Mhoncaí Sa Bhaile: Whirlwind of a Week

Last week of February. I have most certainly lost count of which official school week it is.

Monday
Shiny new planner pages for everyone. New week! We're gonna rock it!

Well, we tried anyway. Those Mondays... sheesh. I think Grace may be the only one who actually scratched all of Monday's lessons off, *on* Monday.

Our music teacher had to take a break from AHG this week. We started the Aviation merit badge, and flew paper airplanes all over the building. These scouts are girls, so the airplanes were decorated with stamps, stickers, and various pretty accessories. I got nailed behind my ear with one. The owner of said paper airplane truly tried to apologize while unable to stop laughing. Good times.

Tuesday
We made up some lost ground.

Faith has become a strong little student in her own right. She's completed half of the Daily Language Review 2 book. We're going to roll more First Language Lessons in to get those definitions and chants memorized. Her penmanship book is no longer needed, but she doesn't want to put it up.

Honor and Grace have started Spanish for Children A. I wouldn't consider it at first, not wanting the same approach as their Latin book to boggle their progress. But so far we love it. Durr. We always love Classical Academic Press products. We don't have the DVD yet, but we have enough introductory Spanish under our belt to dig in anyway.

Swim team practice went well. No scouts tonight. Patrol leaders were supposed to set up individual patrol meetings on their own. Justice is a patrol leader. I waffle on how much I'm supposed to babysit this process, and he always has good intentions, but these meetings never seem to get set up. If your kid is anticipating patrol meetings, sorry! It's probably my kid's fault. :P

Wednesday
Finally, we rocked a day. The younger ones flew through lessons. Joy really tore into her list.

Faith doubled up some math lessons so she could finally get to the multiplication section. (Yes, this is a first grader. We should have made her middle name Determined.)

Honor finally admitted he was intimidated by his math book (Art of Problem Solving prealgebra), and moving forward wasn't a great idea. I gave him two options. A) Repeat the chapter. B) Practice the same concepts in a different book, and then try the chapter review again. "I'm never doing that chapter ever again! Different book!" I printed the last two chapters from an 8th grade algebra readiness textbook that was saved into our old desk top. (No link for this. It was probably downloaded umpteen years ago.) This covered the part of his chapter he wasn't solid on, and had an introduction into what was going to be in his next chapter. He finds them very easy, which just increased his confidence by leaps and bounds. Win-win.

Justice, however, didn't have such a good week. Daily distractions got the better of him. Last week didn't go so well either, and he's lost an entire week in his school year during the last few weeks. He's making really impractical scheduling decisions, and doesn't hear alternatives. Some weeks he masters the ADHD symptoms, and others it's the opposite. There's a new week coming. We'll turn this one around!

Swim team practice.

Thursday

Continuation of Wednesday. More swimming. Have I exercised at all this week???? I'm thinking no...

Friday
Faith's birthday. Seven seems awfully big. How is she not still that chubby cheeked toddler getting into mischief and scaling every piece of furniture in the house?? After Justice got home from his math tutor we met friends from homeschool group at a park. (Justice sat on the bench reading Stoker's Dracula.)

We went to our favorite used bookstore right after that, sailing perilously close to lunchtime. I hoped our hungry tummies would keep us from spending too long there. The birthday girl found a Dr. Who book she really, really wanted. Honor found the other Lego Shakespeare book he wanted. I found a couple Austins and a Bronte we didn't have. A graphic Odyssey and cute story about a colonial girl from the clearance rack may have jumped into my cart.

Then Costco. The samples were so numerous and tasty that all we needed to finish lunch was a frozen yogurt from the snack bar on our way out the door.

By the time we made it home we had enough time for a Dr. Who episode or two before the swim bell rang. I really like Friday practices. They're small, and you get better conversations with Coach. The kids get more personal attention from Coach. They're only 1.5 hours instead of 2, so the littles don't really have time to get bored.

Saturday
4 AM wake-up call. The teens and MhonciaDad were up "at the buttcrack of dawn" to start a 7 hour service project with our Boy Scout & Venture troop. They went to the starting line of a marathon with trucks and trash bags, to pick up all the trash left behind by the runners and spectators. Chick-Fil-A gave them food afterward. Sounds like they had a great time. Apparently one of the younger Boy Scouts is crushing on Joy. It's ridiculously adorable. Joy thinks he's cute. In a little brother sort of way.

I never got back to sleep after seeing them off. Around 6 AM I woke up the younger crew. As soon as they were in uniform with sack lunches and breakfast in their hands we headed to Scout-O-Rama. There we spent the day climbing monkey bridges, playing obstacle courses, life-size PacMan, making shotgun shell slides for neckerchiefs, racing, building, crafting, competing, shooting BB guns, throwing balls, meeting NFL cheerleaders and a band of Star Wars characters, climbing in police and SWAT vehicles of all sorts, and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

When we were so wore out we only wanted our van and the food it contained, we headed back home. We had a mini-dance show to do that night, between Scout-O-Rama and home. We got there about an hour before the show was to start, and it wasn't worth driving all the way home for ten minutes before we'd have to head back. We sucked up some free wifi at a McDonalds, had an ice cream cone, and let the kids romp in the playland. Then we headed over to the show, combed hair into pretty bows in the van. MhonciaDad and the teens met us there. The American Legion fed our whole crew before the variety show started. Perfect! The audience was full of smiles and cheers. Great show.

Were the kids worn out after all this?? Ha! They were running all over the variety show and I had to attempt keeping them calm so they didn't interrupt the other acts. Do other peoples' kids really, truly "get worn out" after full days? I think my kids missed an important memo somewhere....