puppy « The Blessed Heritage

I’ve been trying to pen a “Weekly Homeschool Wrap-up” for a couple of weeks now, but my mind hasn’t been able to compartmentalize enough to make the various sections sound like something other than garble. I think some part of the problem is that everyone except me had some variation of a cold on last week. Being the only well person in the house is a challenge unto itself; although the kids fought mightily to complete their work each day, I felt as if I was teaching three children through a dense fog cover. I was a hot-tea-making, supervising-the-hot-bath-taking machine, and so time with my thoughts was a rarity. Time with my thoughts and a pen was all but out of the question.

Given that my wrap-ups went MIA, I thought to pen my heart during this season where many moms are beginning to homeschool for the first time, needing hugs, encouragement, and votes of confidence. Nada. So, what to write about? The bit of progress that I’m most excited about is the ability to school with a now 13-week-old puppy and boast of a reasonably smooth day. So until those other thoughts formulate into something that wouldn’t be too embarrassing to share, I’ll go with a straightforward day-in-the-life post. They never get old.

I’ve been getting up about an hour before the kids, allowing me to catch up on mail, do any remaining pre-school (as in before school since I no longer have preschoolers anymore) activities, and primarily, getting breakfast together. By this time, my husband has served the puppy her morning meal, she and our older dog have barked at all the kids on the way to the bus stop, and she is back in her cage until I come downstairs. Hubby’s left for work by this time.

Once the kids are downstairs, I work with our youngest. Right now, at least, I can count on the puppy for an extended morning nap. If it happens before we begin school, I follow the “normal” order: I read to her, then she reads to me, then math and phonics before her first break. If the nap is yet to come, we postpone my reading to her until the puppy is napping. Reordering my day around the puppy allows me to be most flexible when she is most active—kind of like a toddler, you know? Anyway, with the latter order, I’m standing and moving around, if necessary, while the puppy is active. There are days when the youngest will actually want to read with the puppies in the backyard. She is my one “outdoorsy” child who likes to get out when the weather allows.

As an aside, we’re 233 pages into The Wheel on the School. The wheel finally made it onto the school.

The youngest is on a break at this point, and I get some quick chores completed—folding of clothes, cleaning breakfast dishes, preparing fruit for mid-morning snack, etc. Then it’s one-on-one time with our son, reading to one another. He wrapping up William Carey, a “Christian Heroes: Then and Now” biography from last year’s studies, and I’m covering The Story of Christianity. We also share our notes from logic (How to Read a Book), apologetics (Know What You Believe), and/or character (Ourselves), dependent upon the day (see our homeschool schedule).

Our youngest comes back to the table. Most of the time, the puppy is still asleep! We read some more (These Happy Golden Years) while she works on handwriting. Then she completes grammar, history, and/or science, again, according to the schedule.

By now it’s lunch time. I piddle between chores and work, and oh, yeah—I eat.

After lunch, we all join around the table for Bible. We continue the journey through the Psalms. Today we covered Psalms 125-126, and talked about the Israelites returning to their home after being exiled for 70 years. In the midst of all that they must have been feeling, there was one thing that remained: God was still their protection and the restorer of all that was taken from them. Wow. I wish I could have brought the energy and sense of awesomeness to the lesson that the passage deserved. We are also memorizing the 34^th Psalm.

Following our Bible study, the youngest runs off to play while the older two and I enjoy the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. By the way, the puppy’s awake by now, and I usually put her outside so that I can read in peace. After we’ve completed LOTR, I let her back in and have the youngest and/or our son watch her while the oldest and I work together. The oldest is wrapping up Antony and Cleopatra from last year (that abbreviated summer break is wreaking a small amount of havoc on our schedule!), and we’ve just begun Virgil’s Aeneid together. She’s not looking forward to what she’s read is a continuation of Homer’s Iliad. “Why can’t they just play ‘paper, scissors, rock’ instead of all this fighting?” she says, laughing.

Minus any leftover work from the morning to complete, or preparation for the days ahead, the school day is over. For me, it’s a solid 8-9 hours of work between kids, lunch, and chores. Then there’s work, and whatever projects are happening. The puppy is also very “puppy-ish” by now until about 9 p.m. when she settles for the night.

Well, those are our days. At least until next week when dance season begins. Oi, vei!

Well, to say that I’m making adjustments in the last week-and-a-half would be an understatement. We began school on last week, and I’ve already blogged about my lack of preparedness (from my perspective) as we start the new school year 3 weeks before I was ready. Blog? Tweet? Who has time?

I had to make another adjustment as well. It occurs to me that we had become totally adjusted to our 11-year-old beagle, whose biggest activity is to go out and use the bathroom, or bark at the UPS and FedEx trucks. After a summer of mild refusal, then a “we’ll see” type of consideration, we succumbed to the pressure of the children and brought this little lady home.

This is Ginger, the newest addition of our family. Currently, she is ten weeks old, not house-broken, and very active. Right now, our beginning school has been overshadowed with running to the backyard to avoid accidents, trying to toddler-proof our home from the many things that Ginger likes to put in her mouth, and just managing the chaos of this busy little Golden retriever in our home. She plays so very hard until, every now and then, she also does this.

When she is asleep, the household has its usual level of activity. Our younger two, as one example of many, decided that they would practice a few dips and turns as dance partners.