Music: Kilkelly
The last two passports came. Whew! Brendan and Kevin can come with us to Ireland after all : ).
Our car is back from the shop but has to go in again next week.
I got some more raking done. It’s funny. Recently, going out there to rake has been the signal for my teen and pre-teen boys to come out and chat with me. Not offer to help — but come and talk. It’s sort of amusing and charming to me. I want that quality time more than I want their contribution to the yard right now. But next week I’m going to make a checklist and get us all working.
I sat on the porch with Kieron and the two little ones today — he said that chatting made up a bit for the disappointment of missing homeschool meeting because the car was gone. That was sweet and a bit sad.
I also spent some time with Brendan looking up football reference books. I noticed how much of this day’s interaction was of the Leaning on a Truck variety (wisdom from Sandra Dodd — I reread it often– and applies to my introvert family in particular).
Clare took some great pictures with my digital.
No academics today. Kieron is reading Five Children and It. I think Sean is in one of his non-reading cycles. He is throwing the football and his dad bought him a jumprope and he’s gotten way fast with it, broken toe or not.
We kept the electronic games off today. It was difficult for Patrick. He is getting over it now though and playing Duplos with Kieron. Everyone agrees that a daily screen time does not work around here; we tried it for two weeks and it just didn’t work. Paddy can not cope emotionally with it and becomes his evil twin self. So we’re going back to twice a week, one day being our “town day” so Paddy does not get pulled into the screen.
Paddy is getting into an aggressive habit with Aidan (another reason for limiting computer games) and Aidan reacts by getting distraught. For the sake of both of them I’m going to start keeping their interactions in the front of my vision. When my older kids were younger and we lived in a small house, it was easy for me to forestall full-scale conflicts. Recently, I’m old and distracted and there’s more space; too much slips by. So I have to remind myself to keep my eye on things. There’s the temptation for me with the electronic entertainment — it keeps them occupied while I get other things done that seem more important in my eyes at the time. But it’s a short-term strategy, of course, and does not pay off in terms of good fruit.
