This Week's H/School Journal

In our homeschool this week...
...we finally finished our unit study on Big Cats.  This thing has seemed to drag on forever!  We started it just over four weeks ago.  But then we left for Alberta and did virtually nothing in our studies while we were away and we haven't been all that motivated to just get it done.  The kids have really enjoyed it, though.  In the course of this unit study, Seth and Lizzie have also really learned and understood what it means to be a mammal, what a carnivore is, what prey is/are, and so many details about the big cats.  Every. single. thing. is new for the younger kids and we repeat a lot of things every day in the hopes that some of these things sink in.

Places we went and people we saw...

...not all that much this week!  The past number of weeks have been so terribly busy.  And last week saw a lot of regression in the younger kids.  So at the end of last week, I cancelled almost all of our plans for this week and we spent a lot of time hanging out at the house, enjoying pajama days, watching more tv than usual, and doing a bit of school.

...two friends came over for lunch one day this week (and brought lunch!!!), which the kids (and I) loved.

...the boys finally finished up the last of their cycling program on Thursday and I think it would be fair to say that it was a resounding success!  In addition to having their endurance tested by some of the rides, they also learned a lot of new skills (including riding on a teeter totter!) and their confidence grew exponentially.  Tuesday and Thursday evenings have been their favourite nights of the week for the past few months!

...my parents took the kids out for lunch one day, which was lovely because it gave me the chance to have lunch with a friend I haven't seen for a few months; it was good to catch up, and the kids loved hanging out with their grandparents for a couple of hours.

...my family came over for dinner last night, rather spontaneously, and it was lovely to eat outside in the warm summer air and for my three to play with two of their cousins.

...the kids had a couple of friends over on Saturday and I think we all had a lot of fun...capped off by a movie at the end of the day.

My favourite thing this week was...

...being at home with the kids and not doing to much else.  The boys have already asked if we can do more days like this - a clear acknowledgement that they, too, have been a little fatigued by the pace we've been keeping.

Things I'm working on...

...sleep.  As you may know if you've been reading my blog for a while, I routinely have issues with insomnia.  When I'm in one of those cycles, life is just a wee bit tougher - it's hard being at my best when I'm tired.  I think I'm just coming to an end of four or five weeks of pretty bad insomnia, and I'm grateful to be on this end of things.  Usually my insomnia is accompanied by an increase in the numbers of nightmares I have as well, and I'll be glad to see them go, too.  One day this week, I woke up in a post-nightmare sweat at 5:22am, after just a few hours of sleep.  My nightmare involved my mom, and I simply couldn't get past the fact that maybe my nightmare was true - so my poor mom had to endure a 5:30am phonecall from me, just so I could ask if everything was ok.  The poor woman was fine...other than the fact that she'd just been woken up by her crazy daughter!!

...I started an online course that will take me a few weeks to complete.  I'm writing a separate post about that, so I won't detail it here other than to say that it's related to Seth's language issues.

I'm grateful for...

...Given that last week was a tough one in terms of kids regressing into former behaviours, I have found myself quite grateful this week for how far we've come in the past year.  Experiencing a week of rather hard things last week was a reminder of how really terribly difficult last year and the early part of this year were ('cause last week had nothin' on last year!).  No wonder I struggled with depression.  Wow, I'm just so glad to be at this point in our journey.