Reentry

The day after vacation is usually a mixed bag.  Kids who are cranky and jet-lagged, too much laundry, and no food in the house is not a good combination.  On the other hand, we left the snow in Chicago and came home to grass and spring bulbs in bloom.

These are the days when I find unschooling most challenging.  There's something in me that wants to set a schedule, expect some "progress", insist on something "getting done".  Instead of following that impulse, however, I took advantage of the warmish day and the moist soil and went outside to begin weeding the very overgrown flower beds in front of the house.  The big kids had gone out earlier to play, so I told Sher Bear that we would head out to do some weeding.

Imagine my surprise when I found Campster, hard at work in the flower beds, weeding all by herself.  I actually asked her what she was doing.  (Duh!)  "Oh, Mom," she said with that sly smile of hers, "I want to help the flowers grow so that the butterflies would come back sooner."  She had made quite a nice dent in the weeds.  I bent down and hugged her, looking right into her eyes, and told her that it blessed me that she was weeding.  "Without being asked!" She added.

Jor Man joined us for some weeding as well.  But soon the lure of the "fort" he had built at the bottom of the fir trees was too much, and he was reenacting some Indiana Jones adventure.  The girls and I found a purple beetle (as yet to be identified) that Campster caught and put in one of her many jars.

We worked while it sprinkled lightly, until it really came down.  We finally went in, drenched head to foot.  Jor Man took a shower in one bathroom, while the girls and I had a bath in the "big tub".  Then everyone put on their pjs and sat down for lunch at 1:30.    Gotta love homeschool.

Wish you were here!