Sweet September

Man, I love flipping my calendar to September. The promise of cooler fall days ahead – the change in the morning light streaming through the windows – the first day of school – I really love this time of year.

Apparently that love of September is genetic, because Jonas woke up yesterday morning proclaiming that he couldn’t wait another minute for school to start. And he definitely couldn’t wait until after Labor Day. He didn’t even want to wait for Monday! One of the joys of homeschooling, after all, is setting one’s own schedule. I considered putting him off until Monday (which was my original plan, drafted back in early June before my mom got sick) and then I changed my mind. If he wanted to start Kindergarten on the first Saturday of September, well – why not?! I’m sure the day will come when he’ll beg instead to put off our first day for a few more weeks 😉 and besides – this school year may have a number of unplanned interruptions as we travel back and forth to Georgia to be with my mom during chemo treatments and suck – so we’ll get a little bit “ahead.”

It was a lovely first day – actually a little light on the academics, since ABeka begins the math curriculum with some very simple review work, the phonics lessons are half-as-long as normal, and there’s no reading until Day 6! (Wacky. I think it must be set up that way for classrooms, where you spend the first week wasting using a lot of time explaining classroom procedures and learning to walk in a line and traveling around the school to learn where the nurse’s office and cafeteria are located. At home, there’s really no great reason to put off diving right in, if you ask me.)

Pictures to come!

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Susannah is just… words fail me sometimes when I want to describe this kid. Her newest ‘thing’ is walking around with her eyes shut. WHY? Not a clue. If you figure it out, let me know. She eats her oatmeal – with her eyes closed. She asks for a drink, then stands there with her hand extended for the cup – with her eyes closed. She follows her brother down the hall – with her eyes closed. And with her chin lifted and turned at an angle. It’s kind of sassy, actually. The pose is a little bit highfalutin’ – maybe she thinks she’s too good for us all of a sudden.

She’s about 80% daytime pottytrained, which is AWESOME for a 19-month-old. And yet…. (one day she will hate me for this story, so I might post it and then take it down. We’ll see.) She has been pooping in the potty for months, but recently she’s had a few times when she didn’t go until after she’d been put down for naptime or bedtime. Rather than call out for me, she has instead taken off all her clothes – pulled off her diaper – and thrown poop onto her floor. Like a monkey in a cage! A poopy, stinky, disgusting monkey. The first time it happened I was shocked. The second time it happened I was grossed completely out, but thought that putting her to bed in zippered footie pajamas would solve the problem. The third time in happened (in which she unzipped and disrobed completely from said pajamas) I have decided she’s just really wierd. And apparently has no qualms about touching poop. YUCK! I am just hoping & praying her system will get back on track for pooping during daytime hours, so she can go back to using the toilet like everyone else around here.

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It looks like my mom will start chemo later this week. Plans are still up in the air for when Jonas, Susannah, & I will drive down there – at first Mom didn’t want me to be there during her treatments, in case she was very sick; she didn’t want to scare the kids. Then she said she just wants to see us, so we should come on down (but Chris doesn’t want me driving with the Labor Day holiday traffic). So, we’ll see. Please pray for her as she heads into her treatments, and pray that I will be able to decide when to go down & for traveling safety as I drive.