A Week, Briefly (April 24, 2023)

 This week's major event was Belle starting online MTC (Missionary Training).  She's got classes from the time she wakes up in the morning until she goes to bed at night, and during every break, she runs upstairs to tell us how good the classes are and how awesome the people are.

Her boundless enthusiasm has definitely affected the rest of us for the good.

On Sundays, she has no classes.  She gets a break from sitting at a desk on Zoom.  Mission rules are strict about the use of screens, so she's spending her "free" time studying Spanish on the church language app.

As for the rest of us, we're working hard at homeschooling around interruptions.

Good interruptions--like playdates and field trips and home improvement projects--but they feel like interruptions nonetheless.

Monday

First thing in the morning Nugget asked us to wrap his truck up in a blanket like a baby.  He would croon at it, "Ohhhhh, Truck.  Ohhhhh, Baby."

,

Then he would unwrap it and ask us to unwrap it again.

The dandelions have all progressed from blossom to puff.  Instead of harvesting flowers for jam, we're picking puffs and blowing with all our might.   I shudder to think of how many lawns we're inadvertently ruining (we only let the kids blow them at our house or near the roadside), but there's so much joy in doing it!

There are still many flowers!

Nature Angel whipped up this crown for Lola.

Now that we've read through My Bookhouse vol 2, I've been reading botany-inspired picture books to everyone.  This was about identifying a new plant and having the good sense to leave it growing in place instead of taking it home.

It was odd, but the kids quite liked it, and the lesson about perseverance was worthwhile.

Sir Walter Scott took out the broken stove top and drawers underneath to make room for my new gas range (that has been sitting in the garage for a month) because we finally had an appointment with the gas guy to complete the line.

The kids were enthralled with the noise, the tools, and the strangeness of an open space where there was none before.

And Sir Walter Scott took the kids back to City Hall to finally go up on the observation deck--something he'd wanted to do when he took them on their city outing a few weeks ago (it's open by appointment only).

They've talked about it ever since.

"Mom, when we were up high at City Hall, all of the cars looked like toys!"

"Mom, when we were on the observation deck, our van would have looked like this [makes small rectangle with hands]."

"Mom, there was a dead bird up there!"

Just as I called everyone to the table for dinner, Beowulf showed me that Nature Angel had discovered a use for all of the naked dandelion stems:

Tuesday

I've decided officially to leave Survey of American History on pause at the Civil War.  I'll award the girls with .5 credit for work completed thus far.

We've dived into world history with significant enthusiasm and much discussion about the worldview of the text author.

Not a day goes by without Little Princess asking a question that has us all pulling our phones out to gather and share more information.

Weaving crowns has become quite the trend at our house!

We took our studies up to the swales and enjoyed being interrupted by an inchworm . . .

 . . . and a caterpillar.

Serendipitously, we'd recently read a story from the Clara Dillingham Nature Reader about an inchworm who teased caterpillars into trying to move like he did.  We watched each tiny creature move, discussed the story, and made lots of observations.

I also gave the kids time to look through the non-fiction botany books I checked out from the library to think about what they might like to write about.

More weaving!

In the evening, I took Ladybug and Beowulf to an intake appointment for case management.  The caseworker is mobile, so we met her at a library, and I took this picture and sent it to her, so she'd know what we look like.

It also served as a reminder to mention this happened because we were gone from 5:00-7:30 pm, and the kids at home were struggling.  The appointment will be worth the struggles everyone had, but it did take some time to get everyone back on track.

Wednesday

Little Princess was back in an ankle brace for several days because she twisted her ankle while picking a dandelion puff for one of the babies, and there was a profound and painful pop.  She had a lot of pain and swelling for several days that we treated at home with ice, ibuprofen, and rest.

We finished reading our concrete poetry book and set about writing our own.

This is Baymax's poem about a book in a book.

Brother wrote about a Pokemon character.

So did Mister Man--this one's actually about several characters.

