Eventually, the house that we were building did get inhabitable. Eventually we moved in, had another baby (Emily) and lived our lives.
Because my husband was against public schools, and I wanted to have as much influence as possible on my kids, we decided that I would home school them. Jason and I did kindergarten and 1st grade together. It was pleasant occasionally, but often very frustrating. I had never heard of ADD and so didn't understand that Jason's inability to concentrate was not an intentional behavior. I would see this very bright child who was interested in so many things (nature, airplanes, Batman), had a very impressive vocabulary, but would loose his ability to concentrate halfway through sounding out a word. I remember praying for complete silence so that he wouldn't be distracted. I was at my wit's end and often very impatient with him. For 2nd grade, we enrolled Jason at our church's school. Thankfully, for that year, he had a lovely teacher who understood how his brain worked and he had a fairly successful year. We were not so lucky the next year when he had a brand new teacher, fresh out of school with lots of "ideas". Additionally, Jason never fit in there. He was not competitive or athletic, and because that school was so intensely cliche-oriented, he was ostracized before he even had a chance. It was so sad to drive by the school when he was at recess and see him playing all by himself. I wanted to fix things, and would have parties and "play dates" with other moms, but I was also not really part of the group, and invitations frequently went unanswered.
Jason did have a very best friend, Josh, and his mother and I were also very good friends. His social life revolved around Josh and his aunt Libby. It was this way from the time he was 4 until about his 13th birthday. Jason's father was against Josh - for some reason that I still don't understand - and he actively prevented them from getting together. It was the beginning of a very depressing time for Jason. He was not a part of any group - certainly not even the youth group at our church (those leaders, parents and kids will answer to God for the hurtful things they did and said to him).
It was not all terrible. We (during the home school years) did lots of fun things - a trip to Germany to visit Aunt Libby for 5 weeks, lots of field trips to restaurants and events that highlighted cultures we were studying for school. We kept very busy and I didn't even notice that Jason was feeling lonely. He seemed happy, enjoyed his brother and sister and had a very active world of make believe, was the same sweet, easy-going, gentle child he had always been. That was why his teen years caught me by surprise.
