We love our Daddy!

Mike is coming home tonight. He has been on a business trip for the past 3 days. I need him here to help. Life is so hard when you have 4 kids, are trying to homeschool, run a teen taxi service, do chores, and find time to sleep. Bens schedule is so off right now and I have no idea how to get it normal again. He stays up til after 11 most nights and today he slept til almost 9am. Staying up late is fine when Daddy is holding him, because then I have a chance to do dishes, laundry, tidy up the house, work on ebay listings, etc after the middle kids go to bed. All of this is IMPOSSIBLE when Mike is not here because I have to hold the baby. Yes, I can wear him, but it's just easier not to. Also, I can't figure out why he's only happy playing by himself when it's not absolutely necessary. He simply cannot be content with anything but being held after 8pm. I'm just exhausted.

Today, I think I've hit rock bottom. I did Maddie's reading lesson with her, read some books to Nicholas and showed him some number flashcards, then told the kids to go upstairs to play. It was time for Ben to take a nap and I wanted to lay down with him and nurse him to sleep. I passed out too and here I am, still in a sleepy haze at 11am. I get up at 5:30 and I still haven't truly woken up yet! Yikes. I'm still in my pjs and haven't showered. I ALWAYS shower at 7am, but today I just couldn't do it!

We are calling off school for the day. Thankfully we started in July and plan on schooling year round, so taking a day off here and there isn't a big deal. As long as Maddie is ready for first grade work by July 1, I'll be satisfied.

In the future, I'll be skipping school when Daddy is out of town. It will lessen my workload for the day and make it more manageable.

Oh, and I've again decided to do something different with school starting in first grade. We are going to follow The Well Trained Mind. I just read the book and it is amazing. For those who don't know, it's a book about how to give children a classical education at home. If you don't know what that is, you can google that or I'll write more another day when I have caffeine in my system. I only have decaf today. That is probably part of the problem today.

I must stop on the way home from the playground and remedy this situation.