Ladybug wrote about a ceiling fan.

Beowulf's poem about rain

Ladybug likes concrete poems, so she wrote another one about puddles.

Lola's poem about puddles was the inspiration for Ladybug's poem above.

Writing these poems was certainly a love-it-or-hate-it activity. 

Lola, Beowulf, and Baymax hated it with a furious passion.

Mister Man and Ladybug loved it.

Brother was the only relative neutral who said he liked it.

We finished Life of Fred: Apples.  I'm not starting the next one right away.  Instead, I used the index to take notes about subjects the kids need to work on for a while, and I've looked up ways to practice without a textbook.

Brother and Mister Man spent a happy 2 hours helping our neighbor weed her front garden as part of their apprenticeship.  She taught them the names and showed them the identifying features of various weeds (native plants) as they pulled.

Oh. My. Goodness!  

The kids are so invested in Lad, a Dog!!

Every evening, they're up on their feet exclaiming over some injustice or another and determined to help Lad fight for his rights.  Sometimes they're near or in tears and have clenched fists as they fight with the characters that are in the wrong.

The power of a good book!!!

Thursday

The day was routine until school for the younger kids was interrupted because Mister Man needed new glasses and had an eye appointment that morning.

We made it to snack time as usual, and I read this book to them:

It's about seed dispersal.

After Mister Man left, I took the rest of the kids outside with me to work on the yard and garden.

I took this picture to remind me that Beowulf jumped on the shovel to dig.

They were delighted to be able to use various cutting tools to remove suckers from our ginormous Osage orange tree, and when that was done, they set to work wetting and turning over garden beds yet again.

Yes, I should have planted much by now.

Yes, I'm trying.

No, none of my little starts are able to be planted out because the kittens ate them every chance they got.

Yes, that discouraged me greatly, and I'm having a hard time starting over outside.

I did plant a little forsythia bush in the side yard because I love, love, love the bright yellow every spring.

We went to the library in the afternoon.

These two, with their popsicles, communing on the swing!

Activities at church were only for the 11-and-ups.  I went instead of Sir Walter Scott because there was a combined Relief Society/Young Women meeting about ministering.

I was too tired to go.

I was too emotionally done to go.

I thought I could just maybe handle sitting quietly for a presentation.

I couldn't leave my girls motherless at a mother/daughter activity.

But I had a panic attack when the leaders announced that we were going to do some activities that would push us out of our comfort zones.

So I left my girls motherless anyway.

I always joke about "turning into a pumpkin at 7:00 pm," but it's not wholly a joke.  By that time each day, I've invested in my family and daycare babies emotionally, mentally, and physically for 13-14 hours, and I can only handle our evening routine because it is just that--routine.

I sat in the foyer and breathed.

The girls said the activities were really fun.

The boys had a blast cleaning the baptismal font and playing basketball in the gym.

We all got safely home.

Friday

Every one of us felt like Thursday should have been Friday, and Friday should have been Saturday.

Even the babies were too tired for it to be a weekday.

However, we persevered because our routine is our anchor, and we had a good day.

The teens and I laughed our way through history review questions (some are so silly!).

I assigned the younger kids to officially choose a plant for their plant reports.  I had a cute handout that had a tree as a visual cue for listing various topics to consider and a space at the bottom for their final choice.

Most of the kids just wrote their choice and left the tree empty, but Mister Man filled out quite a few plants before choosing.

Lola was having a hard time deciding, so Mister Man took her under his wing, sharing a flower encyclopedia with her as he read whatever she pointed to.  

Little Princess told me she wants to write an essay about each sub-topic in her history of flight research paper.  I told her to go for it.  I have no problem with her writing several 2-3 page papers that are joyful instead of one 8-page paper which is frustrating.

The day was gorgeous, but everyone stayed inside in the afternoon reading or working on this fabulous Hot Wheels track that they played with for hours.

Pixie made it to Zanzibar after a horrendous travel experience.  

The place more than makes up for the travel.