Carry On

Well, in spite of Ian's attempt to work 80+ hours a week, the kids and I just keep going. And actually now that I have stopped waiting for him to be with us to do the good stuff, it's been fun. When he's there, he's there, and when he's not there, he's not. I'll be glad when all this overtime is over ;)

The kids are passing around some illness and right now Micaela is recuperating, Loubie is speckled all over with a rash and fever, Asher's fever spiked last night, Nathaniel is complaining of a sore throat and Gabe is just Gabe. Gabriel is precious. His cheerful disposition and good looks win everyone's heart even though he's completely self-centered and he only wants to show off all the time and be certain that everyone's noticing him. We'll have to work on modesty/humility.

I've been tackling the house, and I feel much better about it. I may have to reinstitute domestic education days/weeks if I can get a better routine down. I've decided that our next book will be Mark Twain's Prince and the Pauper, but I won't start till this evening. We'll see how long it takes us. We have only this week and next week left on our Renaissance and Reformation Unit. We're studying William of Orange and the organization of the Netherlands, French Huguenots, the Catholic response to the Reformation, and then Elizabethan England (read Shakespeare, lots of it!). We've been listening to his plays a lot lately getting ready for it. We're steering away from morbid tragedies and reading children's versions of the comedies; although we're supposed to read King Lear this week which is pretty sad.

Our next unit is all about Crowns and Colonies, and our new books look very interesting. I shopped around and used credit card points for part of the purchase, and I was able to get books for two units (18 weeks of history, literature, art, and geography down to period paper dolls and our lapbooks- maybe six months of school including holidays and such) and grammar for the year (a 50.00 purchase) for less than 200.00. I was excited ;) TOG costs 45/unit and the books to go with it average about 120/unit per level. I'm teaching all one level right now, but in third or fourth grade I'll have to buy upper grammar books too, and then my expenses will increase significantly; of course I only have to buy two more years of TOG to have them all, so that cost will go down.

I can see I'm rambling. I'd better go make breakfast and start our day. Gabriel's been telling me every sixty seconds "I'm hungry!"