At Home in Georgia

Changes, changes...

Well, here we are in GA... so I guess I should change my blog name.   

We moved here about 3 weeks ago.  We're getting settled in.  I asked some advice from some friends and thought I'd post this here as well and see if anyone has any thoughts or comments.  I'm really missing the independence of living in the country...

Hi, everyone... we're starting to feel more settled in here in GA.
I"m having a hard time adjusting though to some things. I've almost
always (as a child, and most of my married/mommy life) lived "out in
the country". Not on a farm or anything, but not in a neighborhood.

Now we live in a cul-de-sac "community" and as much as I do enjoy the
differences of having 7 girls around for my girls to play with, I
feel really thrown off balance by it all.

My girls are 5 1/2 and 3 1/2. Most of the other girls are 6 or 7
years old. The youngest is a little bit of a "problem" child in the
neighborhood (parents don't keep a close eye on her, she isn't
honest, gives the other girls bad "ideas" which most of them are old
enough not to go along with, unlike my girls!). But the rest seem
very nice. Families seem nice, too.

They all tend to run around together and from yard to yard. Of
course, I'm not comfortable with my girls (because of age and not
knowing our neighbors really well) going far, so our general rule is
that they can play in our yard or the actual culdesac part of the
road (bike riding, etc.), and they're not allowed to go anywhere else
without checking with us. We keep a really close eye on them because
I don't trust them of course at that age (esp. my 3 1/2 year old...
even if she was 9 I don't think I could trust her to stay in our
yard! :) ). But the other girls plan "parties" together, etc., and
we generally don't let them go to every little thing, but very
selective about what they can do.

But I feel like it's going to be really hard to keep them part of our
family and not part of the conglomeration of girls. I want them to
have friends, but I can see them quickly deciding that running around
with the neighbors could be much more interesting than hanging out
with Mommy and Daddy.

We're already starting to see attitudes and actions mimicking the
other girls... some not necessarily BAD, but not something that would
be characteristic of the girls.

I just don't know how to handle this huge change. I know the worst
of it will be now, in the summer with everyone out of school, but I
guess I'm feeling some "adult peer pressure" that "everyone else is
doing it" (letting their kids "hang out" at any given yard in the
neighborhood) . And now it seems more awkward working through
homeschooling plans, because now we have constant references to
school, we're always having to explain why we're homeschooling, that
no, our girls won't be in the neighborhood elementary school, etc. I
know we can be a good testimony and that this is a chance for me
to "stand on my own", but it's just so different.

I was very comfortable in my "own little world" day-to-day. We were
never isolated before (always involved in church, ministry, AWANA,
MOPS, etc.), but I'm already missing the day-to-day independence of
living out in the "sticks". Any thoughts or advice for this change?

neighborhood kids

11:56, Wednesday, June 14, 2006 .. Posted by tillie2

We also have a LOT of kids right around our house and they run from yard to yard to yard when school is out. I have just had to make it a rule that we do school work from 9 to 12, then lunch, then chores from 1 to 3.. Granted it's not totally inflexable, sometimes we have friends over for tea (we usually try to incorporate something that is remotely linked to a topic of study) or special projects, but the basic idea is that we had to set a routine and stick to it. We also had to establish that our kids have to be in the house, no friends, by 5:30 - that is 2 to 2.5 hours to play uninterrupted. Sometimes it is too much time, if behaviour is anything to show for it, but I'm playing with that aspect of it. I hate to shut down a good play time but sometimes it's really necessary! The kids are used to me saying that our boys won't be out for a while now too so they don't say anything when I turn them away (gently!)