Day One: Done! Phew!!!

Don’t worry. This scary gang of boys– no idea who they are–was taken at home, not at school. 😉

I should be asleep, so I will make this quick! I know my parents and Alan’s parents, are waiting to hear how the first day went. I didn’t want to leave you guys hanging!

Everything went well. Alan asked me, “Did you make some friends?”

I looked at him blankly. (Actually, I think I did make friends.) I said, “Alan, have you ever gone to a sporting event where you knew very little about the sport, and you had never ever actually seen it played? Well, that was what today was like. I had to spend all my energy focusing on what was coming next, and finding my way around.” I was so busy getting my footing that I didn’t really do a whole lot of talking.

First, when I pulled up, I saw lots of parents and little kids with book bags, so I thought, “Oh perfect. I’m early.” However, as the boys started loading out of the van, I noticed that all the other kids were no bigger than Daniel.  Hmmmm.

That’s when I realized I had apparently pulled into the church’s preschool drop off area. Oops.

I loaded JD into his stroller and trekked around the parking lot until we spotted someone familiar going up the stairs. Oh. Stairs. A stroller’s worst enemy. All the big boys had to grab a part of the stroller, and we heaved it up. What would I do without my big boys?

I managed the nursery payments and still made it to the large assembly in time. Phew! Shout out to Alan for that. He happened to have a Physics test today, so he was able to be home later this morning and help out. All bets are off on how timely my arrival will be next week, without Alan’s help.

Class time went extremely smoothly. I really like both boys’ tutors. I ended up going to Joshua’s class, as it was the shortest on parent helpers. They actually do need the helpers, as we split up to even smaller groups for review time. Plus Joshua was the most nervous, so I’m glad I was able to be there for him.

It was a funny thing with Joshua. It would look like he wasn’t listening at all, but then it would turn out that he usually was when I asked him a question. He’s a very quick learner. If anyone has any ideas on how to strengthen active listening skills, please share!!

Caleb was so happy about getting to do presentations. He took his soccer trophies.  That made me feel like a dirt bag for missing soccer sign up this fall, but I didn’t tell him that, of course.

Amy, you’ll have to tell Xavier that Joshua took his Yugioh cards for his presentation.

Even John David managed to stay in the nursery and did not cry, once I left. That was a big victory.

Lunch time was stressful because Joshua raced off with all the kids his age, into a thicket of trees. Don’t worry. The thicket is in the parking lot. They weren’t getting far. I just couldn’t find an angle to see him from, but as I was leaving I found the top of the hill, where you can see perfectly. From now on, that’s my spot. For today, I never saw Joshua once during lunch. That boy was just soooo happy to be part of a big group of kids, playing hard again.

Caleb had fun playing with the kids too, but Caleb comes and checks in periodically, which makes it so much easier!

What are we learning about? Well, each week it’s a new set of memory work for each subject. Plus, we do a science experiment and a fine art lesson. This quarter is on drawing.

I took a photo of this week’s work. Of course, the 1st week is the easiest week. I’m excited to learn Latin!!

The stuff in green is what we’ll be memorizing this week for CC.

Do you see those cards at the bottom? Those are our timeline cards. This week we’re focusing on Creation to the Minoans and the Mycenaeans. There’s this 14 minute long song that goes along with this, as the timeline goes all the way to present day, and it is one of the catchiest songs ever. We’re all walking around the house singing it.

One hilarious quote from today, that had nothing to do with school:

Joshua was talking about super powers, which led him to telling me that I should pray for the super power to do a whole lot of things at one time, since I’m always saying, “Everyone wait. I can’t help you all at once.”

Then he said….this is the cute part…..”But you can’t just go to bed with a sword under your pillow and wake up to be a Samurai, because that’s just not how prayer works, really, but unless God….maybe it COULD happen…”

Oh, boys…you just gotta love ’em.