Day 18

Exhausted = Me. I was late to bed last night, up on and off all night nursing the baby, and then up in the morning to choke down breakfast (cereal and juice for the kids and Pop Tarts and Coke for me, I set such a fine example for my children). I threw diaper laundry in the wash as the Pop Tarts were toasting merrily away, and then headed straight to the school room, baby under one arm, Pop Tarts in the other, an icy can of Coke freezing my armpit. We plowed through an hour of lessons and then it was time to stuff all the kids in the car and head out for our homeschool playdate at the park.

This was our first regular playdate with our new homeschool group, and I hadn't been to this park in ages. I mean, I was still a mostly-sane mommy with just 2 little kids to chase after the last time we were at this park. The park is located between a large community college and a city-run pool. I was feeling pretty cool with myself on the ride over, but started losing that calm and collected feeling when I pulled in amongst the hundreds of cars in the college overflow lot next to the park's lot, and saw the road cones blocking the park's driveway. Now what? There was a security guy directing the massive inflow of traffic, and he was nice enough to point out that a huge parking lot was hidden behind the pool. So we zipped back out and around the park and I managed to find the access road to the back lot without too much bumbling. I'm not sure the kids even picked up any new vocabulary words.

Long story short, the kids all had fun at the park and made some new friends, and I got a couple of hours to get out of the house and - if you can believe it - actually talk to other real, live adults. It was hot as usual but there were shade trees scattered about and a decent breeze had kicked up, so we merely sweated instead of fainted from heat stroke. Got back, I played short-order cook on the daily round of "What's for Lunch?" and then we settled back in to finish schoolwork. Overall it was a good day; the baby only ate a little bit of red modeling clay (nontoxic), and I noticed in the car before we left the driveway this morning that Coral had absolutely nothing on under her dress. But hey, I noticed it AND we were still here!

What's that you say? Only two out of three kids finished their schoolwork upon our return? What a surprise! I really need one of those head-hitting-desk emoticons. How Ibis can sit here and breeze through 5 pages of phonics practice, cooperative as you please, and then have to write ten measly spelling words in two columns and just shut down like a factory at 5pm, is beyond me. She can read the words. She can spell the words. She can write the words. She understands the directions. She knows the words. She simply chooses not to write them. Do I sit on her and sing at the top of my lungs until she writes them? How do you make a child do something they've decided not to do, when no offer of reward or consequence matters to them? That sounds like a riddle. One I'm still trying to solve.

Alexei, Grade 4

math p 104-105 : times tables

writing p 14-19: learn about adding vivid details and emotions to a description, and draft a vivid description

reading practice p 10-11 : imperative and exclamatory sentences

read book of choice for 15 minutes

science p 60-61 : Ch. 1 test

Ibis, Grade 2

math p 50-52 : comparing ones to groups of ten

phonics p 25-30 : words with ee and ea

reading practice p 22-25 : words with ee and ea, and main ideas with details

science p 56-63 : read about how animals are classified, and journal about an animal and its classification

read book of choice

Coral, pre-K

color and glue a dinosaur craft

color patterns (from the workbook)

read together Bubbles, Bubbles by Mercer Mayer

drive different types of toy vehicles through clay to compare wheel tracks