How it began: The idea

From the beginning, we have been following our hearts in raising our kids. When I say we, I mean myself and my three co-parents--my husband, my sister, and my brother-in-law. Maybe I should go back to the beginning and tell it all as I see it.

I was raised in a small West Texas town in the 80s-90s where keeping up with the Joneses was par for the course. None of the parents I knew were particularly worried about making connections every day, moment on top of moment, with their children. Having kids was just something our parents did, something expected of them. I'm not saying they weren't great parents or didn't love us... I'm just saying that from my perspective, there wasn't a whole lot of freedom in their choices.

My sister and I wanted something different. We never even imagined that it would bring us to this place and frankly, we didn't care. We didn't set out to homeschool. We never even heard of Attachment Parenting. The only thing we did on purpose was to follow our hearts and trust our instincts. So, the most important thing I think we ever did was to wait. We waited to have children until we were in a good financial place. We waited until we'd sort of sewn our wild oats, climbed the corporate ladder, seen the world (so to speak). We waited until we were in a place of freedom to choose.

We are blessed with husbands who love us and all of our insane, sometimes brilliant, ideas. We are blessed with husbands that are full partners in this journey with us. We are blessed with parents and siblings and extended family that are supportive and giving and available. On top of all that, we were blessed with each other, my sister and I. And so, when she told me she was pregnant, my husband and I got right to work. 9 months later, she gave birth to our beautiful Lillie and almost 3 months after that, my amazing Jacey was born. We set out right away just doing what felt right. We breastfed, we strapped the babies to us wherever we went, we paid attention to their cues, we co-slept, etc. etc. We did a million things that we never imagined doing. We found ourselves identifying more and more every day with that group we'd always called "crunchy granola."

And then, one day, I realized that all my plans for sending Jacey off to school and having another child that I could bond with while he was in Kindergarten, just didn't feel right anymore. I couldn't imagine sending him off to school to learn from people that may or may not have his best interest at heart. I couldn't imagine not seeing his face the first time he learned about butterflies and the awesome transformation they make. I just thought of all the things that I would be missing, that someone else would probably not even notice or appreciate, if he was in school away from me. And so I started doing research.

And here we are. Just doing what feels right for our family. Searching, like so many other parents, for the answers that sometimes come easy and are sometimes elusive. For me and mine though, at the heart of it all, is a need to revel in connections with one another. We will go to the ends of the earth (or just Round Rock, Texas) to make this happen. We will follow our hearts, not even giving audience to boundaries that might take us from our goals.