It's been a big couple of weeks at our house.
It started with this:
I show you this photo as a way to demonstrate my appreciation and trust to my readers. Also, because if I don't show it to you first, my husband (who was supposed to be comforting me at this last moment before cataract surgery instead of taking mean pictures) will show it to you. I told him payback will be sweet. Just waiting for his future colonoscopy.
Two eye surgeries. Super fun. I have been blessed with the eyes of an 80-year-old woman and had an amazing doctor who fixed my vision! My husband jokes that he'd better start shaving now that I can actually see him.
So that was a fairly big deal in my world.
The very next day, we started this:
Kindergarten for our middle child. She was so excited it was comparable to Christmas. She put herself to bed on time the night before, got herself up the next morning, made her bed, dressed, brushed her hair and teeth, and smiled brightly during breakfast. Someone told me that apparently this little girl did not receive the memo on middle child behavior. In fact, her memo must have gotten mixed up with our oldest daughter's, because they behaved totally oppositely on the first day.
So big deal #2 was letting go of my baby for all day kindergarten. I couldn't even wipe my eyes since I wasn't allowed to touch them due to surgery.
Big deal #3 started that same day:
We took the plunge and decided to test the waters of homeschooling this year. There was no way in God's green earth that I could handle two different grades and two sets of curriculum my first year at this, so we sent Lauren to kindergarten as planned and kept Olivia home for second grade.
You need to know I am a crazy hyper, over zealous, type A overachiever. It is my goal to make crazy hyper, over zealous type A over achievers just like me.
Doesn't it sound like fun to have me as your homeschool teacher?
Not only is she going to learn and have fun, she's going to learn and have fun til she drops!
One (well, okay, two) of the biggest kinks in my world currently as it relates to homeschooling are these little creatures:
Don't let them fool you. Sure, they look cute and cuddly and innocent, but they are actually masterminds of destruction. They are the official mascots for destruction, as a matter of fact.
For instance, yesterday as I sat with my eldest child, teaching her the wonders of astronomy, Hank the menace was shredding a wet diaper into a million pieces.
Again.
On my still new carpet (I know I'm going on and on about this new carpet thing, but seriously, it's new, and it's been exposed to way too much trauma in less than a year.).
Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto had to take a backseat for a few minutes while I painstakingly plucked ammonia smelling diaper shreds from the floor. Olivia was thrilled because it gave her an overdue recess break.
Okay, back to work...I settled Leighanne down at the table with us and gave her an entire container of pretty cool, colorful beads to string a necklace. Olivia and I got to work discussing monks and the life they led during the 16th century.
"Mom, can you help me?"
I took the plastic needle from her little chubby hand and surveyed the problem: the doggie shaped bead would not fit over the eye of the needle. I can make this work, I thought. I pushed and pulled and even held the stupid needle tight with my teeth while trying to force the doggie bead over it.
Funny thing, plastic needles. They stretch and finally break when you bite them. Also, when I broke the needle, the beads went flying everywhere.
The children laughed at their hair-brained mama who had broken another one of their toys. Olivia found this particularly humorous because I broke both her reading glasses and her dad's reading glasses this same week.
Our conversation of Benedictine monks resumed with beads everywhere, a 3-yr-old happily sorting them all over the floor, and the dog staring at them longingly from behind the french doors on the back porch.
I think I'm going to learn a lot this year as I homeschool. I've already learned about space, monks, and plastic needles.
Hopefully I'll not forget to learn to chill out and laugh when my crazy hyper, type A, overachieving self messes everything up.
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