Well, today is our first day back at this homeschooling thing. Molly is beginning kindergarten with Catholic Heritage Curricula, and Lucy will begin second grade with the same program in July. 

This morning started out great, but with my health issues, we only got about an hour of work done before I got sick. Luckily, kindergarten is simple and we have all day. Lucy actually stayed home today, as her school is testing and she's incredibly bored there this week. Her teacher is also out with a broken arm, so we decided she could skip a day of busy work and stay home to catch up on religious ed work. We worked on about three chapters, and did most of Molly's work before I started getting sick, so that was awesome. Claire is really into it, and she had a great time chiming in and participating. 

However. My expectations were again dashed a bit. I was forced to admit that with homeschooling, we will have to use our entire day, and I will have to be more flexible than I was willing to be this am. I had grand visions of sitting down at 8am and all of the girls sitting attentively at the table, but it turned into Claire screaming the Glory Be while she jumped on the couch, two 14-month-olds growling under the table, Lucy begging me for busy work when I really wasn't prepared and Molly crying because she'd rather use a glue stick than a pencil. I just took a deep breath and thoughts to myself, "I have all day. I am the queen of this castle and there is nothing to do but love them." I made them some cinnamon rolls, sorted some laundry and re-applied my smile. Today is going to be challenging anyway, because mommy can't eat the day before a colonoscopy. Gag. I'm already starving and it's not even noon! So that really doesn't help my mood...

I think that the hardest part of homeschooling Molly is NOT homeschooling Lucy in the interim. I just want her home with us!  She is such an eager learner and I know it'll be so fun having her here in the summer. We will be starting the official school year in July, but Molly is getting started now with kinder and we will work slower in the summer and fall and let her absorb Lucy's work as we go. Kindergarten is really just a time of getting into routines and setting practices in place, so Molly's biggest job in the next few months is to help me work out the kinks in the schedule and getting the younger ones used to practicing patience. 

Laundry calls, you know...and so does my stinky Claire. Looks like I have just enough time to bathe everyone before lunch! And then I get to watch everyone eat lunch...sigh.