Week 1.5 of school

We started homeschool last week, although not all of the materials were in yet. It's proven to be a good way to ease back into the school year: tackling whatever subjects we already have the resources for in-hand.

If only we could ease into parenting similarly. Only tackling the issues for which we currently have resources--patience, humor, wisdom, whatever--already in hand. But it turns out that 24 hours with the Ninjas cannot be mapped out into 36 cute weeks of lesson plans (I think I make this mistake every time I homeschool. It's all fun and games until someone rolls in a pile of wet grass clippings right as we're supposed to leave. BUT THAT WAS NOT PART OF THE PLAN some crazy lady shrieks inside of my head). 

Yesterday morning, for example, started out lovely. I grabbed my camera and took pictures of this idyllic homeschool life because you have to capture it when you can I wanted to share what our days are like. As it turns out the photos and story don't match up exactly but I'll plow ahead anyway. With the note that yesterday Jesse was gone from mid-breakfast until after all of the kids were in bed...which was considerably past bedtime.

The Tangram Challenge: Playing Tangoes

Yesterday, a fish in our koi pond died. He somehow wrangled himself into an area he couldn't escape from, and expired. That was sad.

Pattern block patterns: precursors to Tangoes.

Last night before bed, someone (who was not supposed to be playing with marbles) rolled a marble down the bathroom sink. Before I eventually fished it out three hours later, a toothpaste cap and pink barrette had mysteriously followed. Given that it was at the end of the day, that little scenario almost pushed me over the edge.

We got three packages in the mail yesterday!

Ohmyword we got a HUGE box of books from Aunt Joy. And there was much rejoicing. MUCH.

Oh, the books. And the beautiful custom dress from Nona.

Miss Maddie sent us BananaGrams!!!

But in between all of this happening, I ran downstairs to the basement to retrieve the laundry. I turned to the guest room to turn off the light...and stepped in a puddle of water. What?  I know the basement is prone to flooding, so I immediately began scouting out the source of the water. It wasn't deep but was plentiful-- it had settled into low parts of the painted, concrete floor.

I couldn't find a source--the exterior walls were dry (it hadn't rained in a week). I checked the adjoining bathroom--maybe some ninja had overflowed something? Or dumped the 1.5-gallon dehumidifier receptacle and...spilled?

No. The bathroom floor was dry, although the guest room floor was wet up to the threshold of it. Hmm.

I walked out, crossing "the den" to the laundry room...maybe the washing machine had flooded (even though I only had clothes in the dryer?? Pipes? Hello?).

At the door of the laundry room were three soaking wet throw blankets. But no water around them. Just...wet. ???

"Bud! Could you come down here a minute?!"

"Sure, Mom!"

Clompety-clompety down the stairs.

"Hey, What's up?"

"Bud...could you shed any light on the water in the guest room?"

Lightbulbs. All over his face.

"Oh, sure! I totally forgot. I was playing indoor soccer with a water balloon! And it broke."

"And...you tried to clean it up with the throw blankets?"

"Yeah, but I couldn't get all of it, because there was just SO MUCH water. You know, I have played soccer with a flat soccer ball before, but never with something that was squishy-soft but ALSO had...had..."

"Some weight to it?"

"Yeah!"

I'm just going to stop that story right here. Does it count as a science experiment or not?

Before the fish died, when it was all fun and games.

"Can I take a silly?"

We can't keep the kids away from catching the frogs.

 

He explained to the checkout clerk today that "we do catch and release."

I feel sorry for the frogs.
 

Nearly deleting Pixie's Book Commercial. Oops.

Painting outside=idyllic. Only using pink and purple=Nutmeg.

Today Wombles was really mad at me about a consequence. He also said that Dad wouldn't agree with it so he wasn't going to have to do it. I explained that Dad and I were on the same team, and that we equally give consequences. He shrieked, "That's not true! Dad's a KING and you are a QUEEN and kings are more powerful than queens so I WON'T HAVE TO DO IT."

I know better than to get into this. But I did anyway.

"Queens are actually just as powerful as kings."

"No they are not! Kings have--have had a LOT more women killed than Queens have killed men."

"That's NOT something to be proud of! Go get in the van."

I'll get that biography of Elizabeth I from the library right away. And Isabella de Castile. Homeschool, you know.