Today (Tuesday, 8th) was TY’s FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!?? It went fabulously well.?? I was quite nervous about this new endeavor as Ty has been telling me for weeks that he was going to throw his schoolbooks in the trash.?? There was reason to be sufficiently concerned. :)?? Turns out – he loves it.?? He really enjoyed one on one time with mom today.?? In fact, he wasn’t ready to be done.?? He wanted to do his handwriting without tears again even.?? I started him in the preschool program on handwriting since he is going to need a lot more time for his OT skills to catch up.?? I will be shocked if we get any letters done this year but we’ll try.???? Because he is already reading so well, everything else was a BREEZE.?? Yes, he laughed a lot and I had to make him run around the couch five times but Tanner needed the five couch run as well…but overall – he did SO GOOD.?? Such a contrast to teaching Tanner.?? Not to “knock” my darling Tanner – but so far I am thinking Ty might be the easier one at the end of the day.?? Kids who are perfectionists can be far more difficult to manage.

Tanner enjoyed school today as well.?? Because I switched curriculum in a few subjects, it made things more interesting today.?? Tanner really likes his individual time with me too so we enjoyed one another today.?? I was worried about balancing one on one time with Tanner and then Ty but it all worked out.?? Tanner was having a bit of trouble staying on task but he was very interested in what I was doing with Ty and he kept joining our conversations but it ended up giving me more time with Ty since Tanner got himself behind on his independent work.

One thing that both boys loved today was Stick Figuring Through the Bible.?? I was in a quandry about bible time because I had a different agenda set for each of the boys and I knew this would not work well.?? Last week, Brooke showed me her Stick Figuring Through the Bible Material through Grapevine Press and it looked to be a good solution.?? I talked to Tanner about the switch and he agreed to “give it a try” (my ever cautious child).?? Basically, I narrated Luke 1 to them this morning and copied stick figure images out of the book for them to copy as I talked.?? They both really enjoyed doing that so I guess we’ll keep with this plan for a bit.

When I had Tanner in K-garten, daily reading was quite a process.?? He wasn’t willing to do much independent reading until 2nd grade and then he took off with it.?? Conversely, Ty was frustrated with me today because he wanted to read ON HIS OWN.?? I made him read a Dr. Seuss book to me (Hop on Pop which was too easy for him but I thought I’d start small).?? He did a great job but kept asking if he could switch to the other side of the couch and just read it himself because “I can read mommy”.?? After we finished it together, he insisted on reading it a second time ALONE. :)?? Don’t you just love our loose dress code??? And no, it has not escaped my attention that both kids are in dire need of haircuts.?? Jim and I keep giggling at Ty’s Rod Stewart hair.?? Yesterday it was sticking out perfectly from every angle and I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of it.

And what was little rascal doing??? Let’s see….

*?? She slept in

*?? She ate breakfast

*?? She dumped all the math manipulatives all over the floor and spread them through the front of the house

*?? She dumped the subtraction flash cards out all over the place

*?? She colored all over some of Tanner’s writing materials and the bible lesson – with a marker

*?? She insisted on sitting in my lap during Tanner’s history lesson and kept wanting to turn the pages and wouldn’t let me read

*?? She found her way into my closet and came out with my panties wore as a necklace – nice one.

*?? She spilled two cups of milk all over the table and soaked some of our papers.

Stuff like that….

And then we continued my mom’s tradition and made homemade chocolate chip cookies together.?? Fun day.