his side of the story, he's done and is doing a lot there and i am sure the kids are benefitting tremendously from his efforts and care. but i can't send my kids there, to sit in little desks in rows or groups, in circles or in squares, for 6 hours a day. even if there is a new beautiful playground with money raised by the town, or a sledding party for the honor roll kids. And truthfully, if i was going to continue teaching, it would be a neat place to work because it is small and therefore one teacher can have a great impact.

i would probably have come to the same conclusion regardless of what school i visited. i mean, big or small, schools are schools. they're in the business of 'schooling' and using some smoke and mirrors they pass it off as learning, and sure, some 'learning' does occur, but the more i read and talk with other moms who are not subjecting their kids to schooling, and i observe my Raelin dancing in the aisles of the Taiko drumming concert, or creating elaborate puppet shows with original songs (I'm a little bunny..hopping through the woods...hoppin' all around my great big 'hood), i think - she will be crushed there.

it's a bit hard to explain to others why you are choosing homeschooling without sounding like a snob, or implying that they are doing great harm to *their* kids by sending them to school. Seems like the best and most benign answer is, "it's what works best for our kids." We've made some careful and conscious decisions to be where we are in our lives, and homeschooling is just another one of those decisions. i know that not everyone can make that decision or wants to, so i do support public schools is that for now, in our society as it is, they are a necessity. So hopefully there will be a way we can support the school as members of the community. It is a small one, so we wont go unnoticed as home unschoolers... (more on unschooling later...) but i know there are a bunch of other homeschoolers around, so we won't stick out too much.

in other news- Liam is walking about 15% of the time. crawling is far more efficient. he also is putting away hamburgers and had a small meltdown when i cut him off the Cheddar Bunnies the other day. he's growing up too fast, that one....

(those who are familiar with how i fed raelin at this age may be aghast at the fact that Liam even got to *see* a cheddar bunny, much less eat one. Life is so much less complicated the second time around...)