A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 Puzzles are the current kid craze.  Little Princess started it, and the younger kids have eagerly searched the game closet for interesting puzzles.  (Even though we clean that closet out at least once every year, somehow half of the puzzles have missing pieces every time!)   She was doing one 100 piece puzzle over and over and over again.  When I went shopping I picked up a $5 puzzle that was new to her and a bit more of a challenge.  The weather has continued to swing precariously between single digits with storms and 60s with sun.  One day we can take the babies out to play half of the day, and the next we have to keep them indoors because the wind chill makes it dangerous.  On cold days, they stand at the windows pointing to the deck pleading, "Ou'si'e?  Ou'si'e?"  We do our best to distract them with dancing and playdough and stories. It looks like another cold is going through the ranks.  A couple of the babies went home sick ...

 Temperatures swung from 60+ degrees and sunny to single digits and 8 inches of snow this week.  In the coming week we're swinging back up again with 20 degree temperature climbs per day. The kids are out in it all.  I don't have photographic documentation of their outdoor play this year the way I have in years past, but they are still outside in all weathers.  This week they spent most of their time on bikes and skates, but when the creek froze, they spent almost 2 full days on the ice. The ice and snow caused schools to close and travel advisories in our area, so we had a day with no babies at all and then another day with only 2 babies.  It was so quiet around here!  We missed our babies, but we put our time to good use to get lots of school and organizing done. We celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday instead of Monday because of school and work and babies.  We had our treasure hunt which was actually pretty challenging this year, and even though ou...

 I feel as though there's nothing to share . . . we get up, we clean up, we study, we struggle, we triumph, we read, we fix meals and eat them, we play, we feed babies, we talk (or don't talk) . . . we're in a quiet place. I'm so used to living in crisis, that it is hard for me to see the power of the quiet moments. (I used to be so good at it!) I'm training myself to see again. Though we're in a quiet place, we still have our struggles.  Beowulf had a hard time with school.  We didn't have any book-ripping or chair-throwing, but it did take all of my patience and energy to convince him to face the table and focus on the work in front of him.  Each lesson ended with completed work and no violence. A triumph! Wednesday night church activities took everyone from home but these two and me.  In between tidying-up jobs, I watched them watch their movie. How grateful I am to have young ones at home! Every day we joyed in our babies being back in our home.  Though...

 I planned to spend the week recuperating and caring for sick children, but I felt fine when I got up on Monday morning, and all of the kids were in fighting form, so we did quite a bit of school! Everyone tested positive for covid except Sir Walter Scott.  He is not the only vaccinated member of our family, but he is the only one who didn't get sick.  With the exception of Baymax, the older we were, the sicker we felt.  Baymax is youngest, and he felt pretty crummy.  Some of the kids had a runny nose for a single afternoon. :)  Nonetheless, we stayed away from all people and activities outside our home all week long.   Every single one of our daycare babies tested positive, too, and they all stayed home with their parents, so we had an oddly restful and measurably productive week. Brother finished his first cursive book.  He has another to work on, but we're taking a break and focusing on some grammar for a little while. Most of the kids' th...