A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

Sunday morning before breakfast . . . I did do Lola's hair up cute before leaving the house. :) I had a hard week. Anxiety reared its ugly head. But good things did happen all around me. Monday morning Ladybug and I headed out the door as soon as Morning Meeting was over, and her psychiatrist prescribed the same medication for her that Brother is taking. It is NOT the right medication. While it does organize her thoughts so that she can do a math assignment in 10 minutes with no doodling and no mistakes instead of an hour with much doodling and countless mistakes, it lulls her into a too-passive state when she's not actively playing or working. She wants to sleep all day (I won't let her), and then she can't sleep at night (she's never been a good sleeper anyway, but it seems worse now). She also says it makes her stomach hurt (but it's hard to know if that's the truth--for a lot of reasons). I did some research, and I found a general ...

The teens took a spring break.  (Except for Pixie--her history class and dance classes resumed after last week's break) The younger kids mostly didn't, but kind of did. Which means I went ahead and read for Academy each day (we do this during lunch), but I didn't require any written work from them, and I called kids to me for one-on-one school to give them a break from the endless free play time that is actually a totally normal part of our regular school days. On Monday after my appointment with the psychologist who gave Brother's diagnoses , I took Nature Angel and Little Princess to a workshop on bookbinding at our crafting thrift store. Learning how to use the Cricut Sir Walter Scott took the young ones to a park they'd never been to before. Tuesday was a rough day.  I was dealing with some personal anxiety, and Super Star must have been doing the same.  I'll say nothing more than that I relied on routine to survive the day . . . ho...

I started this as a weekly post, but my joyful ramblings about Brother got so long that I decided to make it a stand-alone post.  I'll get my week's report written later. Brother is diagnosed (Autism, ADHD, PTSD), and the pharmacological treatment for ADHD has begun. He's himself . . . but more so . . . as if his true self was broken into pieces before, and now it is whole.   He's got the same interests, the same personality, the same vague-and-good-natured sweetness . . . but it's all easier to access.  There's no barrier between us and him. He played outside all morning this (Friday) morning, and not one kid cried or came to complain of his behavior (usually there would be 3-6 incidents between breakfast and lunch).  He never broke anything (usually an item a day), and he never got into anything that he shouldn't have (usually several times per day).  He didn't fight with anyone during lunch, and even though he reached for the van door befor...

The time change has knocked our socks off, but at least a bit of warmer weather and occasional sunshine are lightening our hearts. :) That's Nature Angel studying in the tree. We hit the park for Family Night on Sunday evening as we faced the first day's challenge of adjusted clocks, non-adjusted sleep schedules, and daylight past bedtime. The kids organized themselves into a hilarious game of hide-and-seek with almost no places to hide.  The same places were used again and again as the kids learned how to disappear in plain sight.  The teens all complained of sore muscles the next morning from contorting and holding themselves in strange positions under, above, and around playground equipment. It was a joyful Family Night.  The week was chock full of activities and events that interrupted our usual school schedule. First on the list was Ladybug's psych intake.  The intake was awesome!  The psychiatrist is NOT going to make us wait 6 or 8 mon...