About 6 weeks after my oldest was born I found out that I had been accepted into a fairly competitive internship. When I heard the news I was in shock and wasn’t sure how to proceed. I had been so sure I wouldn’t get in that it took several days to process the information and decide how to move forward.

My husband and I decided that I would go ahead and complete the internship over the next couple of years. It was one of those times that we took it one step at a time and decided to keep going until it felt like we needed to change directions.

Over the next two years I learned valuable lessons about focusing on what really mattered and having the courage and discipline to eliminate the extra fluff from my life. Essential and intentional would slowly emerge as two words I would base decisions on for years to come. It was a demanding two years but looking back it was also a very happy time in my life. I loved being a mom and I knew that I wanted to be at home with my kids more than I wanted a career. It was also a valuable time of learning about myself and recognizing my strengths and talents apart from my parents, husband and new baby. I would cling to this knowledge of myself when I felt I was losing a part of myself in the years to come.

After I had finished my internship I fully embraced my new role as a stay-at-home mom. I had a new found respect for working moms and had seen the sacrifice it took from the entire family for mom to work. I was grateful for a husband who saw the value of me staying at home. I felt blessed that he was willing to shoulder the financial responsibility of providing for our growing family. At the very end of the internship we were asked to answer some questions about our goals over the the next year, five years, and ten years. My 10 year goal was to have a mini-van full of little people, not Fisher Price – though I would also have a respectable collection of those at 10 years.

A couple of years later when other moms started registering kids for school and I realized with a shock that I needed to register my oldest for kindergarten I was not ready for this change in life. I also learned that my son’s age group would be the first year that would have state mandated all-day kindergarten. I dreaded sending him to school all day and when I suggested to my husband that we homeschool him for kindergarten he was 100% on board.

The plan was that I would homeschool him for a year and then send him to first-grade the following fall. The next fall rolled around and we were having so much fun that my husband suggested that maybe we homeschool one more year and then regroup. I was thrilled with the idea and we kept on doing what we were doing. When the next year rolled around and I started thinking about school I couldn’t stand the idea of sending him and we once again decided we would keep him home. At this point I was expecting baby #4 and we decided we were homeschoolers through and through. There was no point in debating if we were going to send kids to school when we loved having them at home. They were thriving and I was in my element playing school and bouncing a baby. It was my nine-year-old self’s dream come true!

I have now been homeschooling for 16 years and have more than a decade left to go. I have had two “graduate” from our homeschool and move on to college level classes with very little difficulty. When I have asked the two older kids what I could do better to prepare the younger kids for college, they have both responded with a laugh and have told me to just keep doing what I’m doing. I am still deep in the trenches of homeschooling. At this point in time, I have one in high school, one in middle school, one in elementary school and one preschool age.

I love homeschooling! It is the hardest and most rewarding thing I have ever done! I often think of Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web when she is telling Wilbur about the egg sac she is building, “my magnum opus” she tells Wilbur. Wilbur tells her that he doesn’t know what a magnum opus is. Charlotte explains, “It means ‘great work’ – the finest thing I have ever made.” E.B. White must have taken a peek into my heart years before I ever became a mom and said it so well. My kids are my magnum opus and I am grateful everyday for the challenge and joys of motherhood and homeschooling!