And so it begins...

Unfortunately, it began at 5:22am.

That's when Medium decided to "see if it was time to start school yet??"
After a negative response was conveyed, he climbed into our bed and went back to sleep.  I managed to doze but never fully regained my preferred unconsciousness, which caused the entire first official day of homeschool to feel a little off kilter, to me at least.

Large & Small were up, dressed, and ready for school by 7am, which is way earlier than needed for their previous public school schedule, but they were truly excited. Fast forward three hours to 10am, and the excitement has started to wane a tad.

Medium is less than thrilled about completing two measely lessons on alphabetizing in his grammar book. Small has grown weary of his letter writing review. Large believes demonstrating his knowledge of long division is beneath him, even though he proceeds to spend an hour on one problem, giving a hearty oration on why he didn't need to "check his answer" with multiplication because, "I'm sure it's right."

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

We did have moments of homeschooling bliss. Cooking breakfast together instead of throwing cold poptarts at them while screaming gently pointing out the few minutes until WE HAVE TO LEAVE!!  All three of us on the couch singing the Creation song, and discussing God's creation of the Ocean. Watching a youtube video of a Basking Shark because we saw a picture in a book and wondered if they ever ate people (they don't by the way).  Losing count of the amount of kisses Small gave me. Sweet baby.

The boys were easily distracted by each other, and the “newness” of everyone else’s books. Everything was funny, which is preferable to the usual “you’re SO ANNOYING” that flies out of their precious little mouths , but still made teaching very unbreezy-like.

The biggest success of the day was by far the chore chart, thanks to Jolanthe at www.homeschoolcreations.com.  I have always struggled with getting the kids to do daily tasks, and keeping them on track for helping around the house. Each kid has a chore chart with three morning chores, three afteroon chores, and three ‘paid’ chores to be completed everyday. The boys did ALL of their chores today, including dusting, vacuuming, folding laundry, picking up the living room, bathroom, hall, and bedrooms, feeding pets, and putting away clothes. One of my goals for homeschooling was to teach more personal responsibility, more real life skills and despite the fact that they probably only learned the names of the 5 major oceans today, I still declare our first day a WIN!

As I sit by the fire sipping Earl Grey, listening to the drone of a football game and my husband’s snoring gentle napping, I’m suddenly feeling not so off kilter, but full-on contentment. No one is arguing over the Playstation or complaining about homework. Tomorrow may bring more irritations over grammar lessons or math work, but the tons of kisses and lovins?

 No contest, I win.