Too Darned Stressed!

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This week was possibly the most stressful week of my entire life. No joke. Not even when Daddy first started having health issues, or Peanut was born early, or we found out about her vision issues, nor when we realized that neither Daddy nor I have had a decent night's sleep together since Peanut was born (due to her migraines) were more stressful than this week has been.

No, it has absolutely nothing to do with our lessons. Our lessons, although they weren't finished until today (Saturday), actually went fairly well. There were a few moments here and there that did make me want to pull my hair out but on the whole our lessons went well. 

So, what had me so stressed out this week? Well, we had several break in "attempts" starting overnight last Friday night. Yes, we are all safe and no one was harmed thank God. However, this was not just a one night thing (you can read all about it in my post from earlier this week here ). Due to this I was angry, frustrated, upset, stressed out, and scared for several days. I eventually stopped being scared but every other feeling stuck around. One of the few benefits of this happening was that I spent several hours cleaning my home throughout the week due to all the nervous energy.



Monday all we had to do all day long was lessons. We started around 10 am, which is an hour after when I like for us to start, and were finished just after lunch. There were no major meltdowns and only a few small issues to deal with lesson wise this day. They even all worked for the whole day without distracting each other. 

Tuesday morning everyone had to be up bright and early as Peanut had a neurological exam appointment all the way down in Detroit, which is an hour drive from our home in good traffic. She very much enjoyed the exam because she got to "goof around" with the doctor and afterwards we went to visit Grandma and Papa for several hours, which doesn't normally happen in the middle of the month. Update on Peanut's migraines: The neurologist is not concerned with any points on the examination. Her vision issues did prove a part in the exam because in certain instances without her glasses she could not see where the doctor's fingers were. We're weaning her off of her current medication and she's already started a new one, which is much stronger. While we're enjoying the fact that she hasn't had a migraine since starting the new medication we're also watching her closely as it leaves her a bit groggy in the mornings. Her dosage for this is supposed to go up just as she's weaned off of the other medication and unless she's less groggy in the mornings before this happens I may have to call the neurologists office. We're talking about two hours worth of grogginess. She was also prescribed Melatonin on the nights that she cannot sleep, thus far we have not had to give her this as her medication makes her sleepy as it is. We're due back next month and barring any return of the migraines we'll be given regular check-ups and follow through more frequently with our regular pediatrician. If the migraines return it's scans and testing and sleep studies. We were also given a list of things that we could do to change in her diet and habits but thus far we've only moved bedtime back a bit to make time for proper digestion of dinner, none of us were prepared to eat dinner at 4 PM.

Wednesday came along and at first Peanut wasn't feeling up to joining in with lessons. She hadn't started her new medication yet but had had a bit of a rough night and was tired. She did eventually join us in our lessons though, after being convinced with a large cinnamon roll, chocolate milk, and a smoothie for breakfast. She did the majority of her week's lessons this day actually. The Cracker Jack's mainly were only able to finish Tuesday's lessons this day, although YCJ did manage to get one or two assignments for Wednesday done.

Thursday morning we did do lessons, although we didn't finish with Wednesday's lessons on this day either. We cut our day short due to Daddy having a doctor's appointment. While we were at said appointment we found out that Daddy is being referred to four different specialists (mainly for check ups): neurologist, pulminologist, cardiologist, and an orthopedic surgeon. But, we were able to get Daddy his new tube for his breathing treatments. Afterwards, we scooted up to the city to get a few groceries and pick up the campers pizzas from Book IT! They're really enjoying Book IT this year, it's extra incentive to read every day.

Friday came along and boy was I tired. However, we all got up and began our lessons relatively on time. Handwriting was worked on by everyone and Peanut was able to finish just about her whole week's lessons, the only thing she didn't do this week was her flag for MI. However, I just moved it to next week's lessons. She was having a lot of issues with her hands hurting for the majority of the day because we'd been neglecting her play dough for most of the week. This was quickly remedied right after her lessons were finished.

We've also moved the girls back to their school desks after their morning binders and handwriting practice is finished. Yes, that is a Christmas tree that you see in the corner. We have taken down all the other Christmas decorations and simply brought the "porch tree" inside and placed it in the corner. We've decided that this year it'll be up until sometime after Valentine's Day where we'll decorate it with valentines. We have to have some place to store all those discount candy canes after all ;-).

Saturday (today) this week also meant lessons as the Cracker Jack's were not caught up from having two days off this week. YCJ only had one day's worth of lessons to complete while ECJ had to finish up Wednesday's lessons and do all of Thursday's and Fridays. Amazingly enough they were all finished minutes after lunch was completed. 

PreK/K: Oh my little Peanut! Her preK books are nearly completed and she's continuing to fly right through them! We did resolve to "fix" her schedule to strengthen her hands a little bit more, as well as give her a chance to wake up through that groggy morning stuff. She'll begin the day with breakfast as usual, then move on to anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes of play dough at her desk, followed by her lessons and lunch, to finish up with at least an hour of play dough work in the afternoons. We're not stopping her morning binders, but she will be starting them after her sister has already moved onto English work (which gives me a few minutes to work with YCJ on her English). She also discovered, on her own I might add, how to make play dough roses this past week. That yellow one is her first one she made, the green one at the top was from this morning, and the other is her flower person "like the ones from Epic". I think I'll be posting a step by step of how she makes these as it's really rather wonderful.

Third grade: Younger Cracker Jack has had a rather good week. She's been working on the letter C in cursive and seems to be enjoying handwriting practice. She's worked on her recorder and learned a second song. Also, much to my happy surprise, she asked to do Keyboard Classroom (affiliate link) all on her own! She finished the one challenge, has improved her skills, tried all four of the games, and decided that she just really really likes learning to type using it! I know I keep talking about it but it's really working! I have never seen her more excited about typing, we'd even tried a free program called Dance Matt and she just didn't like it at all. This is just made my life so very much easier! She's also apparently decided that the long sleeved green shirt with the Christmas tree on it is the most comfortable shirt that she owns, as she's worn it half the week ... every time I wash it she puts it right back on!

Sixth grade: Elder Cracker Jack was super busy this week. It snowed again on and off all week long and so he had several driveways and walkways to shovel almost every morning, then his chores, before beginning his lessons. This obviously meant that he began the lessons each day later than the girls did. It also showed a bit in how long it took him certain days to get lessons finished, however he did do the same amount of work today and completed far more lesson wise than he had all week.... He'd borrowed YCJ's DVD player one afternoon and finally began to work on his guitar lessons. However, since he skipped over the tuning lesson which is the first two on the DVD and in the book his rendition of Three Blind Mice was somewhat off. We'll be getting the guitar tuned by a friend sometime this next week hopefully and have them show him how to do it.

So, that's our week pretty much in a nutshell. Other than the fact that we did manage to get about one hour of outside time in to add to our year to date total for the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge . This brings us up to the grand total of 153.5 hours!! With about 9 months left of the challenge (for us) that leaves us a little behind schedule, and yet I'm still not worried!

Posts you may have missed this week:
More Organization Please
A Meaty Menu
Glorious Snow-sational Fun!
Winter Bucket List Link-Up
The Did What?!?!

Linking up this week with:
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Faithful Mom of 9
Homegrown Learners
Great Peace Academy

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