Questioning myself...

I am not having a great day today. I am feeling really detached. Not sure why. I am feeling tired and just down again. I hate feeling like this.

I am also wondering if I am doing the right thing by homeschooling. Princess is just flying through grade 4 work and will be starting grade 5 work possibly this year. It is not her I am concerned with.

I really struggled last year with keeping Mr. Hockey home or sending him to school. We decided to keep him home. I really feel this is where God has led us. I just don't know what I am doing wrong now.

We go over and over his workbook, he is not able to reain anything. We have gone over verbs and nouns, for 2 years now, and he doesn't get it. We have studied different sentences - run-on, stringy, and good ones, fragments and phrases, all that stuff and he just doesn't keep any of it in.

I am wondering if we chose the right program for him. I am not sure what to do at this point. He gets frustated and I get frustrated and it just isn't worth it. It is making me think twice about my reasons for homeschooling. Am I hearing right from God?

When we first decided to homeschool, we used workbooks with him. He had to finish 1 a month, easy, but it wasn't his thing. So for the next year, I let him tell me what he wanted to learn about and we just made up our own unit study type curriculum. It was a blast, then we had a baby. We just continued, but at a slower pace with the units. Princess started to want to do school too, so we included her in everything that we did. It was a blast, we really had a good time with it all. Then I ordered an actual unit study program that incorporated ancient history into it all. We were "living" in ancient Egypt, we celebrated Passover, we mummified things, we learned about columns and had our own "winter olympics" with a greek feast and everything afterwards. It was so much fun. Then last year, with another new baby in the house, I was feeling overwhelmed to meet those expectations from the previous year and a friend had offered to give us her kids old books. We could just erase and use them again, which we did.

The kids loved the books. They really enjoyed what they were learning and seemed to catch on quickly. We didn't get through a whole lotta them though, cause we started later in the year and we just had an awful lot of "life" happening. Hubby was in and out of jobs and our schedules were constantly changing. It was hard enough just to keep the house clean. I was at a low point in my "existence" and it showed at home.

This year, I automatically thought that we would just use the same program again. So at our local conference we ordered grade 4 and 5. Got it at a cheaper price and we were all excited to start the program. Princess is almost through her first workbook and she can do it all on her own. Very little help from me is ever needed. She is totally excelling with this work, and I am thrilled, I found her "thing". Mr. Hockey, on the other hand is really struggling with it. He enjoys doing the work, doesn't complain at all about it, but it is not sinking in. The language arts is his biggest struggle. He enjoys the reading and I can see a lot of improvement there. But the LA is too hard. Maybe there is an easier way to learn it all, without the frustration? If anyone knows, please help me!!

I am just having a rough day. I am tired, Pooky is constantly crying and wanting to sleep *on* me, not in her bed, the dog seems to have regressed in the housebreaking thing, and Cutie Pie is fighting with everyone. Huh, I wonder why I am feeling detached...and you all thought I always enjoyed this homeschooling stuff...the truth comes out!! ( I am still reminding myself that there are more 'good' days then bad though...it is the only way to stay sane!!)