A Week, Briefly (12/7/20)

 
It has been an extreme week around here.
 
Life has been either extremely joyful or extremely challenging.

For example, tonight my crew are playing with the wooden trains.  Mister Man is reading a new library book, and older kids are doing their own thing, but 5 of the 6 young ones are playing with complete cooperation and solid problem-solving skills.

It has been an extremely joyful hour.

On the other hand, Pixie is not doing well; quarantine, covid, a broken foot, and the impending end of the semester have conspired to crush her into a serious depression.  We pick her up in a week, and I've got an appointment scheduled with the doctor for the first day we're home.  In the mean time, I'm checking in with her several times a day, and I've been encouraging friends to check on her as well.

But I'm worried.

Reading the scriptures with Baymax--extreme joy!
 
Then Ladybug is just collapsing under the holiday season.  Wretched old behaviors are back.  We're all tired of them . . . and I'm quite sure she is, too.

This is a drawing Ladybug made this week of the family she wished she had . . . an intact biological family.
 
When a kid is grieving for a lost family the way she is right now, how can anyone blame her for regressing into trauma behaviors?

A bit of awesomeness is that Beowulf's meds are starting to work!!!!!!  He did some math lessons on his own . . . almost smoothly.

 
He actually finished Book 1 of 5 in Grade 2 Arithmetic!

Everyone did quite a bit of regular school for the second week in December. (Even though all of the pictures seem to be of Mister Man and Little Mister Frog!)
 
Mister Man and I do Writing With Ease while playing with Little Mister Frog.

Latin  . . .

 . . . and more Latin.
 
In addition, we read more Christmas stories and learned some more names for Jesus Christ (Bright and Morning Star was my favorite).  We finished The Best Christmas Pageant Ever--even my little Baymax cried through the final chapter.  We also finished Sergeant York.   We are thoroughly enjoying a repeat read of Pippi Longstocking as we continue to work our way through Nurse Matilda.
 
 
 
Pastel drawing by Little Princess
 
We took our daily walks, and I would usually call them collectively a hike, but I would like Hike #52 to be a treat!  So we aren't finished yet.  There were simply too many errands to take care of today to squeeze in a hike.  I hope to get our final one in next week.
 
However, we did put up our outdoor lights and had our little "lighting ceremony."  Popcorn, hot chocolate, singing, dancing, lights, whooping, and hollering . . .
 

 
That's Brother on the ground looking through the pipe at the lights coming from the house to the tree.
 
This weekend Belle is taking the ACT again.
 
Sir Walter Scott had a hard week with several covid patient deaths.  His floor has become an ICU overflow, so he's seeing fewer and fewer of the recovering patients, as regular med/surge floors are being converted into covid units.  He said it has been emotionally overwhelming with little to no time to recharge before heading into the trenches again.
 
My goal is to do Ladybug's and Lola's hair for Christmas . . . an all-day project.
 
It was snow, but the storm dissipated into just plain, cold gloom.

Comments

  1. DawnDecember 12, 2020 at 6:33 AM

    I do hope that Pixie feels better once she is home with family. I have noticed that our friends and family with COVID are struggling with depression and none of them are isolated since they are in family units where all or most of the family is sick together. I feel for your husband as well. As a caregiver it is never easy to feel like there is little you can do. What a nasty, fickle and confusing disease.
    Whooping and Hollering over Christmas lights sounds like a perfect evening.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Happy Homeschool MomDecember 21, 2020 at 7:37 AM

    I hope your Pixie starts doing better at home. I cannot imagine what your husband and other s who are caring for these seriously ill with this illness are going through and pray for them daily. I keep praying that the treatments will continue to get better and the cases will decrease. The stress and loneliness and isolation and depression caused from this pandemic is horrible.

    I love the idea of a Christmas lighting ceremony! I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anne's Day in the Life: 17, 16, 12, 10, 9, 8, 8, 7, 5, & 5

Image
This is my crew last summer--the day we said goodbye to Pixie as she headed off to college. I actually have all 12 of my children home right now. Rose Red is nearly 20, graduated from our homeschool a year and a half ago, lives at home, and is working as a server at Applebee's as she tries to understand what it means to be an adult. Pixie is newly 18, graduated from our homeschool almost a year ago, is a dance major at BYUI, and is spending her off-track semester working full-time in the 1-year-old room at a daycare. These two still are part of our family days, and their schedules directly impact the rest of us, but I am no longer responsible for their day-to-day educational needs. The remaining 10 are still under my educational supervision.  Among these 10 children we are schooling while we cope with anxiety, depression, FASD, ADHD, DMDD, ODD, ASD, PTSD, and Intellectual Disability. Here is a February Wednesday in our lives. 5:04 am :  Sir Walter Scott's a...
Read more

A Week, Briefly (Summer is not over)

Image
Last August I was not ready for school to start, but I did it anyway because I thought I should. And in September I had mental health crisis of the most serious kind. This August I am not ready for school to start. And I'm honoring that. However, I am ready to document brief moments of the beautiful learning that my kids engage in when I'm not running school. This week Rose Red is in Florida at a surfing camp.  She's with a sweet friend.  I could not be happier for her to have this experience away from home, at the beach, out-of-doors, physically active, and just plain cool. As far as I'm concerned, this is a quarter of a credit of P.E. The rest of us are at home.  My teens are reveling in their last days of bizarre teen sleeping schedules before early morning seminary begins next week. Pixie has been working on memorizing the dances she's choreographed for our dance team.  She'll be teaching the 10-12 year olds and dancing with the 12-17 year o...
Read more

I Had a Birthday

Image
 I am now 52 years old. My children are ages 9, 9, 11, 12, 12, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24. I have been homeschooling for over 20 years. Prior to that, I was a public school teacher (middle school English, K-3 special ed, and K-12 substitute). I find myself feeling very reflective about self, family, home, spiritual growth, marriage, goals, wishes, dreams, etc. Rather than try to put my mental ramblings into reasonable, readable sentences, I'll say this:  It's been a wild ride, and I'm grateful for the life I've lived thus far. I feel very aware of how few homeschooling years remain to me. Oh!  How I want to make them count! This week I did a rather good job at making memories with my children. The teens and I continued The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and our American Literature text.  The best moment of the week was reading The Declaration of Independence from beginning to end.  I cried. (Just a little) The kids (I read it aloud while the younger kids w...
Read more