A Week, Briefly (9/9/19)

Nature Angel built this little playhouse last Saturday.  The cute little fairy with the watering can is our friend that we babysit.

I canceled school this week . . . mostly.

We had Morning Meeting and evening reading each day.

The teens and tweens were accountable for 3 days of independent study, and Mister Man was assigned to finish his Prairie School literature study.

Which he did.

And this is how he did it.

Ladybug also completed 2 math lessons, and she got up each morning to do her personal scripture reading/narrating.

Nature Angel and Little Princess are still loving Duolingo.  And I'm getting a kick out of the progress reports that are emailed to me.

Nature Angel's report

Little Princess's report

Nature Angel and I had to find an online Greek keyboard that she can use to type her answers and then cut and paste them into the blanks on the Duolingo site.  That was a little confusing, but now that the problem is solved, all is well.

Otherwise, we had 2 birthdays, 1 child to send to college, and so many dissociative episodes and elopements (what the psych people call his running away) by Brother that I'm writing this from the children's hospital while we wait for a pediatric psych bed to open.

Again.

In the ER--after the episode ended--waiting for the mental health evaluator to arrive.

That's why most of our school was canceled.

And it is why Ladybug had a violent outburst of her own this morning . . . and last night.

The blessing that followed the outburst is that she used words to express her feelings of frustration that Brother's running away causes me to be away from home, and she misses me.

That's the first expression of a desire for me to be around that she's ever expressed.

And it's the first time she's used words to explain her feelings in a positive way.

Awful outbursts . . . good end result.

Sir Walter Scott took Pixie to Idaho.

My crew . . . assembled for good-bye.

That's the car with my girl  . . . taking her 1200 miles away.

I stayed home because Brother hasn't been stable enough for both parents to be away.

I've been able to be positive about Pixie's leaving, but honestly, there's a hole in my chest.

She's happy though--tired and happy.

And in the right place for her.

There were a multitude of freshman orientation activities and a giant party celebrating the start of school.  She's found all of her classes and the math- and writing-labs, her kitchen is stocked with food, her bed and storage areas are claimed, and she likes her roommates . . . here are 4 of the 6 together:

Sir Walter Scott gave her a father's blessing before leaving and made the drive home in record time.  As I write he should be sleeping after 27 hours awake including 17 hours driving.

I took the kids to the zoo the morning after Pixie left.

10 students

We went to the park the next morning.

Each afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa came over, and I don't have a picture of it, but Grandma has begun to teach Ladybug how to crochet.

Still no word on being assigned a case manager by the Mental Health Regional Office, and the autism school requires either $6,400/mo tuition or an IEP and a referral from the public school system.  I've begun studying how to get that IEP, and I'm looking at a massive learning curve.

Given the challenges we're facing, I think we may have to come up with a Plan B for our homeschool this year.