Mine, all mine!

So we've been "homeschooling" for two weeks. What we're doing now is really just finishing up Lucy's first grade year with busy work and lots of reading. We don't have a curriculum, but coming up with something for a first grader to do is about as difficult as boiling water. Our second grade curriculum is all ready to go, but I'd really like to start second grade with a More proficient reader. So we're mostly reading and doing math. And let me tell you, homeschooling with a two year old and two sixteen month olds is really not fulfilling my rosy vision of the homeschooling experience.  I'd give you an example of ten minutes of our school day, but if you can imagine just about any scene from Jumanji, you're pretty much right there with us. For crying out loud, don't roll the dice!

No, it's not the idyllic picture of a loving mother in an apron with children reading at her feet while she crochets. There is much yelling. Much sighing. Much moaning. Much flopping and wailing. And then there are the kids...

But we're together. Lucy's mind is a hilarious, magical place. And it's all mine to enjoy. She is so full of amazing ideas and she gives them all to me. She spends her free time with her sisters, making houses, riding bikes, munching on cheetos, chasing her brothers. She is doing exactly what a six year old should be doing. She's playing hard, chasing bugs and sleeping like a baby. Her crazy dreams have settled down, she's doing less sleep walking at 11 pm and she's more confident now than she has been in months. She's chatty and willing to put her pride on the line, and I love that.

In a couple months we'll begin second grade. It's going to be quite the year. Molly will begin kindergarten, and Claire will begin an intensive internship in professional disruption. It's unpaid, if you're wondering. Her assistants will begin the year working on a report that will examine mommy's baseline sanity. From there I expect they'll come up with a plan for the year that will really create an environment completely hostile to any sort of learning. Lucy's most important subject in second grade will be "Defensive learning 101: absorbing anything at all with three little devils at your back."

And yet, I'm so excited. So many possibilities, and I don't have to miss a thing.