The past 4 weeks have flown past.

Between Allen leaving, getting back into a "normal" just hte 3 of us routine, doing school, eating, cooking, shopping for food, things have just taken their tole.

I was put on a NASTY medication for my toe, which was infected and the infection has gone but it looks like something else has started.  The NP group I see thinks it might be gout based on what I've described, but they can't see me for several weeks.  UGH...hello, why do I have a PCM if my PCM can't SEE me!  They said if it gets too painful go to the ER.  Ohoo, doesn't that sound nice!

So, my days for several weeks have looked like this:

~Drag my b*tt out of bed at 7am, because the medication is disrupting my synthroid medication I am draggggggging all the time.

~Check the kids chores, get them breakfast, get myself breakfast so I can take the Nasty Pill, turn Disney channel on for the kids so I can soak my foot in peace.

~Go upstairs shower, get dressed, soak my foot while reading a book and trying not to throw one of the cats across the bathroom (It would be worse if I just kicked the cats out of the bathroom), push as much puss out of my toe as I can, soak my foot somemore, dry my foot, put lotion on my hands and other foot....

~Do a quick tidy of the kitchen and turn the tv off so we can start school by 9 am.  (We normally start between 8-8:30)

~9 am, start school...

~10 am, have snack and I do read alouds -- This past week I had a reprieve from reading aloud as we had an audio cd to listen to for history and I played that instead of reading from the RA books.

~10:30 am, do science or history depending on the day of the week

~11 am, Lori is excused and Ky does math

~12 noon, we are either finished for the day or break for lunch...I get another Nasty Pill....now starts the fun:  do I have to "potty" before we finish school or do I just get to belch during the rest of the lessons

~12:30pm, if we didn't finish before lunch we finish what's left...either with momentary "potty" breaks for me or with Kyler laughing hysterically between my belching (think of a Big Man Belch....either that or a Pregnancy Belch)

~1 pm, Ky is excused from school to do as he will...normally with Lori

~1:05 pm, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Thank heavens my kids are of a reasonable age and I can nap zzzzzzzzzzzz

~2:30 pm, I drag myself up again from my nap...usually by arguing between the masses.  90 minutes seems to be the longest they can go without arguing.

~3 pm, snack time (mainly because _I_ am snacking all the time because of this Nasty Pill

~4:30pm, Start dinner

~5 pm, eat dinner, take the Nasty Pill

~5:30 - 6:45 pm, we all clean the downstairs and tidy respective rooms and I fold laundry, then jammie time, while they get the last 30-45 minutes to play before bedtime, I get to soak my foot again, while shooing cats away and push out puss.

~6:45 pm, herd kids to bed, read books to both

~7 pm, slump down in front of the tv to either watch tv or a movie...no energy....can't go to sleep until after lights out and Nasty Pill.....BLECH

~8 pm, Lori is always asleep by 7:30 and Ky has his lights turned off at 8 pm to go to sleep

~9 pm, blech blech blech there is nothing on tv and I don't wanna watch a movie....blech blech

~10 pm, Okay, that's it....I'm going to bed.  Take the Nasty Pill and go to sleep.

Okay, with all that complaining thank heavens I am DONE with that nasty medication!!  It was NASTY!!!

I finished it Monday, it is now Friday and I'm starting to "recover".  I'm not dragging myself out of bed in the morning and am actually able to stay awake nicely until 10pm.  I'm hoping to be able to go back to bedtime at 10 pm and wake up at 6 am.  I have to have my 8 hours of sleep......grump, I occasionally wish I still had my hyperthyriod!!!  Losing 2-3 hours a night to sleeping sucks!

But, back to homeschooling.

Ky is almost done with Singapore 2B math.  He is just moving along!  We just finished multiples of 4.  He LOVES multiplication but thinks division is annoying, so getting to do 2's, 3's, and 4's were a blast.  He starts multiples of 5's & 10's next week, but that will be fast and easy as 5's and 10's are his favorites.  We should be finished with 2 weeks worth in 1 week.  He'd do more, but I put my foot down at doing more than 2-3 lessons a day.  I keep worrying that he is going to do it too fast and NOT remember it, but he keeps proving that wrong!

Lori is on Singapore 1A math and is also almost done with it.  She is working on mental math, adding ones place to ones place and tens place to tens place...all mentally.  It's fun to watch her do it.  Math is not her favorite, but she does really well with it.

We are almost done with our unit study on Castles.  Ky is LOVING it, but Lori is Bored Bored Bored!!  We have 2 books left, both of which will be finished next week.  One is on King Arthur and one is called The Sword In The Tree.  We started the unit study on fact.  What was life like, what did they do, where did they go, how did they get there....life in the middle ages castle times.  Then, we moved onto ledgend.  Stories we know are true, stories we would like to think are true and stories which were based in fact....but wonder how much is true.  So, of course we had to do something with Merlin and King Arthur and the Round Table.

Science is boring!  We ahve a general consensus.  We were using one curriculium and nobody liked it, so we went to a different one, and we don't like this one either.  Soooo, now we are onto a totally different one!!  (next post will have our "to do" next school year listing)

Phonics....Ohooo!!  I am sooo sooo sooo excited.  I love to see progress!  It is so much fun!

Ky just finished ETC (Explode The Code) book 2 and did wonderfully!!!  He started book 3 and is actually enjoying doing ETC again.  I have cut back on his progress in OPG (Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading) to only doing 2 lessons a week.  Three days a week he reads a easy reader to me.  Yesterday he read a 'new' (to him) one.  Mouse Moves House by Usborne.  Ohooo!!  There were a total of 3 words he didn't know and needed help with....but other wise did REALLY well. 

He's been struggling with the different long vowel combinations.  He has been doing better with remembering to focus on the silent 'e' at the end of a word making the vowel long, but some of the other combinations just stump him.  Even remembering the song, "When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking..." only helps some of the time.

Lori is making HUGE progress with reading!!  She read 3/4 of Fat Cat on a Mat by Usborne to me yesterday and the ONLY words she needed help with are the ones she hadn't learned yet.  (We havn't done any long vowels or consonant changing sounds.)  But, not only did she read it...you could see her eyes darting ahead and pre-reading the next set of words to be read aloud.  We've stopped all progress in OPG for her.  I wanted her to start reading books to me and wow, I am so glad that hse has.  I think either next week or the week after I'll start back into OPG and having her learn new phonics concepts. 

Okay, that is about all I can think of off hand.  Today is our Friday off and my house is clean (so long as you aren't looking at the tornado the kids have in their bedrooms....) but I have a few more chores around here.

Kris