Friday and Our Home

50 Minutes, FIFTY minutes!!! That is how long our Budokon workout was this morning. Holy crap!!! Well, at least it should be the worst of it, basically it will get easier from here, and Im quite proud to say my downward facing dog pose is actually feeling more like a rest position than a workout poition, that is an improvement. :-) My husband is doing great! Although his martial arts moves do seem a little more like dance club moves at times. Lets just say that laughing and an inability to breath dont go well together!!
I fought the urge to crawl my way back to bed after this horrible voluntary torture I partook in this morning and was able to gather myself well enough for a late start (9am) with the kids. We had a rather fruitful day, and after having to force my way through it, it was a success.

I am thrilled to report that I feel that we have hit a groove. Of course this is until the next wave of disequilibrium strikes and all goes to hell, but while its here Im enjoying the ride. The boys seem to have accepted the new rhythm. I did a LOT of research in myself, our family and the concept of creating rhythm in our home. It sounds so easy doesnt it? Well, for me, its not. We spent a lot of time just observing our family, how we worked, the good and the ugly. When were we at our best, our worst, what was essential to us, what was just a waste and causing stress. This all began a while back, before we moved from Virginia back to the Southwest. We had NO rhythm in VA. My husband worked all the time, he was basically gone all day and most of the evening. There were entire days when the kids wouldnt even see him. This was not a succesful environment to achieve our goals. Something had to give. Anyway, back to the rhythm, this has been a study for me for the past year, and a lot of "inner work" has had to happen before I could even begin to figure out what would work for us. Again I have a special needs child and constantly trying to create rhythm and not sticking with it was not an option. Actually maybe that was a crutch for a while. So blah blah blah, Im feeling like we are about 35% of the way there. :-)

The kids did their yoga, quite well. Sun Salutations and some other focussing poses. Then off to meditate.

Morning Lessons:

Yoga: Oh yeah, remember my nice vacuumed undersides of my furniture, well lets just say my date night with GD and having Daddy in charge basically sent all that to the trash. I didnt know grated cheese could travel so far!

Meditation: Again breathing exercises, and then to the Robert Frost poem from the Poetry for Young Readers book The Seasons. I really like this book and when we use it up I will get more. They are great.

Journal: Kids wrote in there journals again, GM has requested that I give him a few choices of topics rather than allowing him to write whatever he wants, his inability to make a choice is paralizing in that type of scenario. I agreed and will give him two choices on Monday, and eventually work up to three.

Good Books: WOW, today I had them draw a picture in their good books to show what they had pictured in their minds while I had read them the Robert Frost poem each morning. GM came up with a lovely, mature picture that really made my heart happy. For someone with a weakness for imagery, he really had a good handle on this. Im looking forward to next week and if the meditation and poem will work so well for him again.

LA: Just one of the exercises from the Spectrum comprehension books. Light day.

Math: GM did three pages of math from Saxon (again I will hit on that in the future) and a Math Path Puzzle. GD did several pages in his DK workbook basically dealing with things like above, below, beside, same and different. Very doable for him conceptually, but a bit of overload for him today. He is off in wonderland today, and bringing him to focus is just not working. He continues to draw all over his pages, and make up imaginary stories about whatever there is on the page. I love this aspect of him, but it can be challenging to not stiefel it and still help him focus. In Enki or Waldorf, they would say he just isnt "awake" yet, and I would definitely agree!!! He was off to do his Busy Bigs Game, although it became a story about the bugs and they each had voices and issues etc.... :-)

Reading: Each of the boys read a story they chose to share. GM finished his book from yest and GD chose a new one.

The boys did great and ME was pretty good too.

The house...
So we bought my husband's childhood home, and it has been an adventure to say the least. Initially had to live with my MIL while her house was being finished, initally it was going to be for 3.5 months, but it evolved into 5.5 months instead. WOW, that is hard! Living in a house as a guest for that long with three kids is really hard. When I say guest I dont mean freeloading, trust me on that one!!!

After having a couple months with the house being ours we have started some work. Above are a few pics.