Week 1 - All New and not at home

Well this has been a whirlwind of a week.  It was very strange being a drop-off Mom instead of the Mom doing the teaching.  I tried to focus my energy to "more parenting and less teaching."  

CC started her week with homework on her first day.  By the end of the week, she was measuring her homework in pounds - as in her backpack weighed 19.5 pounds with her science book, math book, Latin book, history book, grammar book and the accompanying binders and folders.  She has homework in every class every night, and she loves it.  She spent dinner talking to us about Fibonacci numbers and has red marks on her arm from history class - apparently cuneiform can be dangerous.  I was worried I'd feel left out of her education, but I've found that she happily lets me review her Latin, history and science with her and check over her grammar, writing and math.  She just needs to learn to work more efficiently so she can have more free time at night.  One additional note, this morning she complained that the muscles in her cheeks and neck were hurting - the muscles directly correspond to her great-big grin.   I think she's smiled too much this week.

LB decided at the last moment that she wanted to go to school too.  I had asked her about it all summer because I could see her growing sadder with her sister gone for her summer volunteer job.  I think that once school preparations started, she finally realized it too.  It has been really hard for me.  She is the only one of my kids that hasn't been in daycare or something like that.  She's riding the big, yellow bus to the neighborhood school.  After she gets acclimated, I'm going to add in some after school enrichment for her with continuing phonics, reading, and maybe more depending on what else I see.  It is harder with her to see what she's doing in school.  I think that so far they've spent a lot of time getting settled in.  We'll see.  Right now, I meet her at the bus then cuddle her on the couch while she eats a snack and tells me about her day. So far her biggest issue is that second graders aren't allowed on the monkey bars, and she loves monkey bars.

BB has been home for the past couple of weeks from college.  It has been wonderful to have him home.   I just love to have him around.  He's getting ready to go back to Japan for his final semester.  I can't believe he's almost done with college already.