Quiet Days

Sometimes all it takes for me to come to my senses is a good jolt. Andy certainly provided that the other day, and it made me want to slow everything down for a bit. We put away our books yesterday and instead spent the day in a quite rhythm of play and fun.

The kids played games together and we took another hike in the snow to the river where I let the kids explore and play for a while. It was nice. They all enjoyed their time out of doors, and as they do more often than not, they worked together to explore and create in the surrounding icy wonderland. It was a quiet day. Just the kind we all needed.

Making puppets.

Andy watching a movie on World War II

Lily waiting for someone to play with her. 

Elizabeth trying to make amends for getting on her brother's nerves.

Notice anything missing? No 'For Sale' sign! YEAH!!!

Our new favorite winter spot.

Lily checking things out.

Working as a team to plan something out.

Finalizing plans...

Working on clearing snow from the ice.

Trying to make an ice skating rink while Lily keeps a close eye out for squirrels.

Elizabeth's fishing hole. 

The kids removed this large limb from underneath the ice.

Almost to the water...

Carefully trying to get it into the water while staying on
solid ground.

Beaver marks.

I have decided to take a short break from math with Andy. The stress it is causing him is enormous, and he needs a breather. So, instead we agreed that he would go to the library with me a couple of times a week and take out as many books as he wanted on as many topics that he wanted to - as long as he was truly interested in what he was reading. My point in doing this is that learning to him is not fun. It is drudgery and stress and both the public school and I (in our homeschooling) have proven this to be true over and over again. He has such a natural curiosity that it is such a shame that I am slowly squashing that desire of his to learn on his own by having him associate learning with being scolded, boring subjects of absolutely no interest to him, and drudgery. I am hoping that if he is learning about things he wants to I can reignite his once natural love of learning. At the library he  found and then took out books on technology, World War I, World War II (he loves to read/watch videos about this war), the Marines, pirates, and special effects. All of these topics have a wealth of knowledge in them, and he read from the time we got home until almost bedtime. It was nice to see him relaxed again. We will continue to work this way until I feel that he is not so stressed out. I am not sure what is going to come next in terms of his schooling, but I do know that for now, what we are currently doing is what works best for Andy. That is all that is important to me.

Sarah continues to get better every day. She is still getting up at night a lot to use the restroom, but her eyesight seems to be improving. It will never be perfect, but it is better and that is all that I can ask for. We should be getting the results back from her diabetes test in the next week or so to determine if that is the cause of her constant nighttime bathroom breaks. We will see...