A Week, Briefly (3/26/18)

Lola made me laugh this week . . . about my bed.

I love a well-made bed.  When my bed is made, it is a sign that I am feeling a healthy sense of order in my world.

When it is not made . . . well, that's a sign that life is hard.

It's been hard for going on 2 1/2 years now.

Intermittently, I've made my bed for a day here or a week there, and of course it gets made every time I wash bed linens, but mostly I've been in survival mode, and so has my bed.

This week I had a day when I got it made.  The morning went smoothly, and I got a lot of good things accomplished in my early quiet time.  While the kids did their chores, and the oats simmered on the stove, I slipped into my room to give my bed a sweet facelift.

Lola gets tucked into my bed each night, and once she's asleep, I move her to her own bed.

In her small experience, the covers are always open and ready to receive her.

Well, the evening of the day I made my bed, I carried Lola into the bedroom for prayers, stories, songs and tucking in.  When I flipped on the light, she gasped at the sight of the tidy covers and exclaimed, "Oh no!  Your bed is all wrecked!"

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

photo credit:  Little Princess

Ladybug made me laugh, too.

We've studied Colonial American history this year--including several lessons about taxation without representation.

We recently started the Old Testament over again during Morning Meeting.

As a review one morning before we moved on to the next chapter in our Bible storybook, I asked, "Remember when Moses went up the mountain to talk with the Lord?  What did the people do down below?"

Raising her hand excitedly, Ladybug shouted, "I know!  They were paying taxes!!!!"

Oh my!

I wanted to howl, but I thought it might hurt her feelings!

Instead I bit my lip and explained the difference between paying taxes and worshiping idols.

But, oh!  How I've laughed, chuckled, giggled, and grinned as I've remembered.

Rose Red has discovered that putting in school hours is far better than paying rent, so she's actually working toward graduation, and she has a post-high school plan.

I'm cautiously hopeful.

But she's still determined to do some serious damage to herself along the way.

The teens and I are talking plans for next year.  We've got some easy plans in place, but we've also hit a few roadblocks.  Pixie is set to graduate this coming December and take classes at the community college until she's ready to transfer to a university . . . unless she decides to go directly to the local state university to take advantage of their dance conservatory before transferring to BYU, her dream school.  In that case, she'll postpone graduation until she can get a couple more advanced math and science classes under her belt.  It's daunting making decisions such as these!  For the other two, I'm doing some serious curriculum searches, and I look forward to the homeschool convention in our area next week where I can browse the vendor hall.  My eyes are about to fall out of my head from staring at sample pages on the computer screen.

In Symposium we had a homemade Spanish mid-term exam that had me howling with laughter.  These girls of mine are so fun to be around.

And they're doing just fine in their Spanish studies.

We have only 14 history lessons left!

And we're reading Frankenstein for our teen book club.  It's not what I expected at all!  So far, it is an interesting read, but we've only gotten to page 50 or so.

When I looked at them, they were all totally engaged in our favorite Easter bunny story (The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes), but I guess I was a distraction to Lola and Beowulf!

The elementary 8 and I continue to progress through lots of good reads and art studies and lots of memorization in Academy.  We finished Come Look With Me, The Artist at Work and Leif the Lucky.

Individually (mostly):

Nature Angel is almost done with Exploring the World of Chemistry (Tiner), and I took the plunge and ordered her 6th grade course of study when I found a good deal.  It is a second-hand copy (and older version) of Oak Meadow's 6th grade curriculum.  She's so happy to have it!  She's actually planning to start it in another week or so, because she's at a dead spot in her individual studies, and it seems as if this curriculum were custom designed to her interests.

Little Princess hates, hates, hates doing copywork, narration, and dictation with Pollyanna using The Lesson Book.  She likes the story, but she hates the work.  She's not a happy camper!  However, she has counted up her lessons in Math Lessons for a Living Education 4, and she wants to complete it by the end of May.  That will make 2 full years of math in one.  The material is getting more challenging, but she definitely has a mind for math.

Ladybug is doing both math and reading and handling it quite well, whereas she was only able to handle reading just a few months ago.  She's learning cursive by tracing letters that I write with a highlighter pen on ruled paper.  The behavior modification plan isn't going well, but I keep telling her I love her, God loves her, and that she has the power to do what is right.  Sometimes I grit my teeth and force myself to say the words, but I want her to know that there is always hope.

Mister Man finished Explode the Code 4 this week.  He's quite excited to start #5.  His fascination with science seems to have evaporated with the beginning of science Lifepac 3.  It's a different edition, and I think he misses the other format--I have no idea which one is current because they have the same copyright date!

Brother is having an incredibly hard time.  He's never happy; he's bossing the other kids around to the point of spanking them (we don't spank); and he's ignoring parental direction in favor of doing what he wants, breaking other people's belongings in the process.   He's spent a great deal of time on the porch, and he cries when I ask him to read or narrate or draw or anything.  I don't know quite what to do for him, but I'm praying.

Beowulf is struggling emotionally, but just tonight (Friday) he pulled out our copy of Lentil and began sounding out Robert McCloskey's name.  He did a good job, too!  I'd been looking at kindergarten curriculum plans for next year that would allow me to put off reading because I thought he wasn't even close to being ready, but he's showing me I was wrong!

Lola and Baymax are daytime potty-trained now--accidents are the exception rather than the rule.  They both want to stop wearing diapers at night, but I've told them they have to wake up dry for a few days first.  They both handle scissors, writing implements, and glue sticks with aplomb.  They ask for school every day, and I'm running out of reasons to put them off.  They get lost in joyful imaginative play constantly.

We were going to take a spring break week next week, but the forecast is dismal--snow, rain, clouds, and low temperatures every single day.

Blech!  Might as well do school!

But the teens are taking a break from Symposium, and that will free up a couple of hours a day for me to organize, give attention to smaller people, and perhaps catch up on menu-planning and food prep.

Spring break will have to wait for more spring-like weather!

In the mean time, it's General Conference weekend! 


(Linking here)