Week 2(and 3, and 4) Summary... and a little bit of other stuff

So, the first week of school went off without a hitch. You know what that means about week two? Yup, one obstacle after another. We had everything from: a teething 6 month old, myterious electrical issues that left us with no power in the livingroom, a giant hole knocked in the livingroom ceiling due to folks in the attic trying to figure out the source of the mysterious electrical problems, and a randomly collapsing bookshelf...and that was all by Wednesday morning. Whew! We met each obstacle head on and kept trucking along. We are learning to just roll with whatever comes our way. I am learning to roll with whatever comes our way.


Though we didn't get every single thing on every single list marked off, it's still ok. Though my initial reaction, when I saw a foot coming through my ceiling, was to immediately stress out, I chose to laugh instead. It may have been wild, borderline maniacal laughter, but it was laughter, none the less.

Week 3 and 4 we kind of fell off the wagon. We did Bible and phonics/reading/spelling everyday, but the other subjects were kind of hit and miss. Part of the reason for our decline these weeks were exhaustion on my part from repeated rough nights with a teething baby. Our day runs so much smoother when I am able to get up and get going before the kids get up. Getting up every hour alternating between a fussy baby and a 3 1/2 year old that likes to climb in bed with Mama and Daddy makes for a very tired teacher come 6:00am. But then chosing to sleep in those few extra minutes,(Ray is usually up around 6:30am, so it is litterally only 30 minutes or more that I get to sleep in), throws a kink in our day that is hard to get back on top of. I am committing to get up when the alarm goes off this next week, regardless of what kind of night I had the night before. I'll let you know how that goes.

Now here is a little background on where we are at in Luke's 2nd grade schooling. The subject the Luke has struggled with since we began homeschooling has overwhelmingly been phonics. In kindergarten he struggled with phonics and math. He just was not ready for school. I stressed for the first few months, and then I just let it go and took it very laid back the rest of the year. I'd love to say that I let it go because I had the wise homeschool mothering mentality that says, "he's just not ready he'll pick it up later and everything will be fine". That was not my mentality at all. I was pretty stressed about it, but I chose to let it go because of how much is was frustrating the both of us. Then first grade came along. We started back trudging through the phonics and math. Math was going better, but neither subject was like "flipping a light switch" like I had hoped. A couple of months into his first grade year we switched his math. I started him on kindergarten Saxon and thought, "What the heck? It's not like we were getting anywhere with the other stuff, this can't hurt." It was then we had our light switch moment! He breezed through Saxon's K math in a matter of about 2 1/2-3 months. I was in homeschool mom heaven! When we finished that we went right in to Saxon 1 math without missing a beat. I originally intended to do math with him all summer, so that he would be ready to start Saxon 2 in September, but that didn't end up happening. So we are still in first grade math, but it is going very well and I'm officially un-stressed about the math area of our schooling. Now phonics on the other hand....

We still haven't quite had our lightswitch moment in phonics and reading yet. Inspite of that, things are going much better in that area too. Slow, but steady improvements. It took us all of kindergarten and first grade to do kindergarten phonics. We use ABeka and it is perfect for Luke because it moves at a slow pace with lots of repetition. We are officially in first grade phonics now, but is moving right along. We get an average of 2-3 lessons done most days. I don't know how long we will keep this pace up, but I'm going to go with it as long as he is able to. My brother has some learning difficulties, especially in the area of reading that are very similar to Luke's difficulties. And today, at the age of 26, he is an avid reader who reads classic literature for fun. So while a little part of my does stress and worry a bit over his struggles with reading, I am much more relaxed than I was a couple of years ago. I have also had the extreme blessing of being a part of a large homeschool co-op that is full of seasoned, wise, laid back homeschool moms. They were a huge encouragement to me with their personal testimonies of different struggles that their children have gone through....and come out fine! God used them to help me chill out a little bit and not sweat the small stuff so much.

I'll admit, adoption has definitely been the dominating subject around the Carlin house(and in my blog posts as well), but while that is a HUGE facet of our life right now, it isn't the only one. I've got some post coming up on interesting topics other than adoption. Like schedules and making your own baby food. (insert maniacal laughter. Even better, insert maniacal laughter over a photo of me sporting a bun and a denim jumper, stirring a pot of mysterious looking "baby food", with Luke and Ray playing violins in the background. True homeschool style. Muahhahahahahahahaha!)