Eighteen years have passed since 9/11 became more than just a date on the calendar. A whole childhood ago for the children who were born that year. My entire married life has been lived in a post-9/11 world. To my children, it is an event in their history curriculum and on a timeline song. And yet my memories of that day are crystal clear.

I remember working as an itinerant ESOL teacher, and having appointments at different schools all morning.

I remember that every time I got in the car, the news on the radio was worse.

I remember the moment that the South Tower went down, and weeping for that lives lost.

I remember the heroes.

I remember “Let’s roll.”

I remember helping the SRO bring two of my Korean students home because their mom was out of town and they were staying with neighbors. She was not able to get home for a week because planes were grounded.

I remember parents picking their kids up from school, in South Carolina, far from the attacks, because no one felt safe.

I remember rumors that the Mall in Washington D.C. was on fire (it wasn’t) and weeping because I used to live near there and it felt like my back yard has been attacked.

I remember praying with a colleague whose dad worked in the Pentagon.

I remember trying to act normal for the sake of my students.

I remember rushing to Columbia International University, my alma mater, when my work day was over, looking for my boyfriend (now my husband) and friends, where I could focus on listening to the news, and on praying for our country.

I remember crying.

I remember trying to find red, white, and blue ribbon at multiple craft stores and that it was sold out.

I remember spending the weekend with my sister-in-law because my brother had been called up with the Coast Guard.

I remember taking pictures of gas stations on my way to their home and all of the signs saying “God bless America”.

I remember the leadership of President Bush, especially in the moment when he was told what was happening and he didn’t want to scare the school children with whom he was visiting.

I remember the cross in the rubble at Ground Zero.

I remember students at CIU going to NYC to help using plans and funds that had been put together weeks before the attacks happened.

I remember Democrat and Republican legislators standing side by side singing God Bless America.

I remember skies eerily silent with absent airplanes.

I remember planes returning to the skies, and cringing, watching carefully, wondering.

I will #neverforget that day and how it changed our world and the heroes who sacrificed everything for others.

Where were you?

With six years of homeschooling behind us, you might think that we've got this thing figured out by now, but nothing could be further from the truth. We are constantly figuring out what we can do better and what curriculum choices will best suit our children and the goals we have for them - spiritually, academically, and socially.

This year is no different, and because of some other changes we have made, it has at times felt more topsy-turvy than ever - but I am thrilled to share that we are now in a really good place and I could not be happier about the curriculum we have chosen for our rising second grade son and sixth grade daughter. Let me share it with you by topic so you can see how what we chose actually flows and works together in the big picture.

My goal in our Bible curriculum is for our children to know the people, places, and events in the Bible, the story of redemptive history, as well as what the Bible reveals about God, people, and the world in which we live. For an overview of the first, I am turning again to Grapevine Bible Studies, which we can use together, since the curriculum includes different grade level workbooks for the same topics. We also use New City Catechism and Big Truths for Little Kids to introduce different aspects of theology to our children.

At the same time, my sixth grade daughter is ready to start digging into the Bible on her own. For that, she will go back and forth between the Discover 4 Yourself series, by Kay Arthur, and the Trek middle school curriculum from Awana. (Having attained the Timothy Award last year for completing four Awana books since third grade, she is eager to keep going with the goal of receiving the Citation Award by the end of high school!) No church in our area has an Awana program after fifth grade, so we will just do this on our own!

Nothing new here! We have been happy with the Saxon Homeschool math curriculum and will continue to use that with Saxon 3 for second grade (we use everything except the "Meeting Book") and Saxon 8/7 for sixth grade.

Like Bible, Science is a discipline that we are still studying together. We are doubling down on science this year, only because I have a plan for my daughter to have a good introduction to all four major categories of science (life, earth, chemistry, and physics) before high school, and while we learned about particular topics in a sort of "unit studies" format, it was not as organized as I would have liked it to be.

This year, we will be using Christian Kids Explore Biology from Bright Ideas Press in the fall, and Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space in the spring. My plan is to do science twice a week, and to do one full chapter each day. We will read the chapter together and do the hands-on activity included. (If we were just using one book, I would be doing the reading on one day and the hands-on activity on the next day.)

That will be enough for my second grader. Later, during her independent time, my sixth grader will do some additional work for her science notebook, including some extra reading and research on the topic.

This will be a group effort, too. We will be using Mystery of History Volume 2, also from Bright Ideas Press, and will follow a similar schedule to science. We will alternate our history days with our science days. Each Week has three readings. On Day 1, we will read two lessons and complete one of the "younger child" activities for those lessons. On Day 2, we will read the third lesson and do one activity. On Day 3, we will review the week's work (including the corresponding geography).

