They Have No Idea

This morning brought tears and frustration.

I let the kids sleep in until 9 due to the time change.

I was up before 7 since we have Gage today so I went to work on the kids' school tubs.  I sorted, cleaned, rearranged and then pulled their school for the day and wrote down all their instructions.  They each had a nice little organized pile waiting for them as the came upstairs.

Brennan came up first.  He was tired but pretty agreeable.

Elijah was next.  He had the scowl that beats all scowls accompanied by tears streaming down his face.  It took some coercing, but I finally figured out what was wrong.  He thought it was terrible that he had just woke up and had to do school immediately.  He had no time to play or watch TV.

While still dealing with Elijah's meltdown, Tanner wanders up.  He immediately says, everyone else is having Spring Break this week.  Why do we have school?!  "Everyone" is apparently his cousins.  I told him I have considered taking a Monday and Friday off for a long weekend but we aren't taking a full week because I want summer!  I would rather end the year a week early.  So then he looks at his list of work.  He read ahead in his History and Science and has already finished the text books for this year.  So you can imagine his frustration when he saw them listed in the "To Do" list.  He has struggled with the Chapter check ups and obviously hasn't had great retention.  So we're starting the books over.  We have a good 40 lessons left and he thought if he rushed through he could basically have 1/2 days for the rest of the year.  Cue the water works, now two of the four are crying.

Graham comes to the table and immediately starts complaining of neck pain, arm pain, foot pain, dry throat, anything that can get him time away from school.  He's in 1st grade so his schooling takes a hour at the most start to finish.  Now 3 out of 4 are crying.

I am seriously considering a week following the public school schedule.  At 9 am (the time they woke up, not when they started school mind you), while they are crying, all the other kids have been up for hours and at school for one hour.  My kids complete all their subjects/work in 3-4 hours.  They spend a large percentage of the day playing.  They play video games, Legos, watch TV, do chores, play outside, run errands, walk the Legends etc.

I'm not sure how I would do it, but I believe waking them up in the wee hours of the morning to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast and show up at the table by 8am may do the trick.