Wah, wah, wah

It has been a day of much sobbing at Chez Clendenon. Frances sobbing because her tummy hurts and her legs hurt and her neck hurts. Walter sobbing because Ollie got to go on a playdate and he didn't. Rutledge sobbing because he's 2. Frances sobbing again because someone knocked her down and because she fell off the sink in the bathroom and, and....



We're enjoying _Down the Rabbit Hole_, but moving at an all too slow pace. We'll never finish at the rate we're going. I am having to concentrate on schoolwork day and night now to get the boys up to where they need to be for me to feel confident about taking them out of second grade at the end of the summer. Today we covered every subject I had planned, except that Walter didn't seem to get to the grammar page. But both of did 20 pages of test prep, two pages of math plus extra textbook work, two pages of spelling, two pages of Explode the Code, two pages of geography/social studies work, two oral spelling tests, and then writing each of their words seven times. The boys also did handwriting work. Tomorrow I'm going to try to bump up to having them write two sentences in their journals. The important thing is that they get a lot of time with pencils in hands so that their fine motor skills will improve. I need to study a bit more about other things we could be doing to improve their hand strength, but mostly I think they just need meticulous instruction in how to make lowercase letters with as few pencil strokes as possible.

I am feeling particularly tapped out as a person myself lately. All I want to do is play tennis, and I can't find people to play during the times I'm available, and I'm just feeling like a terrible player in general. My performance has been very disappointing, and I know that I need to work on it, but the best way to do that is to go to as many clinics as you have time for, and I can't quite swing that. I have been unsuccessful in finding a sitter for Thursday, so I'm not going to be able to play this week. Next week I already said I'd be somewhere else, though to be honest, I'd rather be playing tennis. But the possibility that I'm going to find childcare is almost nothing, so it's probably better that I've found something to occupy that time. My need to play tennis is pretty intense; I'm craving that time to do something on my own without children. Now that Kerry is working until 6:30 or 7:00 every night, I am finding that more than ever, I need to get these breaks for myself. I am quite bummed that it isn't working out as I had planned.

Next year feels so up in the air to me. If my boys were smart, I would feel much better about the prospect of sending them to school. As it is, I worry that if they transfer to school, they will be lost in the sea of average students in the middle group, plodding their way through the system as one of a sea of faces. My intention in sending them to school would be for them to receive the attention and education that they deserve so that they can find their potential. Deep down, I want to believe that they are capable people, but at home, I am preventing them from really shining because I am not offering them enough work and enough scope of material. Up until now, I have been focusing fairly narrowly on reading and math, seeing the basic skills as what will allow them to explore their own interests. Most of our other "school" doesn't look all that much like school; we spend hours reading about all kinds of topics, looking up information to their questions, and doing projects. I miss some of these things, but unless we want to spend more than 5 hours a day on school, I need to drop some of this so that they can pick up the basic skills they are lacking: spelling, handwriting, math from several different books, proofreading skills.

Here's my favorite test prep question of the day:

Which one of these does not belong?

(a) grass
(b) dirt
(c) carpet
(d) flowers