Mother's Daybook - March 4th

Thinking - Thank goodness this month is over! This has been my first real bout with the February blues of homeschooling. Not just blahs of life, I'm tired of winter stuff, because, really, we've barely had any. It's the last day of February and the kids are running outside barefooted because its 72 degrees! But real, honest-to-goodness, am I doing okay with this homeschool thing? Are we getting everything in exactly as I planned (no, of course not), why can't we ever seem to get around to French (because something has to be the least important and that happens to be what gets dropped when something does), why is this so hard (because I've had a bazillion and a half appointments plus visitors plus lots of gorgeous weather beckoning us outside and when we are at home, we've got a toddler). Basically, am I failing my children?!

 No, I am not. I am feeling what apparently 85% of homeschooling moms feel in February. I made a few minor tweaks, texted a few safe homeschool mommy friends who are feeling the same thing, reviewed my list of read-alouds completed and took an honest and calm look at the schedule. We're going to be finishing week 6 this week which is really right on track so no need to panic. And then, I just pushed through! But today the kids were playing in their tree fort and spontaneously singing their folk song and I was able to just sit and enjoy it. I really enjoyed that they were singing their folk song OUTSIDE. February's song for us was There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea which, while perfectly delightful the first time you hear it each day, does tend to lose some appeal with repetition. But they love it and even if we were technically behind, all would really be okay. But I'm still glad it's March now!

Drinking - This Ginger Peach Green Tea with Matcha. It's Amazing! Yep, that capital A is deserved. And wonderful without any added sweetener. I also recently tries a similar tea, Pomegranate Raspberry Green Tea but its a little tart on its own and I can't add honey this month because of Whole30. I'll try it again in a few weeks but for now, its me and the ginger peach every day. Yes, daily caffeine. After many years of only herbal/rooibos teas, I have fallen pray to the lures of caffeine. It's true. I still love my rooibos teas but they are all loose and I broke my teapot with built in steeper thing so I can't drink them until I get some new steeping deceive. Better get on that self!

Watching - Finding Dory. Craig had to head out of town on business. I'm actually writing this now because I'm trying to stay awake to greet him as he comes home even thought its my bedtime already. But when he's gone, I tend to relax a bit. We eat simpler meals (hello Applegate Turkey Dogs and frozen peas!) and I break out a bit more screen time than our usual meager allowance. We went with Finding Dory and it was a hit. Jonah's seen Finding Nemo several times but it scares him still and I have to skip certain parts so I was relieved that he didn't mind much from this one. But I wish I could have recorded Lucy's face when she first saw baby Dory. Totally adorable! She was so in love with that cute little baby fishy.

Surviving - A tummy bug. Enough said.

But even when she's sick and needing her mommy, she can't let go of baby. The "three" of us spent a whole day this way. At first I thought it was just teething fussiness but no, it wasn't. 

Celebrating - Lent. Well, celebrating doesn't seem like the right word but for once I didn't feel like Lent snuck up on us. Our church doesn't have an Ash Wednesday service but we had a very early dinner, loaded everyone up and went into the city to go to the big Cathedral (this is before the tummy bug struck obviously. I didn't take puking kids to a Mass. I'm not THAT crazy). We had to leave a tad early but I think they all did well. And we got our ashes.

Lest you think I'm biased in favor of Norah when it comes to pictures. I did try to take the big kid's pictures but they weren't in the picture taking mood. They weren't grumpy, just being silly. 

Keeping Alive - Our new baby chicks! We got ten new little ones yesterday. The kids wanted to name them but thought keeping track of ten names/chickens would be hard so they named each group. The ones with black backs and black/silver sides are Wyandottes. Jonah named them Stars in the Sky but we are allowed to use the nicknames Stars (but not Star. It might be plural!) The ones that look all black (but as chicks are actually yellowish underneath) are Astralorps which is a new breed for us to try. They will be all black as adult so Lucy named them Midnight. All the Buff Orpington's are yellow are named sunshine and were my (and Craig's) responsibility to name so I went with the theme and did Sunshine.

This is our third batch of chicks and we've haven't lost a chick yet, even through some rough times, like a power outage that had us scrambling to fill water bottles to keep them warm enough a few years back. This batch so far seems particularly stupid/suicidal so we'll see if our luck, or should I say Chicken skills, hold out.

This is one of my favorite types of nature study . They grow so fast everyday is a new chance for nature study. One of the ten still had it's egg tooth so we got a upclose look at that this morning and will be watching to see when if falls off. In the picture below, its the little dot on the top of its beak that looks a bit lighter. I don't remember any of our previous ones having theirs but I don't remember looking either. They fall off pretty early so its lucky we got to see it. Plus, they are just so darn cute and fluffy.