For those who don't know, my mom has been back at the hospital (actually, I took her to a different hospital, which was a vastly different experience).  She is finally back home and on the mend.

Also, Holden has a fang.  According to the dentist 1 in 700 people will grow an extra tooth that is a fang.  Holden has two, both growing behind his front teeth.  Only one is through the skin (but it's long enough to see when he's talking) and that sucker is sharp.  Anyway, he has to get them removed next month.  In the meantime we're calling him Fang.  I joked that it's his twin coming through but, not having read any Stephen King, he didn't get the reference.

In other news:

The pigs are happy.  I love the pigs.

Will is getting big:

Sergei loves to play outside near him:

The geese are well

Holden and Natasha:

She is a tremendous huge of a dog. 

We had a wagonload of round bales delivered yesterday and the kids have been playing along the bales as if they are in a hillbilly version of Narnia:

I probably will erase this entry soon because I don't want to hurt Anthony's feelings.  Still, the purpose of having a blog is to say what's on your mind, right?

Right?

His mom has several time shares in Florida (she's, like, addicted to buying timeshares.  My armchair psychologist theory is that she signs up for the tours because you get free or really cheap tickets to Orlando area restaurants and theme parks.  But then they put you in this huge room with a bunch of other people that they're trying to bully into buying a timeshare.  It's like, don't you love your kids? Don't you want them to have lovely memories of going to Disney World and staying in their own luxury timeshare instead of some flea-bag hotel room? Huh? When someone gives in and buys one they ring this bell and everyone looks up and applauds the new owner and this person, for a brief moment, is the shining star.  I think that she loves that shining star moment.  She keeps buying timeshares, saying, "Maybe next spring/summer/fall/winter your family can go," oblivious to the fact that when one has dairy cows it is quite hard to take a vacation).  She goes every Thanksgiving, this year with a girlfriend of hers, to visit my BIL and his son. 

There is some contention with this, as she travels there several times a year and ends up spending more time with that grandson than with my kids the entire year combined, but that's almost a side story.

Anyway, she wants to take my kids (well, the three older ones anyway) next week for the night since she won't be around to spend time with them on Thanksgiving.  That is very nice and I appreciate that.  With that said, she only wants to take them Thursday and Friday.  Her job is pretty flexible (it's not like my mom's where you work your appointed shift every day at the same time and there is no shift-swapping or having someone cover for you) and she brags a lot about taking other people's shifts for them when they have something come up, so one would assume that she could call in some favors. 

Here's my problem--London has ballet Thursday.  She's ten and busy.  She has dance class every afternoon/evening except for Friday and Sunday.  I prefer her not miss because ballet is a technique class and is relatively expensive.  Also Thursdays are Seryozha's Kindermusik so classes kind of tie up our Thursday evenings. 

Here's my other problem--Thursday and Friday are schooldays.  Now, obviously I understand that with homeschooling comes flexibility.  I'm not tied to an eight to three schedule, Monday thru Friday, September through June.  I get that.  My problem is that since my uncle died the first week of September we have had something come up every week.  We've missed at least a day of school every week.  Is that a huge deal? Not really, as we tend to pack a lot into our days anyway so it averages out.  Still, it has thrown me off my stride (I'm very Type A, especially when homeschooling is concerned).  It causes me stress.  It makes *my* life harder.  If we don't get it done during the week I feel pressure to catch up on the weekends.  I resent that because by the time I teach three different kids all week I am tired and just want to relax over the weekend (plus I have to plan for the following week).  I get pathologically tied to getting things done ON TIME.  It might be arbitrary but it's important to *me*.  I used to feel apologetic about this but I really don't so much anymore because, you know, homeschooling is my responsibility.  Sometimes I resent that it is so much my responsibility (Anthony is, surely, good to help but only if I ask--and sometimes re-ask--and then I have to make sure that the task is completed in a timely manner) but that's another issue for another day.  If I don't stay on top of things homeschooling doesn't get done and, therefore, I'll stand tall with my whip and timeclock and ubiquitous Homeschool Notebook.

So either I can just bite the bullet and let them go, feeling resentful that two more days are gone (and knowing that Thanksgiving is coming up and we'll take time off for it and that chances are other things will come up that prevents us from following our schedule) or I can be the meanie and make them stay home.  I'll feel justified because MIL could, if she wanted, switch her days off to make them coincide with what is convenient for us but *I* will still be the bad guy. 

What to do?

Part of me, while I keep referencing that other-subject-for-another-day, is a bit perturbed that Anthony didn't think to say, "Those are schooldays," when she mentioned it to him. 

We had an incomplete week because of my Mom's illness but I still need the accountability of posting a Week In Review.

Classical Writing kind of fell apart for London, as it requires concentration that I just didn't have.  In fact, looking back over our checklist for CW I think we'll just have a redo, as it doesn't make any sense to move on when we didn't even really start the model for last week (she did Theon's Six Components of a Narrative" and stuff but nothing else).  Alex fared better, making it through the introduction of the model and word analysis.  He also worked on HWT every day but Friday.

For SWR we got our words dictated and identified derivatives.  We haven't really had a chance to "enjoy" SWR to its fullest (actually they really like SWR because they like logic) but even with going at 50% they are really picking up the spelling rules! They've learned more from SWR in the few weeks we've been doing it than in a couple of years of SWO.  Holden wrote his spelling words on 3x5 cards so I'm going to use those for a couple of things (making sentences, alphabetizing, etc).

For Latin we picked Latin names (London chose Caia and Alex chose Titus), read "Why Do We Study Latin?", and reviewed vocabulary.

For Grammar London made it from lesson 30-32, Alex did lessons 36-38.

For Math they both did their regular Spectrum work.  London did some Life of Fred.  Kind of a funny aside--I got some sample questions that are asked on the placement test for college.  London took the math portion into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and did them.  I told Anthony I didn't know whether to be proud or frightened--proud that she could complete the math questions for community college placement or frightened that we expect community college students to fare so poorly that the questions can be answered by a fifth grader.

Science--big fat nothing.  Seriously.

For History London read from the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History and SOTW on the Age of Enlightenment.  She read a book about Galileo and is in the process of reading another one about Isaac Newton (she could have finished this except that it was in the back of the van, which I had possession of and was thirty miles away).  Alex read UILE and SOTW, as well as a chapter in Hillyer's CHOW.  He completed a map showing the spread of the Black Plague and defined "seize".  He read a book about Joan of Arc and together we're reading "The Door in the Wall".

Holden and I read the first part of SOTW ch. 1 "The First Nomads", "The Brave Three Hundred" from Fifty Famous Stories Retold, and "First City" from The American Story.  He did lessons 39 and 40 in OPTTR and did a Headsprout lesson.  We read three poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.  He did one Rightstart Math lesson (I struggle fitting in RS math since it's so teacher-led).  We read Aesop's "The Boy and the Filberts", Grimm's "Rumplestiltzkin", and started "Little House in the Big Woods".

What about the extras, you ask? You know, that whole liberal arts thing we strive for? No.  We didn't do music or art or anything of the kind.  This week we were in survival mode.  :sigh: This week I will aim higher.