4 days and counting

Okay, time to post something seriously. And you can't get much more serious that this - my eldest DD who's 5, only has 4 days left at school.

At proper school, I mean. At the square brick building 5 minutes walk away that has turned her from a cute, cheeky, afffectionate little individual into a bad tempered, smart mouthed, nasty, whiny little thug.

I can't wait. I know it's going to be chaos. But, hey, how much more chaotic can it get in this house? Three girls, currently aged 5, nearly 3 and almost 17 months. A dog. A guinea pig. A DH who works 10 to 12 hours a day. Not to mention that the house is a small, 3 bed semi with the most useless kitchen this side of the border.

Still, we've managed here for nearly 18 months. We've done the whole planning permission, buildings regs thing for a great extension (two more bedrooms, two more bathrooms, a new kitchen and a playroom - yippee!!!). All we need to find now is a builder.

Half term approaching now, and we thought it was a natural break in the school year to de-reg her. It's not like we haven't been doing a kind of homeschooling for a while, it's just that I want to do it properly. She's still full of questions when she gets home, but those 2 hours between 4 and 6 are the worst times to try and work on anything with her. Middle DD and small DD (need to find blog names for them all... mind not working right at moment) both demand more of my attention at that point of the day than at any other, and when eldest is running around with knitting needles demanding to know how to knit, middle is trying to show baby how to put Brio train track together and baby is intent on feeding the dog's biscuits into the video...

3.30pm is a stupid time to finish school anyhow. Either they should finish at lunchtime, so you can have a good, productive afternoon with your children, or keep the little buggers till 6pm, at which point you can feed them, bath them and put them straight to bed. 3.30pm gives tired kids, who can't concentrate on anything they do, with too long till the tea/bath/bed time. Tired kids fight, don't learn anything constructive, won't co-operate, like irritating their siblings and in general, are horrible to be around. And considering middle DD has spent most of the day looking forward to eldest's return from school, it's awful to watch her being shoved aside by eldest in her quest for the idiot box. She'd rather watch Tweenies than play with middle DD.

Home education is the way to go. I'm convinced of it. I have been convinced of it for over 2 years.

So why, suddenly, with 4 days to go, am I running around trying desperately to reassure myself, when I've spent the last 4 months telling everyone it's such a fabulous idea?