A Week, Briefly ( November 14, 2022)

Illness is still coloring all of my days, so it's hard to be positive--even as I write, pink-eye has me blinking and struggling to keep self-control.  Nonetheless, good things happened, and I can say truly that God helped me through this week, strengthening me beyond what I was capable of on my own.

Usually, when I upload pictures into Blogger,  they are automatically ordered by date in chronological order; however, this time they loaded in reverse chronological order, so this week's record will travel backward in time.

We finished Understood Betsy on Saturday evening.  When I mentioned starting a new book, Baymax asked, "Will it at least make us laugh?"

They laughed a lot at Betsy's adventures.

This weekend, Pixie performed in her last Extravadance for a year.  She made the World/Footwork team, and even though the school didn't live stream the dress rehearsal (boo!),  I am 100% sure she was awesome!

Friday

The kids insisted on eating dinner by lantern light--the lanterns they made in the morning after yoga.  It was especially sweet to put the little tea lights in the babies' lanterns and watch them carry them proudly out to their cars.  

Little Princess' lantern is in the foreground.

In the afternoon, I finally pulled out the wood slices that Sir Walter Scott cut for me last week, and the kids had a blast first hammering in the nails (I measured and marked the grids first), and then using the newly-made geoboards to make awesome pictures.

At one point in the hammering and creating process, these little ones escaped for a break and made music together.

And while we made lots of noise in the living room, Nature Angel sat at the kitchen island working on the sonnet she was writing about Lancelot and Elaine.

Brother and Beowulf were extraordinary teachers for the littles.  They were patient, gentle, and encouraging.  I literally stood and watched them in awe.

Prior to making the geoboards, I sent my youngest 6 outside to play in the freezing cold for an hour while the babies finished their naps.  Prior to that, I fed them homemade cherry cobbler and read a couple of chapters about the adventures of the Irish twins--these chapters being a description of the landlord system the English imposed upon the Irish for so long.

Prior to that we had lunch and read brief biographies of Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Finally, we get back to the morning, when the kids actually made the lanterns that I showed at the end of the day.

Yoga--Friday morning

Prior to the sun coming up, Nature Angel was at work studying Robert Browning while The Duke looked on.

Thursday

Show day--our second and last show for the semester.  With pinkeye and influenza A still running rampant, we notified the rest of our dance team.  One other family was struggling with the same illnesses, and rather than cancel a show that allowed us to keep a good distance from our audience, the families made the unanimous decision to perform.

We used nearly a pint of hand sanitizer--the kids using it every time they entered or exited the stage.

Ladybug in I Feel Pretty

What is this Feeling?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Mamma Mia

As before, my babies did not actually perform the dance that I taught them and that they perform perfectly at home.  They received much laughter and applause though as they chased each other and fell on their faces. 😆😆😆

A Bushel and a Peck

Wednesday

I made them all play outside for an hour before I let them back in the house, and they were so glad to come inside and be warm, that they played Uno nicely together for a long time!

How I love peaceful afternoons!!!

After lunch, I'd turned on a Disney version of Robin Hood that I'd never seen or heard of before--not the animated classic.  This version introduced them to Robin Hood's father and cast Maid Marian as an impish, teasing friend to Robin.

We were able to talk about how legends usually have lots of versions, and I explained that the Howard Pyle version they're used to isn't "the original."

Our morning activity was turning the living room into a giant web.

Tuesday

Lola and Beowulf finished the gratitude booklets left over from the morning.  Brother and Mister Man were somewhere finishing theirs, too.

Random fun with tangram pieces

We watched the documentary The Mars Generation.  Little Princess didn't seem as interested as she really was, and I was a tiny bit disappointed until she cornered me and told me about seeing one of her space heroes in the movie who was just a teen at the time and is now part of the Artemis mission team.  I love seeing Little Princess excited about becoming an astronaut!

In the morning, I assigned my kid to write simple gratitude booklets.  I'd spent some time brainstorming a list of things to be grateful for, and I'd left the list on the whiteboard as a reference.  

While they worked on that, I got out beans for the babies.

Using lots of little bowls was waaaaaaaaay better than using one giant bin.

This is what our world looked like as the sun came up on Tuesday morning.

Monday

We all felt sick, and I knew we were in for a rough week.  Little Princess and Nature Angel could barely function, so I sent them to bed and girded my loins to do the best I could under the circumstances.

After we watched The Sword in the Stone (I justified it after reading about King Arthur in one of our schoolbooks), I turned on a little knight drawing lesson with Art Hub for Kids.

Our first activity after Morning Meeting and yoga was cracking open geodes.  Our set included Moroccan geodes, so they were all either white or clear.

Seriously, it was the best science activity! 

The kids and I never stopped questioning, discovering, experimenting, observing, and just plain talking about what we were doing!  

Photo taken through a magnifier

And that takes us back to the start of our week. 

Right now, as I face the start of another week, I am inclined to cry--even as I reflect on the blessings of the previous week.  

(Illness always makes me weepy.)

This week includes Thanksgiving, and I feel neither capable of planning and cooking a meal nor capable of organizing kids to do it.  We're supposed to join extended family, and I can only pray that we will be healthy enough to join them safely, and energetic enough to do our part.