We had such a fabulous trip - three weeks in sunny Florida and only one rainy day to speak of.  The boys had a most wonderful time.  I only wish we could have stayed longer.

Thank you all for the comments and advice on my previous post.  I still feel so discouraged.  I'm going to take a couple of weeks here before Christmas to just relax and not worry too much about school.  Of course, we have to do 180 days before June 30, but I can probably squeeze those in. 

My youngest turned three this week, and I'm hoping he will start to come out of his "terrible" phase soon.  He spends a good deal of the day crying over one thing or another.  We had one day in Disney that was like that, and Hubby was complaining about it, and I just said, "Welcome to my world."  He really makes me crazy sometimes.

I know you're all probably wondering where I've been and frankly, so have I.  Though I blog on my regular blog every day, I find myself wanting to be a little more honest here, where my family and friends can't find me.

I started this blog as a place to discuss my homeschool triumphs and tragedies, because I knew there would be other people out there going through the same things.  And it has been so wonderful to have the encouragement I've needed.  But the truth is, lately I haven't had any triumphs.  I haven't had any tragedies.  I've pretty much given up.

So here we are on our vacation in Florida.  I started school three weeks early so we could take this time off without falling behind.  I am discouraged.  I don't want to go back to school on the 10th.  I'm just so tired.  I'm tired of planning lessons, but I'm more tired of planning lessons that don't get taught.  I'm tired of math, but I'm more tired of children who won't do their math.  I'm tired of sitting in the school room, but I'm more tired of sitting in the school room waiting for children who don't come even when they've been called a hundred times.

This is bad, folks.  I don't usually get to this point until April.  Here it is November and I want it to end.  I feel like I'm totally screwing up here.  And I don't know how to get out of this hole.

Thanks for the encouragement after my last post.  I wish I could say things have gotten better, but I feel like I'm spinning my wheels.  We leave for Florida in a month and we'll be gone three weeks.  I want to stay on track until then so that we can just relax while we're there.  I know I'll be able to count some of what we do there as school time (EPCOT for example), but I don't want to have to think about work while we're on vacation.

Right now, I have one week's worth of lessons planned out.  I tried to implement the first of these on Monday and met with nothing but grumbling and complaining.  My children obviously do not understand how lucky they are to be at home instead of sitting in a classroom eight hours a day.  The whole trip to Florida would be off if they were in school.  Instead, they whined about listening to a six-minute presentation online.  Six minutes!  Oh, the horror, the cruelty!  Give me a break.

I can't even get them out of bed in the morning anymore, let alone get them to do any extra work, and by extra I mean anything except math and language arts.  I'm so tired of yelling and being ignored and being treated like the bad guy for wanting them to learn something.

We are having one of those months, where nothing much seems to get done and I spend most of the day discouraged.  I feel like I've lost control and I don't know how to get it back.  I can get the boys to do their math and language arts, but as far as anything else, we've been completely negligent.  I'm just tired and frustrated.

The worst thing is dealing with DS2.  He demands constant attention.  So many times, just when I feel like I'm getting something accomplished, he comes along and starts screaming at me and I totally lose it.  I can't be an effective teacher and keep track of a 2 year old at the same time.

And I especially feel bad for DS11, who follows all the rules and does everything he's supposed to.  He ends up being "punished" by not being allowed to play on the computer or Wii because if he does, his brothers who have not done their work yet will sit and watch him and not get anything done.  It's frustrating me to have to take a privilege away from the one child who deserves to have it!

{{Sigh}} Just needed to vent.

By the time I got the whole snow lesson printed out yesterday, my head was killing me.  So I didn't do it.  I didn't do much of anything except put my seven year old down in front of his spelling lesson.  I hate days when I don't feel good, because nothing gets accomplished.

I am fortunate to have a wonderful evaluator, who understands that a "school day" doesn't have to include formally sitting down and teaching specific lessons.  She knows that my kids are learning, and that's the important part.  And I have to keep reminding myself of that, on days like yesterday!

Hopefully today I'll feel okay and we can get some stuff done.

It's been another one of those weeks, where not a lot of school work gets done.  I know I shouldn't stress about it.  But I do.  When I was using the cyber charter school, we had a teacher conference once a month, and I felt like the boys needed to be learning or I would look bad.  Now that the only accountability I have is to make a portfolio for the ten year old at the end of the year, I've become a lot more relaxed.  I wish I could say the boys enjoy school more, but they don't.

We have had some good math lessons this week.  DS10 is finally getting the hang of multiplication, learning his facts by heart.  He's got the 2s and 3s down cold. (Note: when making flash cards, don't use a marker for the answer.  Your child will see the bleed-through and read the answer.  I figured this out when he kept telling me 3x7 was 12.)  And DS7 is really picking up the math concepts quickly.  So that's good.  But I still feel like we're falling behind.

Okay, since they're busy right now, I'm going to go see what I can do with this template, or maybe find a new one.  God bless!