Decisions, decisions

Does anyone else just hate making decisions? The little things - what to wear, what to cook for dinner, what movie to watch - don't faze me. It's the big ones that leave me confused. Especially when there are lots of options, and either all the options sound good, or none do. The first big issue I ran into this year was where to live. Should we rent, buy, or take military housing? If we lived off base, should we look in Virginia or Maryland? How long of a commute were we willing for Matt to have? And if we took on base housing, which of the four bases in the area did we want?

Eventually of course we did make a decision about housing. We are in on base housing in Maryland. Matt has only a 15 minute commute, which is crazy short for the DC area. Most of the time I think we did the right thing. Whenever we have a problem here though I can't help but think "Well maybe this other place would have been better." It is enough to make me nuts!

Big decision #2 is where to send the kids to school next year. Beth will be in second grade, Matt will be in first, and Carrie will be in pre-k. Sweet Katy will be home with me. This year I have Matt and Beth at our local public school. I am not that impressed with it. I have left them there because they both have good teachers and have made some nice friends. The administration stinks though, and the school has some major budgeting issues. Beth did just test into their gifted program, so I am tempted to leave her there and see how that plays out. Since she is identified as TAG now, I could also apply to send her to a public school for gifted children. I'm hesitant though because she would go along, and I like having the children together.

Another option is the charter school they have right here on base. We weren't able to use it this year because of the long waiting list, but I could put them in the lottery for next year. That school doesn't have a gifted program, but the level of the entire curriculum is about a year ahead of their current school. It is also well funded, and can provide things like small classes, extracurricular activities, and field trips.

And finally, I could choose to homeschool them. This base has a very active homeshooling group too, so I could get the kids into some really good co-op classes. A lot of families here homeschool, because the public school is so iffy. I encourage people to make their own decision about the public school, since it does have some good points. It is definitely not a good fit for everyone though.

I really am having a tough time making decisions this year. I just want to be positive that my choice is the right one, and that is very hard to do. In fact, I am starting to think it is impossible!