Today was a good day. It was one of the few in my brief career as a homeschooling mom where I have reached the end of the day with a song of joy in my heart - and the sense that my dreams for this journey are actually being fulfilled. I have enjoyed every day with my girls -- but so often there are battles, and messes, and chaos, and whining.... and I reach the end of the day with a tired sigh instead of a triumphant smile. :) Now, today was not perfect. We didn't cross every 't' or dot every 'i', and Elisa's spelling words were sloppy and Raina still dumped out every container of "educational" toys available to her, and the laundry still mounted and the dishes piled high, and the pencil shavings spilled.... but we learned. In the moment, with joy and excitement!
Today happened to be our first snow day. Yup, I know. It's October. But, there were were, mid-morning, with snow falling outside, and Elisa quickly rushed to change the rainy symbol on our weather graph to the snowflake one. :) We finished spelling, worked on some addition using cutouts of apples, read a beautiful story about a scarecrow, and then tucked the books away and left the mess on the floor to go dance in the snow. My kids were so excited. Our science lesson about fall seemed less than appropriate, somehow, so, off we danced, happy hearts and giant grins.
Grandma showed up with lunch from the grocery store deli (mid-errands on her day off from work). We had a green tea party with her and read Allan Say's book "Tea with Milk." We're studying Japan this week. Grandma headed home.
Raina settled quickly for nap, but the big girls were too happy about the snow. They kept jumping on the beds and singing, "It's our dream come true!" I only made Sadie try to sleep an hour before I let them get back up for more snow play. Angels, snow balls floating in the pond, cold toes and hands....
Back inside I got everyone dried off and seated for a snack. At the kitchen windowsill, I checked on Elisa's bug collection. For two days, her ladybug larvae had been still against one side of the jar. I had thought he was dead, but wondered whether it might be a stage of metamorphosis for him to be so motionless, too, so I didn't move him. Lo and behold -- the little larvae was now a blob of yellow with dark head. Gooey-looking. Quickly, I grabbed the jar and hurried to the computer to research the life stages of a ladybug. The images of pupa matched our ladybug perfectly. I called the girls upstairs and we read about how our baby bug would soon emerge as a spotted adult! Elisa was exultant. We printed off some ladybug coloring pages from the website and the girls happily colored as I prepared a Japanese dinner. Elisa asked if I knew any poems about ladybugs for her to write in her nature notebook. Remember this one? "Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children all gone!"
I ate (imitation) sushi. The girls nibbled rice. :) Afterward, Elisa and Sadie played a game with the squash-headed fall figurines from the table. They found the dreidel Emily and Ryan had given them for Christmas last year and invented a game that involved lots of spinning and jumping and falling splat to see which side the dreidel had landed on.
All the kids were sleeping by 7:45.
Yup. It was a good day.
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