Time Warp Thursday

Today was the strangest day. I woke up with a sudden reason for my slothlike nature of the last couple days - head cold/flu - but then, as soon as I had some coffee, I suddenly felt better and with more energy than I've had since before Thanksgiving. The whole day was like that. I was running slow and late and then suddenly I was done with time to spare!

Slow start to the morning. I didn't even get around to reading my blog list because I was afraid we were going to be late for ballet. I rush everyone out the door in a huff and get there with plenty of time to spare. Instead of torturing the boys with the usual waiting room ordeal, I decided to take them to a nearby park for a few minutes. My cell phone died (which reminds me... ok, it's charging) so I couldn't call the family that we were going to meet up with there and I had no idea of what time it was. I ended up just playing it by ear and asking random strangers for the time. I was afraid we'd be rushed, but we had tons of time to play. Grey had a few little hissy fits because I wouldn't push him on the swing the entire time, lol, but he ended up having fun too. We got back to the ballet studio in plenty of time so I bought our tickets for The Nutcracker and chatted up a couple of the moms. MomP, the other homeschool mom there, told me that MomK had told her that I had a great blog. LOL. I hate when that happens. I get so embarrassed. But she kept asking me how I managed to keep up with that and homeschool three kids. I said that I simply skip the housework. ;)

She made me feel really good though because I've always admired the way that she can homeschool with twins. She's one of those super active types too - tons of classes and field trips and lessons and she's one of the few workbooky homeschoolers around here. I don't know how she does it all and she's always so calm too - rushed, but calm. But anyway, she kept asking me how I do it! Stuff like, "Do you ever get to sleep?" HA! "Don't you ever get any time alone?" and "You don't even have a babysitter?" I guess she has a lot of extended family help with the twins. That outsider's perspective is a nice thing once in a while. I guess I do handle things better than I feel like I do.

Well, that was tangential! Back to the mundane... we decided to stop off at Trader Joe's on the way home and no one acted like a crazy person!! First time ever. ;) Then we came home for lunch and I spelled it all out - I'm going to put away the groceries, make lunch, and then we are all going to pitch in and clean. (Two days of internet gluttony does bad things to a house.) I told them if they really wanted to be nice that they could get started on picking up their toys while I put away the groceries and made lunch. They promptly went outside to play. So we had lunch and then I got started on laundry. They played. To their credit, when I did specifically ask them to do things (like put away their laundry from several days ago) they did it without hesitation. I just got involved with the most immediate tasks (i.e. folding that laundry from several days ago and sorting and washing the new mountain that had built up) that I didn't get on them to do anything else. I also spritzed up both bathrooms pretty quickly so that at least something would look cleaner. Instant gratification does a lot for motivation levels. I was really getting into this cleaning high (and not from the fumes, lol, I use natural non-toxic cleaners, thank you very much!) but I suddenly realized that if we were going to get any schoolwork done today that we had better get started quickly. It had crossed my mind to just skip it, but it really has to be possible to do both schoolwork and housework in the same day. It rarely happens for me, but I figured it had to be possible.

So I rallied the troops and led Cameron through the most fabulously effortless Phonics lesson ever. He still doesn't really like to read, but by gum he can do it! Next was Grammar where we went over he, she, him, her, it, his, hers, and its. Then we did math where Cameron has now embarked on the fabulous journey of memorizing his multiplication tables. I really played it up by stressing how this is the secret to doing it "super-quick like me!" Cassia decided to show off her new talent of counting by tens to one hundred and I said, "Congratulations! You know your ten times table!" Both she and Cameron looked at me in awe, lol. I haven't stressed the memorization of addition facts much. I figure that will come with use, but with multiplication there's just no other way. Now if only I can remember to drill him on them! We finished up with Science and did the last four workbook pages for Chapter One. Cameron has really impressed me with his understanding of this topic. He may forget the terminology sometimes, but he gets the concept. He answered all of the questions right without much help from me at all - and this is a fourth grade book! Cassia helped him out once too, lol. He just couldn't wrap his head around the right word and she came up with it for him. I didn't have him do any writing today because he had spent a good portion of the morning copying a Pokemon card to his own drawing, words and all. Copywork is copywork! If he wants to use a Pokemon card that's fine with me!

So after starting out the session feeling like it was way too late and going to be a complete nightmare, it went totally smoothly and we were done with everything before 4:00. I even managed to get some chicken marinating for dinner and then sat down with the kids to watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Even that, I thought was going to run long but it finished just as dinner was ready. Time was just really on my side today. Ironic too that that is the Harry Potter with the Time Turner. If only I had one of those...

But today I don't need one. The wash is done. The dishes are dishwashing. The bathrooms are clean. My blog is written and now I can go watch DOOL guilt free. I might even straighten up the living room and dining room while I watch.