No, not quite yet, but soon. I have been planning like crazy and dare I say it, but I am very excited about this upcoming school year. Both Chiggie and Tea will be using a curriculum that is brand spankin' new to us and has some awesome features that allow them to be much more independent (more on that in a later post). This is exciting because it will hopefully free up my time to work with the younger 3. I say 3 because poor Buster just refuses to be left out. He has no interest in playing during school time and has made it very clear that he will be doing school this year. I will be getting him some coloring books and such so that he can listen along even when he can't do the same work the other 2 are doing. We plan to begin our year on Monday August 26th. That will give us a week to get adjusted and then a 3 day weekend to collect ourselves afterwards.
A new year is always an exciting time and I love to see the progress we have made. Speaking of progress, I went ahead and had the older two girls tested. Mostly because they have to be tested at the end of this upcoming year anyway and I wanted to know beforehand if there were any weak areas. I was rather shocked to see that despite the crazy year we just came out of they both made leaps and bounds of progress. They both tested grade levels ahead in all subjects. While it doesn't really change my plans for this year, it was a relief to see that they really are growing and learning! This summer has helped cover the physical and social aspects that I felt were weak before as well. The kids are riding their bikes everyday, swimming several times a week, and walking all around the park several times a day. This weekend they were asked to have a lemonade stand at the front office to welcome in several large groups the park is expecting and Chiggie has also had several babysitting jobs right here in the park as well. I am learning to relax a little and just let life happen...we are truly blessed!
It has been raining a lot the last two days and there is more in the forecast. Normally I would love this, but for some reason I am not lovin' it lately. It could be the horrible headache I have had for two days straight. Or maybe the lack of sleep that comes when the same little girl comes and asks me 300 times a night if it's going to flood or hail or if there will be a tornado. Or it could possibly be the mud that is now ingrained in the carpet, which instead of tan is now more of a mud streaked brown. I am thankful for the moisture, but I am ready for a little more sunshine!
In late April I started the hardest college course I had taken up to this point. The dreaded probability and statistics. Not only was I not pleased to have to take the course, but over summer vacation? Seriously? While the kids swam in the beach I was silently stewing over standard deviations and while they all danced and played to the music of the Saturday night band I was thinking about correlation coefficients and trying to solve the problems associated with poverty and its effect on single moms. I wanted to quit. Every weekend I told my husband I was. I wanted to withdraw and just try another time. Take a break. Just relax a little and worry about it later. But I didn't. I completed two major PowerPoint presentations, two 5+ page exams, and multiple papers discussing the integration of Christian faith into statistics. Today I submitted my final and bid the course adieu! It felt like a million tons had been lifted from my shoulders. I am so happy that I stuck it out. I always tell the kids that life is much more about joyfully doing the things we don't want to do, than it is having fun but living that out was a tall order. I am on to other things now but I will never forget the summer I took statistics!
We have been exceptionally busy this summer, but not in the mundane exhausting sense. We have been enjoying the longer, warmer days, and later bed times. Some of our favorites have been:
