Monday, September 14, 2015

Home School: The First Week

Ella, talking to Dan at dinner tonight: "I did so good in school today, Dad! I didn't cry once!"

It took a full week of home schooling, but on the sixth day Ella made it through all five subjects with nary a tear in sight. Last week's crying was sponsored by:

  • Math (double digit addition)
  • Math (double digit subtraction)
  • Mom's inability to find seeds anywhere to do the "make something grow!" science experiment (yes, I actually do understand planting season ended long ago, Mr. Home Depot employee. But science is for all seasons apparently! And also I didn't open up the teacher's guide and find out about the needed seeds until class started, so please stop looking at me like that.)
  • Mabel getting to "do whatever she wanted" (re: destroy my house) while Ella had to do school work. 
  • Mabel making Matty laugh while Ella had to do school work. That's HER job.

Thursday, September 3, 2015

The last two weeks

I hadn't really intended to take the last two and a half weeks off from blogging, but here we are. I wasn't feeling overwhelmed by it (even after the 5 posts in 5 days challenge, which actually turned out to be easier and more fun that I had anticipated), but I also wasn't constantly itching to write another post. Usually I get sort of panicky if I haven't written anything in a while, but these last few weeks had me decidedly relaxed about the whole thing. As I am almost never relaxed about much, I went with it and took a break. I like to think that it's because I'm becoming more Zen as I age, but there's a much more realistic chance that since fall is almost here (as is apparent by all the autumn themed memes people keep posting on Facebook. Seriously, STOP IT. Do you know what comes after fall in northern Michigan? That's right, a frozen hell. Stop rushing it!) and our laid back summer schedule is about to become very un-laid back, my brain just shut down and went into the fetal position to prolong the imminent stress that will undoubtedly come soon enough. Either way, thanks brain!