1. I ignored the kids all week. As much as possible anyway. It was gorgeous outside and we stayed inside all week. They were not happy, but I've been in survival mode. This is due to the Cold-From-Hell that turned into this deep chest cough thingy that sounded really scary and wore me out but was fairly harmless from a contagious standpoint. At least I assume so, since I am the only one who has been suffering. In order to contain the chaos (and avoid aggravating the exhausting symptoms with further pollen) we stayed in our confined little space and growled at each other all week. And it's Friday. And next week is a chance to start over and do better.
2. It's getting better. Slowly. But I'm still coughing a lot and feeling slow. And I still have to go out tonight to do my organizing and leading thing that I do with our volunteer ministry. Because it needs to be done. So I'll be jetting out the door as soon as the last kid takes off this afternoon and then I'll be running non-stop until about 9 p.m. But Olivia is spending the night with Grandma, so that eases a bit of stress.
3. I have finished all the organizing bits I can do from home, and I feel like there's a bunch of other stuff I'm supposed to be doing. Like maybe taking a shower. But that means risking waking the baby and I'm thinking maybe I can get by with a ponytail and some fresh clothing if it means I get another half hour of peace and quiet.
4. It really has been that kind of week here. I'm taking it one day at a time and living for naptime.
5. Someday, when the cold is gone and the allergies have cooled down, I want to go for a walk and enjoy this Spring weather we've been having. We rarely get more than a week of Spring between the extremes of hot and cold around here. But it has been oh-so-mild and beautiful outside for a month now, and I haven't had much time to enjoy it.
6. I have discovered this week why I never had a desire to become a teacher of small children. Lots of friends did, but I never even considered it. The schedule rocks...who wouldn't want summers off? But I just can't be that creative and inspire excitement with small children for long periods of time. It wears me out. It's easy with one or two children of the same skill level, but when you have several children with vastly different skill levels it is just hard to stay interested. I want to help my kid and another kid (same skill level) move from simple cutting with scissors (which they mastered almost immediately) to cutting and pasting shapes. Instead I had to spend almost our entire "creative" time helping another kid figure out how to hold the scissors. She lost interest pretty fast while my kid and the other similarly-skilled kid couldn't get enough of cutting their papers to shreds. How do you occupy four kids who all want to be doing something different but also want to do the same things the other kids are doing? Exhausting.
7. And yet, I've resolved to start Olivia and the other kids on some sort of preschool curriculum in the Fall. Olivia is ready. The rest will just have to pick up what they can. We can't just sit around and fight over toys forever here. We need some structure. Anyone have any curricula suggestions?
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