The Hutchinson Big Announcement!!

Last year (this was right before Asher started first grade) I was taking a shower (where all of my revelations come) and before I even knew what I was doing I prayed, "God, if you want me to do it, I will."  I don’t know how, but I knew what that meant even without the words in the prayer. 


I will homeschool Asher. 


As much as I respect homeschooling and support it, I never EVER wanted to do it.  Nor did I think I was capable. It wasn't even an option. I wanted to get my kids in school and go back to work!  THAT was the goal. The funny thing is, as much as I always respected and supported stay-at-home-moms, I never EVER wanted to be that, either.  Well, look at me now.  

A stay-at-homeschooling-mom.

God, you ARE hilarious.


I prayed that prayer, I told God I would do it and then I waited for a flashing sign saying "YES, DO IT" before I committed (typical Courtney). But I think the prayer itself was my "sign." That was it.  And looking back, do you want to know how I know I should have jumped and done it then? 




*I didn't know more food allergies were coming.  We doubled them and he had 2 anaphylactic reactions in the first week of school.

*I didn't know epilepsy was coming AT ALL. Man, THAT was a shock.  

*I didn't know binocular fusion dysfunction with eye therapy twice a week was coming.  

Those things meant the following: 


*Major anxiety about food for Asher at the beginning of the year (but his teachers let him eat in the classroom with a different friend everyday so he would feel safe which is true LOVE IN ACTION).


*Anti-seizure medication which has been increased and increased and increased which messes with his focus so much that he can't learn consistently. His brain is in chaos and the medicine amps it up and calms it down over and over. We are still learning what his epilepsy looks like. We still haven’t found his medication sweet spot and this can take a lot of time and then something like a growth spurt hits and we start all over.  We’re ready for that and we’re confident that we can handle it, but these things mean he can be moody and agitated and unable to focus.


*An increased prescription for the lenses in his glasses and vision therapy twice a week came into his life recently.  As he improves, it makes his brain relearn everything he's ever known. Over and over.

All of this meant that he was frustrated in school, he left school and went straight to vision therapy where he was frustrated in a different way and then came home to do homework where he was frustrated. Not because of the school or homework (he doesn’t have much) but because of how his conditions affect his learning, in general. Plus, he would hold it together in school well and LOSE IT on me every day. I was starting to think he needed a tutor when my brain just said:

“NO. Courtney, STOP.”

it's too much

I value education, but it isn’t going to take over our lives. I want him to run and play and have adventures and BE FREE. He can have those things while he is learning and having therapy with no extra homework (except it will all be “home” work) all at the same time.  One on one. And I can do this. It may not feel like it, but I can. Somewhere along the way I forgot that I'm smart and capable and I CAN DO HARD THINGS. 


For all of those above reasons, this would have been a great year to have had him home so that I could let his brain learn how it needed to and be hospitalized twice without missing major lessons and...yeah.  All of it.  God knew (obviously) what I did not. Even though I didn't listen, he placed Asher in the most amazing classroom anyway with awesome kids and their parents and THE MOST amazing teachers who let him spell aloud and kept in constant contact with me and let it be known that his conditions didn't scare them.  They allowed him to learn how he needed to and didn’t pressure him. They value adventure and hands-on learning. I’ll thank God for this for the rest of my life. God turned my disobedience into beauty anyway.

God covered Asher, even when I wasn't being obedient which meant He was covering me too.  He's our Father. He knew I would eventually come around.

Another thing to think about is that sickness is Asher’s biggest seizure trigger, plus he has asthma, which makes a “no big deal” sickness a “huge deal” sickness. We have to keep him well.  The last seizure he had (which was 20 minutes long and landed him in the hospital for 3 days) was due to the common cold. We aren’t going to sequester him away from the public, but this seems to be a benefit of something we’ve already decided to do.  At least this way there will be fewer germs around him.

So. 

We've told our family.  We've told the kids' school. Not everyone understands and that’s ok. Why? Because not everyone parents our children.  Isaac and I do. We listen to and appreciate our village and then we pray and make the best decisions we know to make at the time and then move on. I've have to remind myself this week that my job is not to convince people that this is the right decision.  It's just to tell them that this is what we're doing. 




This year is our experiment year.  Our year to see what happens and what is best for our children. We decided to throw Zoe in the mix to get all the benefits we can from homeschooling.  This will be great with a dad who works swing shifts!  Our schedule can work around his and we’ll see him so much more.

As a friend put it recently, we aren’t married to homeschooling. If it isn’t the best thing for our family, we’ll just change our mind for next year.  No biggie.  It’s one year out of our lives. Then…who knows. 

*shrugs shoulders* 

We aren’t afraid of making mistakes. No matter what happens, this year will not be lost. I know that somewhere deep inside I may be scared to do this, but honestly all I feel now is peace, which has to be supernatural because last year I didn't feel capable of homeschooling, nor did I want to do it. 

All that said, we have no plan.  Ha! We don’t know which curriculum we’re using for Zoe or if we’ll do a co-op this first year or anything.  We’re just jumping out in obedience and we’ll start the research process now. 

No need to tell us the first year is the hardest, believe me, we’ve read it.  We aren’t focusing on that.  We’re focusing on relearning our children, grabbing our daily bread and going out to explore the world.  It’s our rebuilding year.

I’m asking you to encourage us and not tell us that it’s fine for us but you’d never do it. You don’t know WHAT you’d do if your child had 4 separate diagnoses that all worked against one another to affect his learning (oh yeah...and tried to kill him).

I want to end with this: No matter how you choose to school your child - home, private, public, any combination of however - be open to adventure, love hard and keep learning. 

Much love, 

The least likely homeschooler of all time, Courtney Brynn Hutchinson, 35.