BOOKS!

As we drove to Target this morning (we needed flour, of all things, for Kutey's birthday dinner tonight!), I realized that we are listening to 2 different audio books as well as reading a third book. Kiddo also has two books of his own going, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Holes by Louis Sachar is our current car book. I had forgotten just how great audio books in the car are! If my kids are at all tired and bickering, and audio book can silence them. We are thoroughly enjoying Holes.

At home, we are listening to Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix. It is different from what we normally read, but so far it is good. It is part of a series, which is good and bad, so we'll see how it goes. It is for a Book Club meeting this month.

We are also reading The Candymakers by Wendy Mass, also for a book club in March. So far, three chapters in, it is good.

I have also been reading an assortment of picture books to Kutey, including a couple of St. Patrick's Day books. Lots of reading/listening happening here!

Sunshine

The temperature hit the low 50s here today. Ahhhhh, Spring. I took the kids to the park. We had a dance party in the living room. It is amazing what a little sunshine and activity can do for one's perspective.

This afternoon was much better than yesterday, or even this morning, for that matter! Hopefully tomorrow will be even better!

Re-entry day

The weekend past was spent playing lots of fun games, including the newly discovered Mine Craft. Much, MUCH fun was had. But that means this morning was bumpy, at best. The kids were whiny. "I can't do it!" was uttered more than once. Both kids spent some time adjusting their attitudes away from me. I tried to lighten the mood by playing music and dancing in the kitchen! That backfired and made Kiddo grumpier because he was torn between finishing his chores and getting started on his school work and dancing. It didn't matter that I gave him permission to dance instead! When he did finally start dancing, he wanted me to do something I had been doing with Kutey, but he was too tall, back to grumpy. Then he wanted Kutey to stop dancing. When I said he couldn't do that, back to grumpy. I was about done. We managed to muddle through our schoolwork, somehow. It took longer than it should have, but we did it. Now I have Kiddo logged into CurrClick's LEGO Club and Kutey is looking at the St. Patrick's Day books from the library. We have made it through "Re-entry day."

What is "Re-entry day?" When I was first homeschooling (three and a half years ago!), I referred to Mondays as "Re-entry day." They were often rough. There were sometimes tears (mine and kiddos). Sometimes very little was accomplished. I blamed it on the weekend of unstructured fun. Not that our school days have a tremendous amount of structure. In fact, there is often very little. There is more now than ever before, because I have two officially school-age kids, but still it isn't what most people would call structured. But still, the weekend is different. The kid refer to it as "Daddy's stay home days." That should give you some idea of the tone of weekends. The kids use it as a time to absorb as much Daddy time as humanly possible. It is great, but it tends to make school and Mommy boring in contrast. Re-entry into the regular week is messy and bumpy. Tomorrow will be better, Wednesday even better. Re-entry day, though, makes me look for chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

How do you handle Mondays?