The kids and I actually had a very pleasant homeschool day today.  There was nothing particularly outstanding about it; it just was pleasant.  And lately, sad to say, that is increasingly rare.

I am SO at the end of my rope with Spaz, and have been for several weeks.  ADH I can handle OK, but this ADH-meets-adolescence stuff is just getting to be intolerable.  Lack of focus, overflow of energy, & incessant babbling are one thing; the constant battles & meltdowns over nearly everything imaginable are quite another.  Not to mention that I am increasingly frustrated with my own lack of consistency, poor management skills, and inadequate organization.  Yesterday’s “head blogs” were something along these lines:  “Why oh WHY does an AD mom think she can homeschool an ADH kid?  This is just insanely stupid! … I’d as soon send him packing to the outermost reaches of Kazakhstan (or at least to the nearest public school) as look at him. …  My ideal of ‘enjoying learning together’ has morphed into ‘loathing even being together’. …”  Etc, etc, ad nauseum.  Arntcha glad that was among the many posts that never make it out of my brain and onto the web?

But today… today was different.  Yesterday’s battles and tears over piano practice and timeline entries and unfinished chores gave way to peaceful compliance and cheerful cooperation, and I have no idea why.  I was pretty consistent with consequences yesterday, but consequences have not generally been a big deterrent for Spaz.  His diet was no different than usual, and the only thing we are doing differently is having Dad wake him up and throw the football with him first thing rather than after breakfast.  I had thought it might help a little, but yesterday it went downhill from there, and I cannot see how it would have such a profound effect today.  So I do not know why today was devoid of our usual frustration, but I’ll give all the credit to the Lord.  Daily I pray for the peace and joy of the Lord to pervade our home, and today it did.  Why today and not other days, I know not.  Other than getting a sufficient amount of sleep for once, I don’t think I did anything to merit it.  (In fact, while I had extra-long devotions yesterday, today I skipped them altogether, so go figure.  :-)  Maybe the Lord knew I just needed a rest.  **Lord, I need one again tomorrow!**

It wasn’t necessarily a more productive day than any other, just a more serene & enjoyable one.  Spaz got up without complaint (highly unusual) and went out in his pj’s to throw a football with Huz in the driveway.  The kids did their BBTs (Before Breakfast Things) in the allotted time with nary a bicker.  Because I had to be distracted by some important phone calls & faxes, I suggested they get a headstart on their laundry-folding while waiting for breakfast-- and to my utter amazement, they did so immediately & thoroughly. 

Before he went to the piano, Spaz & I agreed beforehand, in writing, what & how he would practice.  He finished before I was done doing math with Fuzz, and instead of gravitating to his Hot Wheels or football cards or torturing the cat, he bided his time by tracing a map of England out of a history atlas.  (This was not an assignment, just something he wanted to do.)  His math lesson was an easy one, and I avoided the temptation to combine it with the following one.  He finished his lesson quickly and without spending 25 minutes in the bathroom.

Then it was time for an outdoor break, despite the sprinkles.  While Spaz tossed a football with dad again, Fuzz took it upon herself to go out to the clothesline and gather all the soaking wet laundry that had been hanging out for nearly 24 hours, the last 18 of them in the rain.  Bless her heart, if she hadn’t done so, it might be out there yet!  The kids came in, traded chores with each other, and did them cheerfully without a second reminder.  (Yes, they really did!  I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.)  Huz came in and had lunch with us, which doesn’t happen often, and then I asked who'd want to help me make some bread in the bread machine.  Their play break somehow forgotten (!?!), both eagerly volunteered, and we  got through the process together with no squabbling.

You know, pretty much everything I have written so far about our day has me shaking my head in amazement.  So, so different from the way things usually go.

When I had planned our day the previous evening, I had decided that we didn’t need to do history or any deliberate language arts today.  (I say “deliberate” because a lot of our language arts occurs spontaneously.)  Since we wouldn’t have a lot on the agenda for the afternoon, we’d have time for a “fun” activity or project.  Such occasions sometimes turn out to be more frustrating than fun, as the kids can’t agree on what they want to do, or Spaz loses focus and doesn’t do much of anything, and then I get frustrated.  So I was not entirely certain that our day would continue on its enjoyable and peaceful course.  But in fact, it did.

I told the kids we had some time to do “whatever we want”, perhaps art or a literature project or a little science.  (Science is basically an elective at our house; I’m not saying it should  be, but it is.)  To my surprise, we ended up doing… history and language arts!  Despite my plans to the contrary, Spaz begged me to read history and Fuzz didn’t object, so I found another story to supplement what we’d read yesterday about the Thirty Years’ War.  Then Fuzz asked if we could play our silly word game, which consists of going through a passage of literature and underlining all the words that are of a particular part of speech, and then flipping over our homemade word cards one at a time and substituting those words for the underlined ones.  Fuzz wanted to do nouns, and Spaz insisted that we use the history story. So we had a most enjoyable and mirthful time reading about Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Vacuum Cleaner, and the Protestant Bohemian forks who didn’t appreciate Ferdinand’s Catholic rubber bands, not to mention the angry shoes who threw two accordions out the tu-tu.  Best version of the “Defenestration of Prague” that I’ve ever read.

By the time I finally insisted on ending the game, it was after 3, and I suggested that they do their handwriting and reading and call it a day.  They each picked out things to copy with little fuss, and even Spaz (who often will take 25 minutes to complete one-third of a ten-minute assignment) got right to work and finished quickly.  They then escaped upstairs without putting their things away.  I went up to remind them to do so, found them each sprawled on the living room floor with a book, and decided to quietly go back downstairs and put everything away myself.

For some families, that would be a normal day.  Once upon a time, it would have been that for us as well.   But in the current scheme of things, it was a really good day.  We really did “enjoy learning together” today.  And after reading over this post, I have decided that, contrary to my statement in the first paragraph, it was indeed a day full of outstanding events.  (Such as, but not limited to, kids doing chores cheerfully at first reminder!!!)  And I can only hope that, in staying up until 1:40 am blogging about it, I have not ruined my chances for a repeat tomorrow!