Learning Notes January 12-17

Didn’t keep proper notes this week. Struggled to keep on track as one child and then another and then another fell to the crud. Finally sucumbed myself on Friday and was unable to function at all. Lay around with the children watching a grainy 70s documentary about Alfred the Great. Felt a real and true and total failure. Still, I’m pretty sure the week wasn’t a total wash. Alouicious and Elphine did computer math Monday through Thursday. We finished the next math book. Romulus got through all his books each day except Wednesday. Gladys wrote a paragraph about how much she loves summer. We got back into French a little bit. Spelling improved. We missed our Friday Reading Day because I couldn’t croak anything out but did read a little extra on Thursday–got through some extra history and another chapter of Around the World, plus an extra chapter of Treasures of the Snow.

Did notice something rather extraordinary. Well, several things. First, Alouicious has had several observations about human behavior that are true and interesting and give me hope for him as an actual person. Of course can’t remember what they are. But each time it was noticing some general pattern or way that humans behave that is very basically true. Second, noticed that since I myself started going to Tuesday Bible Study I’m feeling much less frantic about everything. I’ve heard of this phenomenon by the hearing of the ear, and to some degree I have beheld it through my own personal devotional life and church attendence. But I was really really really sure that I didn’t have time for another study. I can genuinly use more time at home doing more school and more house work. But I wasn’t really doing school or house work during that hour and so I started going. And its been rather “coincidental” that almost since the moment I first went, I have had, or felt somehow that I had, an extra measure of time. For instance, I’ve gotten through more school than I expected to each day (except our true sick day) AND, and this is so strange, I’ve had the extra hour to write that I always wished I had but never did attain. AND, I’ve had an imperceptibly better grasp on the laundry than ever before. It seems, well, too perfect. Perhaps it is totally and completely a random figment of my own imgination. I will continue on in this little experiement and keep you, or rather myself, posted. And finally, I discovered that Marigold, who I consider just slightly later in many things, like speech and stuff, to be not so unready for letters and numbers as I thought. She just manifests everything so differently that I think I am missing clues. So, I’m trying to add her in more completely and not just send her away constantly to play.

So that was my week, sort of. I mean, who knows. I was in a fog for whole sections of it. Praying and hoping for a healtheir more energetic week to come.