I vaguely recall Dan leaving the
house at 6:35 this morning and being grateful that he could leave without the
hassle of waking, feeding, and coaxing the boys into the car before the sun
came up. I didn’t wake up until the alarm went off at 8 and I had to wake the
boys up even then. I made everybody smoothies and eventually the big boys got
dressed and we took our first day photos outside.
All of my pre-first day teaching has
been during Tim’s naps, so I wasn’t sure how much more difficult he would make
things. We prayed the first decade of the rosary (which Peter declared he’d
done every day after lunch last year – news to me). Leo wasn’t an active
participant, shall we say, and Tim thought the beads were an excellent
accessory. They were excited about the rainbow paper I got for them to scratch
off while I read the ancient history text. I’d stop mid-sentence and they
generally knew what I was going to say and were listening.
Peter said he didn’t want to do math
downstairs. I had both boys do their timed fact sheets at the table then I told
Peter he could go in his room instead and he was fine with that. Leo’s odd/evens
lesson used pattern blocks and Tim had a ball with them. Of course he thought
they were all his and we had to coax blocks from him. The number he knows best
is 2 and we’d request 2 blocks at a time and he’d oblige.
For both math and spelling, Peter
finished considerably faster than Leo and I suspect that will be the case
indefinitely. Leo’s spelling lessons are supposed to be no more than 15-20
minutes, but today he went ballistic when I did not agree that he had mastered
all the sounds of the Y phonogram and I didn’t want to count tantrum time as
part of the lesson. I’d like to think that phonogram freakouts won’t be a daily
occurrence, but I’ll have to figure out whether that timing will be absolute or
actual lesson time. I don’t want him to think that he can putz the whole time
and never get anywhere.
Peter got all his spelling words right
on the first try and if that continues for a few lessons, I’ll look into
selling his current level and replacing it with the next one (he’s doing
Phonetic Zoo B). He tested between the two levels and I didn’t want to
frustrate him and make it too hard.
It was 12:15 by the time the
spelling brouhaha was over and we all had leftover taco soup and chips for
lunch. I think part of Leo’s problem was that he was hungry, but I don’t want
to let him snack constantly as he’d prefer to do. He often eats only a small
part of his breakfast and if he does that, I’ll probably leave it out and
insist he eat that if he’s starving before lunch. I’d prefer to skip a morning
snack but have an afternoon teatime to cut down on the pre-dinner crazies.
I managed to stay off the computer
and the phone until lunch.
It was 1:15 by the time we got going
again and I knew Leo would be picked up at 1:30. We got through the next
history section before he left with my SIL who’d promised him a trip to the
electricity museum. I then got Tim to sleep (I would have earlier but didn’t
want to be interrupted when my SIL came) and Peter built Legos.
Once Tim was down, Peter and I sat
down with his religion text and took turns reading from that. It’s set up to
either be done once a week or daily and I’m planning to split the difference
and use it twice weekly with each boy, alternating days, then quiz them on the
catechism questions on Fridays. Part of the first chapter included the end of
the Creation story and Peter managed to bring up evolution vs. creationism. And
I thought I’d have easy topics to tackle on day 1! We talked about how the 7
days in the Bible don’t have to each be one day because the original Hebrew can
be translated in different ways. Peter’s take on the whole thing is that God
can make DNA change and cause the evolution. I think I handled it alright. He’s
not planning to give up his belief in either God or science yet at least.
The only thing left that was
Peter-specific was handwriting. He had flown through the vowels when he went
through the book for fun over the weekend so I thought that would be a painless
way to end the day. But B’s got the best of him and he flipped out when they
weren’t working and declared himself done. I convinced him to go on to easy C’s
and he put up with those, barely. Fine, whatever, I printed a new B sheet to do
another day.
I intended to read another section
of history and read about Vivaldi and listen to part of the Four Seasons, but
that will have to wait for another day. I asked Peter how much usually got done
on the first day of school and he said, “Not much.” So I’ll call this a
success. Dan did give Peter his first piano lesson in the evening, too.
By the time Dan got home at 5:30,
supper was almost done. I had to wait until after supper to go pick our
community garden veggies (15 lbs of tomatoes and 2.5 lbs of beans!) and I sent Dan to the store for canning lids at 9pm
because there hadn’t been a chance to get them during the day. I have a dozen
library books waiting to be picked up. Eventually we’ll have to figure out how
errands will happen. Tim was up until 11:30 and if that’s a sign that he’s
preparing to give up naps, it would simplify our days in terms of when we can
leave the house.
I was going to bring the kids to 8am
Mass tomorrow but with Tim up late and our friends possibly arriving now in
late morning, I might wait on Mass until next week when the parish school has
their first Mass on Wednesday. All the transition times are going to have to
become more efficient, but we’ll get there. I hope.