A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

The week began with such a dreadful downward dip in coping skills for me that I was genuinely scared I wasn't going to make it. But I did. And I am better now than I was then. I am thankful for teens who stepped in and helped. I am thankful for Nature Angel who left me chocolate, a felt squirrel, and a love note in a hand-crocheted bag under my pillow. I am thankful for Sir Walter Scott who took the kids on endless outings to get them into the sunshine, keep their bodies and minds active, and give me white space. I am thankful for hourly--or minute-by-minute--prayer and daily scripture study. I am thankful for habits and routines so deeply ingrained that we function even when I am not functioning. I am thankful to have survived this week and to find that there might be sunshine in my soul again. We did more school than I anticipated. *Ladybug got 5 full mornings of one-on-one time with me. *The teens and I read a couple hundred pages of The Grapes of Wrat...

On Saturday I started to panic at having 10 little kids at home (our babysittees were over) when temperatures were below 20.  So I packed everyone up in their warmest woolies and spent the day at the zoo. I calmed down as soon as we pulled out of the driveway, and we all had a grand time. It was Polar Bear Day, so there were free crafts and games. Slime.  I let them play with it at the zoo . . . but we threw it away before getting in the van and going home! The best part was a call from a far away friend who thought she was asking me for a favor but really was doing me the favor of listening and asking questions that showed she cared. I talked while the kids ran around the various zoo parks. Such a blessing! I spent Sunday in bed with that horrid first day of a cold that left me weak, weepy, and worn out.  How thankful I am for Sir Walter Scott!  He took 8 kids to church by himself (the teens were also sick at home) and managed the house...

Beowulf's Developmental and Behavioral testing wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, and on Monday Sir Walter Scott and I braved the ice/snow/slush to listen to the psychiatrist tell us her conclusions. It was not what I thought. At all. I believed that she was going to do a huge battery of tests and give me an overall assessment of all kinds of aspects of Beowulf's development. Nope. She tested his IQ and screened him for Autism. That's it. He does not have Autism. Though he does have lots of Autistic behaviors (sensory sensitivities, repetitive body movements, immature social skills, and some speech difficulties/quirks). I was quite intrigued to find out that based on the description she gave us of the tests she gave him, the testing for Autism is entirely social.  She tested him for being able to carry on a conversation, share, play imaginative games, how he used tone of his voice, and his ability to respond to body language. Autism is diagnosed when a ch...

We took two full days off school this week to prepare for our two big shows . . . one of which was cancelled because of the first snow! But we did hold Morning Meeting every morning. We listened to The Book of Mormon every morning. The teens and I read an additional 100 pages of The Grapes of Wrath . We had a proper Symposium session 2 days this week. The teens finished their art projects for Unit 4 of The Good and the Beautiful : I've forgotten whose is whose, and they are not "great works," but they took hours and hours to do because they walked through literally dozens of layers of painting to get these gloomy landscapes captured to the best of their abilities.  This project was copying someone else's art. The second art project was a flower study--rendered as the student saw fit.  This one is Super Star's. I'm 90% sure this is Belle's landscape Pixie's flower study And Belle's Little Princess was inspi...