This past week was our official reboot of our homeschooling adventure. After a very exhausting third trimester and navigating a newborn, this blog and any formal schooling (not that we really do that much formal stuff anyways) got sidelined. Instead, we played, watched educational tv and Youtube videos and did lots of reading. In all honesty, it didn’t look that different from our more official time, except that we didn’t go on as many adventures and daddy was home for the baby’s first 7 weeks!
With the arrival of #3, I really got to appreciate homeschooling so much more. So many people told me just to put the oldest into kindergarten, so the third trimester and newborn phase would be easier. However, having him (and his younger sister) home with us, was actually really special. We didn’t have to worry about getting up and out the door in time for school, the inevitable germs that would come home with him or having him feel left out. Instead, he got to be here with us, relish his new brother and welcome him as part of the family. To me, this was pretty special.
Another thing I really got to appreciate was having my partner and children’s father home with all three of the kids, while he took a brief paternity leave. During this time, he got to really bond with the kids, experience the chaos of day to day life and just be with us. Of course, it did make adjusting to a newborn and healing from a c-section easier, since I had an extra set of hands to occupy the older two.
With him home, we also got to take advantage of an awesome promotion at the Americana in Niagara Falls. In January, they had special promotional rates and offered a buy one night, get the next night free promotion. Since my partner was home, we decided to take advantage of this great deal and head to Niagara Falls for a few days. It was the kids’ first time in a hotel and they were pretty excited about the water park too! We loved that we weren’t limited by school holidays, so we could take advantage of this deal and we also loved that we could go in the middle of the week, so it wasn’t crazy busy.
So while I was pretty quiet on this blog the past several months, my life was anything but quiet. Instead, it was a pretty special and reaffirming time filled with a whole lotta love!