The Wall

I've hit the wall. The last 162 days have gone really well. I really don't feel like I've said to myself "deployment really freaking sucks" (ok, maybe when Eli was saying John was dead was a little hard) but today it happened. 

I hit the wall. 

I'm exhausted, done, and over this one. As a parent, you're expected to take a certain number of tantrums, "I don't like this" and those days when your children doubt themselves. I can't take any more of them. 

I have two races coming up before he comes home and I'm really, seriously, thinking about just quitting. Quitting it all and just doing the necessary until my birthday. 

I'm that tired. 

The First Few Weeks of School

So far, we've started the new school year strong. Honestly, I wasn't sure how things were going to go during deployment. The kids were ready for routine and I was ready to get started to we could have 6 weeks under our belt before we took a week of vacation to relax with John. 

My big 1st grader! 

Preschooler doing more Kindergarten work, but at his
own pace.

Teeny tiny tot school graduate, moving on to Tot School. 

Turner is doing very well and finally actually ready to write. We are using Handwriting Without Tears in addition to writing notes and letters to people. He still works on fine motor skills by participating in anything Eli does for PK work. 

Working out of his Handwriting Without Tears book.

Eli is MUCH more willing to sit and work on things that aren't just manipulatives, or toys/blocks. He's taken a huge interest in learning his letter sounds and really would rather learn to write the letters. 

Stamping the letter C.

Diligently working away at his Tot School work. 

They boys have inherited John's love of history so I decided to go with The Story of the World and the activity book. The boys have enjoyed everything so far! 

Learning a bit about archaeology with a fake dig. 

Eli loves his crafts! 

SOTW coloring sheet. Do you know what a shaduf is?!? I didn't! 

Montessori inspired Tot work.

Just making cave paintings on a rainy morning!

We took a trip to DC (that totally counts as school work!)

Eli asked to do some handwriting like Brother. 

Deacon has been obsessed with lining up cars so this was the
perfect 10 minute distraction. 

Separating capital and lower case letters.

No day is complete without a little technology! 

These our our basics for now (I don't have any pictures of Turner with his Miquon Math and the accompanying rods. He will start Math in Focus or Singapore Math around November). We will incorporate our co-op, science (R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey) and a few other things at the end of September. I wasn't in a hurry to start all at once: I wanted guaranteed success for a few weeks!

The Lamest Excuse(s)

A few months back, I started having trouble uploading pictures here, facebook and snapfish. It was more annoying than anything, but I stopped uploading everything! Totally lame and I feel terrible for my sweet husband whom I promised I'd keep updated while he was deployed.

After two months or so of trying to figure it all out, I finally fixed it with a simple drag and drop. Mac is sometimes SO simple, I over look the obvious!

 Training for a triathlon and various other races really kicked my butt, too! Not to mention the homeschooling and general child-rearing. I'd throw house cleaning on the list, but I hired someone to come help me out weekly and it's been life changing (hello, keeping up with laundry since someone else mopped the floors!).

Enough excuses in one post!

We are well and three weeks in to school now. I can't believe it's been three consistent weeks with an almost 6, 4 and 2 year old. Last year it was so hard to do much of anything since Deacon needed to nurse and Eli wasn't interested in much aside from gross motor skills games.

I think from now on, I'll post a bit about school here instead of on a separate blog - maybe I will be able to keep up with both while doing all those other things in life.

Me & My Gang