Lunar Eclipse Tests Parent’s Patience

Did you wake your kids up to see the total lunar eclipse the other day? Hubby (my hero!) drove the kids to an open area to see the eclipse. (We live down in the woods and are completely surrounded by trees).  The kids were absolutely amazed! They thought it was spectacular! On the other hand, doing something amazing like well before 5am wasn’t without its consequences…  tired kids… And then today (Thursday), the day after?  Oh my! Look out world! The kids were zonked out and it took us for-e-v-e-r to get started on our day.  Even once we did, there was more than our fair share of bickering, arguing and general crabbiness.  It was a day when I carefully plunked myself between kids when we read, sent them off to separate rooms (not just separate desks!) to get things done… For example, at this point in the day ED worked at her desk, DD read on the couch while LD (not pictured) worked in the homeschool room!

Do you know this quote by Bill Cosby? 

No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I’m not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.

It’s certainly not preparing for homeschooling or being ready for the day that I find challenging… It’s the intense sibling “love” that tests me on days like these!!

In the end, though, we really did have a great day. I gathered us all on the couch to read our novel together. We’re reading a gripping story about the Trail of Tears written from a young girl’s perspective (Soft Rain). It’s so good it’s hard even for me to stop reading to go on to other things! From there we moved into our Writing Workshop. It always flows well since we have such a predictable pattern.  So by the time we got to other things that needed more individual focus (like math, etc.) the kids were in the groove.

If you have days of bickering and general grumpiness in your homeschool — just know that you’re not alone!!

Hope you have a good one today!

~Liesl