We're in our seventh week of school. We've already taken a two-week break for our Disney trip, and we'll be taking another week-long break when friends from Bermuda come to visit us in November, and then another holiday week over Thanksgiving. Yet we're still plugging along and exactly where I had wanted us to be by this time.
But it wasn't without a few difficult days.
Some days Asher just isn't feeling it. Every worksheet is torture. Every reading assignment is agony. A certain two-year old has trouble sharing Mommy's attention with his big brother. The clock ticks on, and we've barely made any progress. We both breathe a huge sigh of relief when days like those are over.
But other days are a dream. Asher finishes his work quickly and correctly. There are no attitude issues. Asa is happy to play on his own. I close my lesson planner for the day and sigh happily.
That's just how it goes. But you know what I've noticed? Whenever I'm in the midst of one of those rough periods when nothing goes the way I want it to, God follows it up with some kind of relief.
Like a trip to the State Fair.
Sometimes when Asher is having a lot of fun in the middle of a week day I like to remind him that all the other kids are in school. He's starting to fully realize how nice it is to have the flexibility of homeschool.
We also took time out in the middle of a school day last week to paint pumpkins! It was a gorgeous day, so we just halted school to go out and enjoy the weather together.
And while those pumpkins were drying in the sunshine, Matt took the boys out into the field to try out the rocket Asher had gotten for his birthday.
We finished our school work later that afternoon.
In history we're currently reading about Japan, so for our art project this week we made a wind poem. During the time of the Star Festival, it was traditional to decorate a bamboo branch with strips of paper on which you've written poems and wishes. Hang it outside and let the wind carry those wishes and hopefully make them come true!
We used a wooden dowel for our bamboo branch. Asher wrote his wishes on strips of construction paper. Then we hung it outside.
Now we'll see if those wishes come true! (Side note: I took a peak at Asher's wishes, and they are over-the-moon adorable. I would share them, but he told me they were "private.")
And last but not least, our big news for the week: Asa has graduated to a toddler bed! He will be three years old in 2 months, so I figured it was time for the crib to go. He was very excited about his new Spiderman bed. We explained that he was not to get out of bed unless Mommy or Daddy came to get him. That means don't get out to get books. Don't get out to get toys. Just stay in the bed. He repeats that mantra - "Stay in the bed!" - every night and naptime.
And guess what?
He stays in bed.
He has not gotten up once. This has been the easiest transition I could've hoped for. The first night I camped out in front of his bedroom door, staring at the video monitor, ready to pounce the second he put one little foot out of bed. But he never did. Nor did he during his nap the next day. Or at bedtime that night. Or during his naptime the next day.
Thankful for this easy transition! And thankful for an obedient child.
Things are moving right along!
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