Never say "Never"

Two significant and vaguely inter-related events have taken life by the ankle shaken it all about. Both were pre-ordained by “I’ll never” statements I foolishly have made.

One: I’ll never homeschool my daughter. 
I actually really, really, like the idea of homeschooling. Molding the young mind, enticing her with topics and activities that she would love and wouldn’t be possible in a traditional school setting. But she and I working closely together on a daily basis? Ha! From our first homework assignment in Kindergarten (one of only two that year), where it took 30 minutes and many tears to count the number of Thursdays in February, I have had the strongest conviction that me teaching her is a Very Bad Idea. However, we have had a number of extremely frustrating educational experiences at the American school here, with the lack of actual education being so terrible and the parental scuttlebutt of next year’s teacher being so dour that we have actually discussed home schooling, for 3rd grade at least.

Two: I never want to be one of those moms with a tweenager and a baby.
Yep, I’m pregnant. After 6 years of trying to conceive and all the attendant misery, I get pregnant when I have a soon-to-be 8-year old and am staring my 40th birthday in the face. Despite the “never” statement, of course, we are absolutely thrilled. The future big sister was tearfully happy as well, and now that she has endured a number of pregnancy-related (mis)adventures (mostly, er, food-related) and had to put up with an exhausted mama, she is a little more wary. Still a good sport, however.

Currently we are on leave in the US. All the critical family members have now been told of the big news, and we are also getting a lot of practice explaining the coming school year thusly (God willing):

• Since we are, ahem, not too thrilled with the school anyway, we will start out the 3rd grade year homeschooling (aaah!). 
• Mid-November, daughter and I travel to the US, kicking our tenant out of OUR VERY OWN house. I will transfer to a midwife Ob-Gyn practice in Fairfax, have the baby there, and we will stay in the US until summer time. 
• Hopefully, the 3rd grader will attend our neighborhood school (if I can talk her into it, in a time of such major transition). We’ll stay till the end of the school year for her, and so that we can avoid a couple of trips back-and-forth to the US with the newborn (and the attendant springtime pollution that settles over Kathmandu). 
• Hubby will come to get us settled in November, come again for Christmas and baby’s birth (due first week of January), and come out a third time for US-based home leave in late May. 
• We all return to Nepal, baby in tow, in late June.