It’s been a less productive time lately.  I have a very hard time with the shortening of the days.  No amount of vitamin D or special lighting has ever provoked a response in my body.  Even magnesium supplements have not helped (there is a contingent that yells loudly about the need for magnesium to help with vitamin D absorption).  So things have gotten slow… and moved to the big bed.

Honestly, I think time in the big bed pays off in spades.  There’s definitely something to be said for the physical connection of snuggling up and reading.  I know BigGuy is very sensitive to physical connection.  But I wonder if he just demonstrates (in a more extreme manner) what all kids feel and receive from a good snuggle up.  Hmmmm…

This is where Charlotte Mason style pays off and I’m going to be diving a little more heavily into researching the pedagogy beyond the use of living books for the next semester.  But being in the big bed means stories.  And Mama–who has been unmotivated to leave the big bed with the stretch of nearly a MONTH of gray days–has brought stories that have value.  We are reading The Story of the World: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor.  BigGuy has had some of this, but it’s good to keep him “in the era” while we’re slacking a bit on our curricula for history.  We’re also reading Sugar –which is about a girl who is a freed slave with no parents living on a Louisiana sugar plantation.  So far, the kids love it.  Then we read whatever Girly brings.  She usually brings a book of story compilations and we read at least one–sometimes two.

Big Guy tested into Art of Problem Solving’s PreAlgebra and hates it… which is good, because it’s making him think.  I’m pushing him.  Because here’s the thing: he doesn’t want to do THIS curricula but he DOES want to do math.  He’s asked to do some of the other curricula we have rather than say that he just doesn’t want to do math.  He knows he needs it to move forward with the things he wants to do.  MY personal motivation is ensuring that he can slow down and work through things that don’t come quickly and easily to him.  We’re getting there.  It’s hard, but we’re getting there.

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year and I am armed with a skylight in my bedroom that I think is the only reason I was able to be functional the last 2 months.  But it will get better now as days get longer.

That being said: if I have to go another month with 99% gray–we are moving.