A Week, Briefly (10/7/19)

Saturday
General Conference!

Three whole sessions' worth on Saturday!  Normally, Sir Walter Scott would have kept the littlest ones at home while I took the girls 8-and-up to the church to watch the General Women's Broadcast, but he'd forgotten to request the day off, so we stayed home.  I offered the little guys the choice between being tucked in first or staying up to watch the third session of the day.

They all chose to stay up.

But only Baymax actually stayed awake for the whole session.

Sunday

Waving "Good Morning" to Pixie

After a huge treat of a breakfast, two more sessions of General Conference kept us busy all day, and we celebrated the end of it with a family campfire.

Waving to Pixie again. :)

Super Star had been waiting for an opportunity to burn Saxon Math 8/7--the year math was her especial nemesis.  Our book was purchased 3rd or 4th hand, and we gave it enough use ourselves so that it was too broken to keep.  I bought a newer version for Nature Angel, and gave Super Star permission to watch her math book burn!

As it was an impromptu fire, we were unprepared for any campfire activities, but the kids found a few shish-kebab skewers, half a bag of mini marshmallows, and made their own fun.

Little Princess got out her ukelele to accompany us during a bit of a family sing a long.

The kids had a blast collecting branches from our downed tree to keep the fire alive.

Monday
We had a good, solid school day.

The teens and I read 50+ pages of The Book Thief.

We finished up our color exploration in Academy with color-mixing sensory bags that were a lot of fun!!!

At first I was a little bit stingy with the color, but then I got more generous, and the sun coming through these bags created sparkling jewel colors that made me stop and thank God for beauty more than once in the next couple of days.

We finally finished the Colloquium science unit on the skeletal system with an online quiz about bones.  It was fun, and the girls took it over and over again.

I read Discovering Trees by Douglas Florian during lunch just for fun.  We also enjoyed watching/listening to a ballet/orchestral performance of The Blue Danube.

In the afternoon, I attended a joint therapy session with Ladybug.

When I got home, I did Jr. Kindergarten with Lola and Baymax.  We're dancing The Hokey-Pokey and reading My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson as part of our current studies.  It's pretty fun!

I went to bed slightly ill about facing a school day with Brother without Sir Walter Scott around to help diffuse tough situations.  I prayed that we'd be okay and find good coping mechanisms.

Tuesday
I was tested by 9:00 am when Brother had a breakdown over a school assignment.  I don't force school on angry/frustrated/discouraged children, but Brother flips from feeling fine to dissociative in a split second.  It took significant effort on my part to keep him from self-destructing, and I called my parents to come to the rescue.

Which they did!

Their very presence changed the whole atmosphere of the day, and we got a lot of happy school done and engaged in a lot of happy play.

Our art appreciation for the week was A Sunday Afternoon by Georges Seurat, so we gave pointillism a try during Academy.

One night, a few of the kids and I stayed up late to watch Inside Out.  Mister Man actually hid behind furniture because the emotional tension in the movie completely overwhelmed him.  He went to bed crying about Bing Bong's erasure, and I had to comfort him over and over again.  He's been talking about the movie ever since, and he's processing what he saw by recreating the characters with Legos.  Here's Joy, Sadness, and Anger.

Cool thing Grandma does?

She folds laundry and cleans my kitchen after dinner.

In spite of the fact that both Brother and Beowulf completely broke down when Grandma and Grandpa left (we all thought we were through the worst of it), and I had to deal with over an hour of violence, we'd had a good day, the laundry was caught up, and the kitchen was Grandma-standard clean.

I fell into bed so, so, so, so grateful!

Wednesday
We had a productive school day in spite of . . . because of? . . . the rain.

The teens turned in their 2,500 word essays about the British Isles.  I spent significant time helping them organize their in-text citations and reference pages (APA format), and the end result was a whole lot of solid learning.

We also finished The Book Thief.

It is a profound read--one of those that will stay with us for our entire lives.  Markus Zusak is a literary genius.  His narrative prose took my breath away over and over again.  I am grateful for the experience of reading this book.

During Academy, the kids and I read about Christopher Columbus, colored and glued continent maps, and then watched an episode of Blue Planet II.

Such an astonishing program!  We can't get enough of it.

Belle dug and washed sweet potatoes at the farm.  I laughed at how much mud she brought home with her!

