Another lazy weekend

Our weekend is coming to a close. I can't say we did very much. That seems to be a trend with our weekends lately. We went to visit my mom yesterday. I helped her sort papers for her classes so she could enter grades. She is a teacher at an elementary school in Chicago. It really helps to remind me why homeschooling is so important when I see the papers her students write and hear about the kind of kids they are. The kids had fun, they love going to visit my mom. Apparently Chris' co-op is a family joke of some sort. They've convinced my grandmother that the kids should be in 'real' school. I hope it stops soon, I'd hate to stop visiting. I'm so glad my kids have learned to ignore those kinds of comments.

Aaron hasn't had any more food. It's funny, I was so excited and now it just seems like extra work. He doesn't want them anyway. I hope the avocados didn't scar him for life. He doesn't grab at foods with the gusto that he once did. I guess we can try again on Thursday. We'll be busy every day until then.

Chris is still excited about his co-op but not very happy about the homework that comes with it. He's been working on it all day since he put it off until the last minute. He asked yesterday why no one else has homework. No one else has a class. I'm not sure he was happy with my answer.

Our science books have been great to read so far. All the kids seem to enjoy them, which is saying a lot. Amanda and Frankie were so much fun to watch as they pushed the walls to see if their force could move it. Amanda says the wall's force can move her but she'd need a lot of help to get them to move. We're hoping to do a project on friction this week. I was short a few things we need so I'll have to get out to the store.

Back to being me!

Mack isn't around all the time anymore. He's been working on and off for the last couple years now. He really likes the security thing but it's really unstable in our area. He got a new position with MUCH more stable hours and comparable pay that isn't in the security field. I'm so glad he's not home all the time anymore, not to mention that we'll have extra money again. I can't be me when he's around. I get lazy and cranky. Since he's been away I have been early for all my appointments, the house stays clean and the kids don't fight or mess up around the house as much.

My girls are HOME! No more school, I couldn't take it anymore. I feel so much better, the stress was killing me! I missed them so much and I was really tired of feeling like the school owned my children. I found the work they did before they started school. Amanda has lost so much of the phonics she tried so hard to learn. Frankie hasn't improved but she hasn't lost any ground either. Now I know for sure I haven't done anything wrong aside from put her in school that is. I'll keep letting her go at her own pace. She's really interested in history and geography right now so I guess that is where the focus will be. We made a really cool time line the other night and she found a history of the world sticker book. She wants to put the things we read about in the sticker book on our time line. It should be a fun project. She is also into sight words. I ordered Picture Me Reading a couple years ago and the words are pictographs. She really likes those and she has a thing for flashcards. She put them some in the pockets of my pocket chart and is now 'teaching' the words to Zachary. They both seem to enjoy it. Amanda is all into writing stories. She spends most of her days asking me how to spell things. I put all the words she asks me to spell up on the wall so she can see them and doesn't have to interrupt her writing to ask me again. She wants to learn to write in cursive so I'll order her a Handwriting Without Tears book. Their approach is easy and not too stressful. I think it'll be fun for her. Chris isn't into anything right now. He still loves his rats but isn't reading much on them. He's just enjoying holding them and talking t them. Zach loves to have books read to him so I'm either reading to him or his Tag is. I really like the Tag system and so does he. I didn't think he would. He had it for 3 months before he decided he liked it. He's also hunting unicorns. It's really cute. I promised to build him a cave and buy him a bunch of toys and food for it if he finds one. No luck yet, but he hasn't given up! Yesterday we had a great day at Morton's Arboretum. I got teased about the girls being at group instead of school again but this time they WERE at school. Everyone welcomed them back officially. It was a great feeling!

Aaron had his 2 month check up today. I went because I had planned on getting the newborn screening redone and forgot the card so it's still not done. I will get around to it one of these days. He's getting so big! He's 24 inches long and 13 pounds 7 ounces. He's grown out of his 0-3 months clothes but he still wears them around the house. If he gets much taller he won't be able to, not to mention they are getting pretty snug.

I'm getting back into bulk cooking slowly. I made a HUGE pot of meat sauce yesterday before and after group. I browned the meat before we left and finished it when I got home. It tastes wonderful! I thought I burned it. Nicky took a spill while it was cooking and I forgot it was on. In the end Nicky was fine, though he did limp a little for the rest of the night, and so was my sauce.

My little secret

Very few people know about it because I'm a little embarrassed about it. My daughters have been in public school since November. There, it's all out in the open! They wanted to try it and I hoped that they would decide in a week that they hated it and I could pull them but it took a while longer. At THIS point they hate it. It's done them no good and one of my girls has ballooned 15 pounds since November due to emotional eating and stress. Lovely, huh? They didn't decide for sure they didn't want to be there until about a week ago and since it's been so long since they started, I asked that they finish the year out. Honestly, this was about the worst choice I've ever made. My girls are both slow, struggling learners. I knew this. I'm just built to always think things are always my fault. This isn't my fault. I must keep telling myself that. I've had them seen by specialists, I've had them tested. They will have done nearly a year in public school with no improvement. It is NOT my fault. My boys learn wonderfully. That bit was more for me than for anyone who might read this, lol. They have only suffered. Sure I got a break from the two of my children that are the most difficult but at what cost? Their self esteem? Their physical wellness? I feel like a selfish idiot. They miss their friends, the ones that don't treat them like crap. I miss my innocent little girls that don't talk about boys all day and how they want to kiss them. I miss their desire to go play and read and all the good things they used to be excited about. Now it's boys, people who don't like them(they do have a couple friends but it's just not the same) and all the work they must do that prevents them from having any life outside of school. I sent them off to school today begging to be home. It makes me want to cry for them. I did this thinking it might be good for them. I really thought this through but apparently I didn't think it through enough. So, they will de-school for the summer since even if they were in school they wouldn't be going and we'll get back into the groove of things at some point in August or September. I just have to remind myself of their school experiences the next time I get such a stupid idea. They didn't do any better when they were small and went to school. Amanda had 2 years of preschool and a half year of kindergarten. Frankie had a year and a half of preschool. They got nothing out of that either.