Those activities will be sufficient for my second grader, but my sixth grader will go a bit deeper in her independent time by reading a related book, making memory cards about the events we study, and sometimes doing an additional research activity.

Okay, this is NOT my strong suit, but I do believe it is an important part of a complete education. So I have written in to my schedule a break where we are going to do some fitness activities together (I am going to try to get going again on the Homeschool Mom Fitness Program that I love!). In addition to these, my children are enrolled in a weekly program at the YMCA called "Homeschool Swim and Gym".

I am really excited about this. I have been trying to figure out how to "do" literature outside of just reading amazing books together - not that there is ANYTHING wrong or lacking about that! For my daughter, though, I wanted to start introducing her to literary concepts (character, setting, plot, and theme, etc.) but I didn't want to just give her a book and a bunch of worksheets. A friend introduced me to Center for Lit's approach to having Socratic discussions about literature, beginning in Kindergarten, and I love it. I got the DVD seminar Teaching the Classics and will be using their list of Socratic questions. We will be using the book list in their Reading Roadmaps Scope and Sequence as a starting place, and will be having lots of solid conversations about good books, both together and individually. My sixth grader will also be writing about what she reads - not all the time, but occasionally.

The discipline of "language" encompasses a lot for me.

First, language includes grammar. My second grader will be using First Language Lessons, Level 2 for this, and my sixth grader will be using Grammar for the Well-Trained Mind.

Second, language includes writing. For my second grade reluctant writer, we will be using Writing With Ease, level 1. My daughter is using Writing With Skill, Level 1. (I have heard this is intended for fifth grade, but I have also heard that it is challenging for fifth grade. We are going into this from two years of instruction with materials from Institute for Excellence in Writing, which is good, but different, so I'm happy to be starting from the beginning of this series.)

Third, language includes logic. The formal teaching of logic is something we are saving for seventh grade, so not yet this year, but we regularly include different kinds of "logic puzzles" in week to challenge their brains and stimulate this kind of thinking in the future.

Finally, language includes Latin right now. I am not waiting until third grade to begin a Latin curriculum with my son, but my daughter will be continuing with First Form Latin from Memoria Press, which she began last year in an online class with True North Homeschool Academy.

That seems like a lot when it is all written out! I'll write again soon about how we are working this all in on a practical level, and also about how this fits into our new approach to our classical homeschool!

This year has been a milestone for me.

Ten years ago, in March, my daughter Naomi died in my womb in my nineteenth week of pregnancy. I had developed a serious, life-threatening abdominal infection that she could not survive. She was born beautiful, small, and oh-so-still, and her brief life catapulted us into the babyloss community.

Four weeks ago, more or less, was the anniversary of her due date, and this November marks the tenth anniversary of losing my next baby, Kyria.  My next baby's, Jordan's, tenth loss anniversary is coming up next May. And this fall is the fifth anniversary of saying goodbye to my last two babies, Hope and Christmas.

It is hard for me to think of them all together, because it is unlikely that Kyria would have been conceived if Naomi had lived, just as there is no way that my last two babies, conceived and lost just four months apart from each other, could have both lived. But in my moments of private thoughts and dreams, I have a house full of children with curly blond hair and a heart full of would-have-beens.

Naomi, of course, would have been ten. She would have been in fifth grade this year, one year behind her big sister, and they would have been using many of the same books as we homeschool together. They would have been in the same American Heritage Girls Explorers unit this year, and would have shared the stage in Mary Poppins this summer, along with their little brother. They probably would have bickered a lot, and also bonded as only sisters can.

Kyria would have been nine this fall. Her birthday would have fallen right around the time of our June wedding anniversary. She would have been excited to go into the Explorer unit with her big sisters. Maybe she would have been a bit more shy of performing as the little sister, but I like to think she may have enjoyed that, too, in her own way.

Jordan would have been eight this fall, going on nine. He would have been in third grade and would be at the point in homeschooling where his reading would have been taking off, very likely. He would have doted on his little brother, my son on earth, who is in second grade this year.

Hope and Christmas would have been my little ones. They each would have been four years old this year, my last babes to go through our church preschool program.

My seven treasures. Two on earth and five in Heaven.

If you are far enough out from losing a baby that you feel like you "shouldn't" be sad anymore - take it from me.

You never forget.

You never stop missing them.

You never stop loving them.

Whether it's been ten weeks or ten months or ten years or more - that's your child, and having them, for any length of time, has changed you and helped make you who you are.

And that's exactly as it should be.