I found a sweet nature story about a raccoon, and I read the first chapter aloud to the kids during lunch, after we listened to and sang along with This Land is Your Land--our music appreciation song for the moment.
Given how hard Tuesday was, my parents came over again on Wednesday to see us through from after lunch to bedtime.

Once formal studies were done, there was lots of reading, talking, and crocheting going on.

Grandma taught Nature Angel a new crochet pattern.  I loved listening to their technical conversation.  To the left of the picture is a whole trashbag full of yarn and semi-completed crochet projects that Grandma gave to Nature Angel.  Now Nature Angel is knee-deep in hand-made Christmas presents for the family.

Brother learned to finger knit and crochet a chain.  He made himself this curly mustache and was very proud of it.

Ladybug crocheted diligently . . .

And when she was done, she gave this little blanket to Baymax for his baby boy doll.

Grandpa is one of the best story-readers ever!

Though the grandparents were present all day, and they were incredibly helpful, Brother still broke down when I asked him to stop trying to juggle his napkin at the table.  With Grandparents present, though, I was able to deal with him, while everyone else was well cared for and Belle didn't have to carry as heavy a burden as usual.

Thursday
Sir Walter Scott was home again.

It was dance day, and we made enough progress through our dances that the other teachers and I have gone from we'll-never-be-ready! to hey-this-might-work!

Then it was youth night for the teens.

Friday
No mom-led school because I had to take Beowulf to his intake appointment at the ADHD clinic in the morning (I was gone for four hours!), and in the afternoon, I took the teens to Book Club.

The teens and tweens worked on independent work in the morning.

In the afternoon Dad took the tweens and younger kids to the zoo.

I'm very happy with our experience at the ADHD clinic (now that we're in!).  The doctor has been treating ADHD since 1981, and he's very versed in all of the research that has been done in the past nearly-40 years.  Based on Beowulf's behaviors during the meeting (he was delightfully cooperative, but he thankfully displayed a few interesting behaviors) and my anecdotal evidence, the doctor updated his diagnostic list to include:

ADHD combined subtype severe intensity
DMDD
Vocal Tic Disorder
FASD

He came up with a treatment plan and then modified it based on my concerns.  We'll be busy with meds, observations, and evaluations for the next month, but I left the office feeling like we are in good hands.

The social worker who came to give me parent training for Behavior Modification said after listening to my answers to the various questions, "This is when I usually spend time teaching, but I don't have anything to tell you that you're not already doing.  I'm ready to ask you for advice!"

It was a sweet compliment.

Book Club was less satisfying discussion-wise than it has been in the past, but the teens all gave the book 2-thumbs-up.  I think they were too much in agreement about how they felt to spark a rousing discussion.

The movie version was nowhere near as impressive as the book itself, but I was impressed with the effort to take the most important elements and represent it visually.

Saturday
I woke with significant trepidation about how to survive the day without extra hands, but my Mom checked in, and as we talked I told her we were fine.

And we were.

We even went to the library just in time for a Science of Magic show that we hadn't known about in advance.  It was crazy fun!

Learning about the stuff they put in disposable diapers (I've forgotten the chemical name) that holds liquids.  The magician/scientist was testing the kids' guess about which cup had water in it by tipping the cups over their heads.  The excitement was palpable.

Brother got to help conduct electricity and light a light bulb.

The rest of the day continued uneventfully until Brother was unkind to Nature Angel (he descrated her bunny's grave).  The sight of her tears sent him into dissociation, and it was time for me to pick Belle up from work.

I planned to just be late, but with careful talk and maneuvering, Super Star, Little Princess, and I kept Brother from running away.  He stayed lucid enough to choose to get into his carseat in the van, so I decided we were safe to leave to pick up Belle.

I was wrong.

We pulled over 3 times on the drive to resettle him, and the third time, he'd gotten up to the steering wheel was was trying to wrench it from my hands as I drove on the freeway.

It was a deadly situation.

This time I pulled over with the intent to stay where we were until we were truly safe.

He finally agreed to stay in his seat with the seatbelt fastened no matter what, and we picked up Belle without further incident.

On the long drive up and back, we finished listening to Beezus and Ramona by Bevery Cleary and started on Ramona the Pest.

It is now Sunday.

One day in, Beowulf is already having negative reactions to his new med protocol . . . I'm not sure how long to watch and wait or how quickly to end it.

And it's time to get ready for church.