Yawn!

While I was crammed in between two snoring beauties, Cassia started coughing at around 4am. It was a nasty, congested, barking, wheezing, popping cough and it sounded like it really hurt. And it didn't let up once it started. She didn't even really wake up, she just coughed continually in her sleep for like an hour. I finally gave her some cough medicine and that kicked in after about 45-minutes, letting her slide back into a restful sleep once again. About half an hour later Greyson woke up with Mr. Sun and that was the end of my restful sleep. *yawn* I didn't lose that much sleep, but it's hit me hard today and I've had a hard time waking up and getting motivated for anything.

So I canceled our pool date and spent a slow morning at home. I'm not even sure where the majority of it went. I guess I was reading, both online stuff and homeschool magazines. The kids were watching Elmo in Grouchland - for Greyson, of course. (I won't mention who wandered outside to play after about ten or fifteen minutes of it and who was glued to the tv for the entire thing, lol.)

Finally, around 2:00, I decided that we had better get school started with and put Greyson down to nap. Cameron was not into phonics at all. It was only a one page lesson on words beginning with x and ps but I had to feed him practically every word on the page. It is so pointless to do phonics when he doesn't feel like it. I can guarantee that we could do the exact same lesson again tomorrow and he wouldn't be able to read a word of it - but he would definitely remember that we already did it. Oh well. At this point, I just want to finish the book and so does he. Not the best attitude, but it's ours and we're keeping it. ;) Cassia did pretty well with phonics. She was able to read every single one of the review words first try without any prompting, but then had a bit of trouble with the new ones and then in the sentences where they were mixing them up. She also keeps reading "the" as "ted" and "hen" as "the". Typing them out, I can see where the confusion is coming from - too many similarly shaped letters.

Next was grammar/language and we read a poem about the months of the year. The book then told us to make a booklet out of the poem with a new page for each stanza. I thought it was a dumb idea and didn't really think they would want to do it, lol, but I suggested it anyway and they jumped all over it! They're always surprising me like that. I pulled out the story paper and had them each draw a picture for January and then copy the January stanza below it. They made some really cute pictures. Cameron did a great job copying the verse, but Cassia only did the title and then asked me to write the verse for her. Considering that this is a second grade language book, I figured that that was a reasonable request.

Next should've been math but Cameron claimed that his hand was too tired after all that drawing and writing and that he needed a break first. I should have given him a writing break by doing science next and saving math for last, but I decided to go ahead and let him have a playing break. I had started reading a magazine article while they were working on their pictures anyway so I said they could have a break until I finished the article. Unfortunately, they went into the bedroom to get swords and shields and woke Greyson up. Grrrrr. Eventually I did finish my article and I did get Cameron back for math but we had to do it with a tired boy laying on my lap, but unwilling to go back to sleep. He eventually ran off with Cassia to go play somewhere (so she never got her math done) and while Cameron worked in his workbook, I took my nap. LOL, it was only about ten or fifteen minutes long but it was worth it.

Finally we did science (they had to wake me up though and tell me that we *had* to do it even though I wanted to keep sleeping, lol) and read half a chapter on water pollution. There was a picture of the Singapore River in 1977 and all I can say is Ewww!! There were also some nasty pictures from the Exxon Valdez spill and my little environmentalists were sufficiently horrified. One of the accompanying activities in the Activity Book was to go to a local source of water and rate it for pollution. It was too late in the afternoon to do it today, but tomorrow I'd like to make a point to do that. We have a little creek a couple blocks away from our house and it's a favorite teen hangout. It's not too badly polluted since there is wildlife galore still living there, but there are enough beer bottles that it will make a good subject to study. In fact, I think I'll pack a trash bag so we can do a little good deed while we're there.

So there ya go. Three days in row! Even when I didn't want to, lol. And guess what, they're not saying "no" to me when I ask them to clean up either. Now I just need to stop procrastinating with the other stuff I need to get done too. I did reschedule two doctor's appointments today, so that's progress.