THE CHOICES WE MAKE AS PARENTS

Being a parent is tough. Parents warned me of this before I became one myself, and as with all those other little cliche snippets of advice I have received from others I subtly rolled my eyes and thought to myself: Yah, yah, I know; being a parent is hard work, it is not all sunshine and roses. Yadah, yadah, yadah.

And once I in fact did become a parent the same thought still went running through my mind. That is up until the past year or so.

I am amazed at how tough parenting has been for me as of late; and I think much of it has to do with the ages my children are at. More specifically, the ages Lucas and Ava are at. I find myself worrying constantly about them socially - are they making friends easily? Do they have someone to sit by at lunch every day? Are people ever mean to them at school? Do they feel like they are part of the crowd at school? Not only do I worry about them socially, I worry about them academically as well. Are they keeping up with the rest of the class? Do they feel frustrated or are they struggling in any particular subject? Are the teachers being patient with them and helping them to learn in a healthy, constructive way?

The list goes on and on. I do spend time talking to their teachers, and making sure things are going smoothly. I also spend time talking to them, trying to subtly find out if anything is "off" or if they are having any troubles. I do my investigating, so to speak. And yet I still worry, worry, worry.

So you can imagine the worry that came over me when I found out in March that there was a spot at St. Croix Prep for Ava. I have wanted to get my kids in to this school forever, but how can I uproot her from Lily Lake, the school she knows, loves and feels comfortable at? The school where she has forged some really great friendships? How can I take her from what she knows with two months left in the year, and put her in a completely different school, different learning enviornment, different friends, different everything? How can I move her when they do not yet have a spot for Lucas, or know if they even will by next year? Yet how can I not?

As you know if you read this blog at all, we ended up taking the spot for Ava. And what do you know, she adjusted just beautifully to the new school. Actually, she has come home from school on numerous occasions saying that she likes this school much better than the one she was at before. Hearing this makes me oh so happy; it makes me breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the Mr. and I did a good thing, and that this is all working out.

Throughout the past few months she has grown so very much. Her confidence has grown by leaps and bounds - she reads more fluently, she is not coming home from school frustrated by her math homework, and she seems so much more well rested each day being able to sleep past 6:30am. She has come out of her shell and has started to make some friends which I am so happy about. Her best friend being Miss Keelin; the one who showed her around on the very first day of school, made her a card, and helped her to feel welcome and accepted in her new school.

So I have to say I am so very happy about the choice we made as parents, the very hard choice we made to send her to a brand new school. It seems to have paid off - all that worrying for nothing, right?

I wish I could say that this would be the last tough choice we would have to make as parents. That this was a lesson learned, and that I won't over think, go back and forth and worry, worry, worry, about many other things down the road. But that is certainly not going to be the case, and I am a Mom for goodness sake, worrying is what we were made to do!