Friday bullets, March 27, 2020

At least I think it's Friday. I actually had a moment yesterday when I truly couldn't remember what day it was. It was a little unnerving.

We are continuing to fare well here at Chez Curry. In talking (virtually) with friends, it seems that in reality, during a global pandemic when you are not supposed to leave your house, that having 12 children truly is easier than say, 2, 3, or 4. My crew have happily played together all week. When one group tires of each other, they split up and find other siblings to play with. Or, if tired of other people, will go find a corner to be quiet by themselves. I think I have heard exactly one time, "I'm bored" from a child. Trust me when I say I am extremely thankful and not taking that lightly.
I also have to admit that my children, for the most part, are just funny and fun. If you need a dinner conversation starter, have everyone figure out how their name would sound if you substituted every vowel with 'ub'. Dinner pretty much ended in hysterics tonight. Try it
Today, as part of school, everyone watched another art lesson from their co-op art teacher. Here is what they drew. (The lesson was cone flowers and lilies.)

and a joint effort between H. and Y. (That's a weird shadow, not part of the drawing.)

We finished Treasure Island today. Everyone enjoyed it.
K. got out his over the door chin-up bar. Many people have been working on either improving the number of chin ups they can do or working on being able to do them. Even people for whom this kind of physical activity is not terribly interesting. Boredom does interesting things.
Our visit with the psych went well last Saturday. I cannot tell you how much I like her. It is such a relief to have someone actually believe me when I tell them about concerning behaviors. We are now trying a prophylactic does of the emergency seizure meds in the middle of the day to see if we can maintain a baseline of behavior. The dips were about to do me in. Today was the first day where I felt as though it was really making a difference. I'm more than a little bit relieved.
Usually Nefertiti has the run of the house at night. But when B. came home, he brought his cat, Romeo. Romeo is a nice cat, but not entirely thrilled to be in a house with so many children and other animals. As much as we want to smoosh him, we are giving his his space. Except for Nefertiti. Nefertiti hates Romeo with a deep and abiding hatred. The first two night, the people sleeping downstairs were woken up multiple times to break up a cat fight. So now Nefertiti has been grounded, and must stay in our bedroom where she cannot pick fights with Romeo. She is not happy. She bangs on the door with her paw for a loooong time every night. The people downstairs are now sleeping. Us? Not quite as much.
Some days are not days to try to ask children to write poetry. Evidently today was not one of those days. L., who can write lovely poetry when in the mood, was not in the mood. After a growling fit, followed by an inordinate amount of protein snacks, she wrote me a haiku in complete nonsense words (I think it was even done with the correct number of syllables). Others just did a lot of staring at their pages despite all of my attempts to give them tools for writing. Some days are like that. I know when to surrender and move on.
I did not borrow enough documentaries from the library.
We decided to take a break from having dessert tonight. Three days of cheesecake in a row seemed just too much.
The older people played Life today. Like the earlier Scrabble game, I had no idea that Life could be so loud.
We lost another chicken yesterday to a coyote. It was a nameless chicken, so no one was too upset. The birds had to stay in their pen all day, which did not make the ducks and geese happy. Whenever anyone would go outside, they would be shouted at by a chorus of ducks and geese.
Emmy has such a thick winter coat that when she sheds, such as she is doing now, it is truly something. You can take a hank of hair in your fingers and pull, when you do so nearly all the hair in your fingers comes right out. G. doesn't like it and declares it to be gross.
D. received his official driver's license in the mail. The timing is too bad since he doesn't have anywhere to drive to right now.
Do I need to say that what people are doing right now isn't really homeschooling? Not even for us actual homeschoolers? To be actually homeschooling, you have control over how and what and when your children learn. You can dump something that isn't working or linger on something everyone is fascinated by. You can leave your house and go to museums and concerts and parks and classes. You can visit with friends. This? This is just weird, and I'm not quite sure what it really is.
Yes, I'm a little annoyed that the plan I made before school started isn't going to work. I was thinking our spring break from co-op would be a terrific time to go visit the Egyptian exhibit at the Field museum. That's not happening.
I still don't know where the 50 pounds of all-purpose flour I brought home is going to live. Evidently, its home is now leaning up against the island in the kitchen. Somehow this doesn't seem like a long-term solution.
J. and I took a little walk around our yard today. It is too bad that our budget doesn't quite match our vision.
K. is continuing to build large creations with cardboard and whatever he finds in the recycling bin. I believe his current project is some sort of space station. He built the Death Star yesterday, but since it was held together with heart stickers, it didn't survive the night. K. decided that Luke managed to hit the target extremely well and it blew up.

That's all for now. I don't know how I'm going to get through my grueling schedule next week of staying home and doing laundry, but I'll manage somehow.