Tag Archives: lesson prep

So unprepared… so much pain

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Yesterday I threw my back out in a way that I’m not sure I have ever thrown my back out.  It hasn’t responded to anything that has ever helped.  I honestly don’t know that I have ever had this much pain.  I can’t even walk standing upright.

Needless to say, I am in rare form today–and I’m really not liking myself at all right now.  At all.  At 11:01am.  I’m in tears as I’m typing this because I’m so disgusted with the things that have come out of my mouth this morning, in the tone and volume they have come out to people inside AND outside of my home.

I also tried to follow my Tapestry of Grace curriculum this morning (having forgotten to prepare this weekend) only to find myself clueless about his notebook (which was a central component since we are STILL attempting week 1 for the second week in a row–which is totally fine).  Apparently, all I needed to do was Google “Tapestry of Grace notebook setup” to find this neat little page called “First Steps to Set Up Tapestry“.   THAT would have been useful a week or two ago.   Ugh… on the up side, I think that between what I bought this weekend for BigGuy’s grammar & composition notebook plus what I already own (which is TOO. MUCH. CRAP) I should have what I need.

BigGuy and I did sit down and go over “how it’s gonna go down” in terms of the Tapestry of Grace stuff (heretofore referred to as TOG).  We agreed that we would do Critical Thinking Company’s Word Roots rather than vocabulary and we’re ditching the timeline thing.  So there’s that.  I sent him off to do his Math-U-See which resulted in trying to find his missing workbook which is still MIA.

Girly watched the LeapFrog video to learn her vowels.

This afternoon we’re going to watch a Netflix video about Ancient Egypt after we do a Character Building Day by Day story.  The first week was “kindness”, the second was “helpfulness” and I think this week we’ll do “cleanliness” since I am having a VERY hard time with my therapies and the cleanliness of the house is a huge PTSD trigger for me that we have been unable to really resolve.  This might be a good fit.

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Two weeks in review: What Mama has learned

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Mama has learned that if I’m going to actually engage BigGuy in critical thinking skills, I’m going to have to pre-read the teacher portion of the content in our curricula… which prepares me perfectly for exactly what I’m trying to accomplish.

Mama has learned that Girly needs some dedicated one-on-one time.

Mama has learned that BigGuy really wants to do all this work, he just wants to be ENGAGED with it instead of “just reading it”–which is what Mama defaulted back to despite BigGuy laying that out pretty clearly for me.

Mama has learned that her children really NEED the character education stories–and that it’s worth finishing out the stories even if we span beyond a week.  Because they totally need that.

Mama has learned that morning snuggles NEED to happen.  My kids (but especially BigGuy) is really affected by this.  I can only liken it to the chemical changes in a mother’s body when they tell her to spend 24 hours in bed with her newborn to increase milk production for nursing.  Somehow, BigGuy needs this time in the morning.  Girly, too; but BigGuy seems to be really thrown off by a busy day without this.  Of course, Mama is trying not to wonder how old he will be when the need is gone and silently reassures herself that it will LIKELY be before he’s 18.  She used this same mantra when wondering when he would stop nursing (which he did 2 weeks before his 5th birthday… and no–I’m totally NOT that kind of saint).

Mama has learned that she needs to keep to her scheduled working hours so that she doesn’t constantly try to grab time (and attention) away from her kids… and then get really grumpy with her kids when they try to (rightfully) get her attention.

And to that end, Mama needs to go back to keeping a list of things she needs to do when 1) she has business hours; and 2) she has internet time.  That method of list-keeping really worked well for me.

Mama learned that dairy is her enemy… again.

It’s been a full week.  See you next week–same bat time, same bat station…