I’m not gonna lie, this week was a rough one. Last week the excitement of a new school year really carried us through, but it sure left this week feeling stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert. I feel like it always takes two weeks for little ones to adjust to a new schedule. We definitely are on a WAY different schedule now than in the summer. Bedtime was this fluid thing that changed day to day, and as such so was our wake up time. This week was our second week of waking up at 6:30 a.m., and let me tell you, that sucked. I don’t know why but we couldn’t get bedtime this week on schedule (9:30 p.m.) and so we weren’t getting the girls to bed till around 10:45 or 11:00, which meant that then after that there was planning the school lesson for the next day and making their snack bentos…so bedtime for me and my husband was around 1:30 a.m. …that makes 6:30 a.m. come quite quickly. Despite all that though, we persevered and kept going. We gave ourselves grace though through tired grumpy tantrums and exhausted mom brain, and eventually made it to Friday! (Sobs of relief) I’m a huge believer in opposites, so even though this week was really hard, we also had a lot of amazing experiences!

The MVP this week was “Cool Down Story Time”. After playing at recess, we come inside and sit on our circle time rug and I read them a simple chapter book. I like doing this because there aren’t pictures and so my girls have to use their imaginations, and because the reading is above their level of reading, it introduces them to more detailed adventures. Also, at times what we read might be beyond something they have experienced, so it’s a great segue to a google search and more learning, but it does it in such a way that is fun and rewarding. We finished our book from last week, and so this week we had the amazing adventure of going to Barnes and Noble and discovering a new adventure. We had a blast exploring every nook and book at Barnes and Noble. It was so rewarding for me because I saw the fruit of our first week from last week. They were SO excited to go to the book store, and they all enthusiastically handed me book after book so I could read the summary to them as we decided which ones to get. Should we get a book about three ice princess sisters? What about a book about a mermaid who is finding her place in the sea world? What about Junie B Jones and what does she have in her pocket?” Their eyes filled with wonder at each possible adventure, it was hard to us to choose. It made me happy to see the seed of their love of reading start to grow, and if that’s all that I have accomplished this week then all the sacrifice and long days and short nights were worth it.

I think my favorite part of this week though was the ant at the pediatricians office. We went in for routine check-ups, little did I know we were going to have our most educated hour of the week. In the waiting room there was this GIANT ant. I seriously haven’t seen an ant as big as this one in my entire life up until this moment. My girls of course freaked (they don’t do bugs) and wanted to squish it, but I encouraged them to leave it alone since it wasn’t bugging us. We had to wait for a bit, and so they just kept watching this ant. Then they started asking questions, “Mommy do ants see like we see?” and “Mommy, can ants talk?” and “Mommy, do ants have bones?” I honestly didn’t know the answer to their questions, so I told them I had no idea, but suggested we all learn together. We spent the next 45 minutes on a Google rabbit hole learning all there is to know about ants. It was amazing! It was such an amazing experience to be able to foster learning in such a random moment about a topic that I never would have considered, but opened the door to so much learning. In that moment, I was grateful I was homeschooling my little ones, because if I hadn’t been then we never would have had that learning moment, and it is one that I will always remember and cherish. It was a bright spot in a long week.

The light at the end of the tunnel for me this week was that through consistency our school rhythm really is being established. School was more familiar this week, everyone knew what to expect and what to look forward to. It was fun to see their opinions take shape about what parts of school they like best, or rather don’t care for at all. The MVP of this week was snack time and our snack bentos. I learned from last year that no matter how much you feed them prior to school starting, in 30 minutes they will be hungry and after that starts you only will get about 10 more min out of them before you have to stop and feed them. That ALWAYS derailed our school time because it would take forever to figure out what they wanted and make it and feed them. So this year I bought these bento lunch boxes from Walmart and it has been amazing! They aren’t big enough to have a full meal in, but they are the perfect size for a little snack. For example, their snack today was half a PB&J with yogurt covered raisins, some dried apple slices, blueberries and half a granola bar. They love the surprise of the snack of the day and I love that snack time only takes 10 minutes because they nibble for a sec and then are ready to get down in typical toddler fashion.

I’ve learned that the sun always comes out after the storm, so hopefully this next week the sun will be coming out. Even though this week was harder, I tried to find the rays of sunlight in the fun experiences we had and be patient with myself and my children as we all learn to learn together.