A couple of days ago, I tried writing an entry that would explain all the changes we’ve made in the last month – new books, new schedule, new co-op, new friends – but those kinds of posts are excruciatingly boring, both to write and to read. So instead I’ll just say that things are working much better now. It’s like everything just suddenly fell in to place. Only they didn’t of course because there are still a lot of things I’d like to see change, but we’re making slow and steady progress, and that is enough to celebrate.
We were really rockin’ last week. Seriously, you wouldn’t believe it. D was up every morning and at her work by 8:30. She was finished by 10:30 and experienced that rush of relief and freedom that comes when you have crossed off all the things on your to do list and your time is your own. We read poetry and current events, she discovered that math can be fun (!) and that she is capable of figuring a lot of it out on her own, we planned a field trip, went to Excel and to the unschool park day… it was decidedly our most rewarding week so far all year. And all of this while I’m on a sugar fast.
Then everything went to hell with daylight savings. I HATE daylight savings. I sometimes think it must be an evil plot against families with small children, devised by some bitter, barren monster. As if getting kids on a regular sleeping schedule isn’t hard enough without throwing a bi-annual time change into the mix. Without fail, no matter if we’re springing forward or falling back, our kids can’t fall asleep at night, are up throughout the night (even more than usual) and awake at some ungodly our. Except for D who now wants to sleep until noon.
I’m playing with the idea of switching of nights and mornings with P but that idea is pretty impractical right now. My magic thinking now revolves around finding the perfect schedule and sticking to it. If we were all up at the same time, eating breakfast at around the same time, stretching, doing morning chores together and then sitting down to work at the kitchen table, then life would suddenly be perfect. We would get twice as much work done, and we would all whistle while we did our chores, or listen to audio books, our sleep would be regulated and the children wouldn’t fight anymore, and everyone including P will be so impressed with us and come to me for advice… all if I could just make myself wake up at the same every morning. Regardless of how late I was up the night before with the baby or how many times she woke to nurse. Realizing the impracticality of that right now, my magical thinking shifts to the future. “When the baby is weaned,” I tell myself, then we’ll be able to do this homeschooling thing properly. My God, why is it so incredibly difficult for me to just stay in today and to work with what I have?
