An Even Weirder Day

My kids headed up to Kenai with my husband early this morning to hang out with relatives for a day before having some fun skiing at Alyeska tomorrow. This left me a day without kids!

Whoa! When was the last time this happened?? Never this year! The silence was delightful; I got a lot done and could really focus on my tasks. This was what life was like before homeschooling. Now I cannot imagine having this kind of time to myself every day. Today was great, and tomorrow will be nice, but then I will be ready to have my kids back. Just as kids need a break from school and adults need vacations from jobs, I think parents need breaks from kids, especially the parent who does the bulk of the work when homeschooling. It can be hard, in a way, to take that. The level of commitment to the kids is high, and one doesn't always "feel" like they need a break. I didn't when I decided yesterday to stay home and let the rest of the family go play. But when a friend at church today mentioned that I looked very peaceful and relaxed, I realized that I needed it. Now I just have to coach myself not to feel guilty about it!

Avoiding Work During Break

Since our school is close to the same place as our home I was curious to see if the kids would actually take a break from school during spring break. Denver is already counting down the weeks to the end of the school year (10!) so I didn't think he would have a problem forgetting about school and I was right! He loves to play and keeps himself thoroughly occupied.

Aurora took the first 5 days off and didn't even unpack her book bag from our pre-vacation travels, but a couple of nights ago I found her doing her math in bed at 10:30 one night, and as vacation goes on she's doing more math--just because she loves math so much! And I was talking to her this morning when all of a sudden she broke in and said, "I have a question for you about my math." Obviously her mind was on math and not what I was talking about!

Part of me really wants my kids to just take a break from the school work, while another part of me says, "If they like doing their so-called 'schoolwork' so much, let them." I can tell both the kids are thinking about summer since they've been asking questions about summer plans this week and talking about things they'll be doing during their summer break. So there is hope that they're not total study geeks!