Silver Linings in Difficult Days {Homeschooling}

Some days are just...difficult. Today was one of those. Fortunately, it did end well.

I actually made our week's menu and the kids and I went grocery shopping on Sunday. Today's breakfast was a treat: apple cinnamon brown sugar scones. I had cut up an apple to add to the scones. I can't {well, I don't} eat them because of the sugar and wheat but know the kids love them. 

The scones took my entire 'me' time to prepare, and were ready to come out of the oven right as ds' alarm clock went off. Perfect timing.

Round Table was a little strained. The kids are still slightly sick so we only sang one hymn; "Love Lifted Me". I do like that we have at least one person who can hold a tune *wink*.  

• We read The Apostle's Creed, The Creed of Nicea, and The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. We talked about some of the wording, comparisons and differences of each, and our thoughts about them.
• I read aloud {the plan is to have them read aloud some things as well} "Weathers" by Thomas Hardy. 
• We listened to Пусть всегда будет солнце {May There Always Be Sunshine} a few times and {some of us} tried to sing along. 
• The Foreign Language Memory Box came out for the first time this morning. I got the idea from the Bible Verses Memory Box at Simply Charlotte Mason. Well, truth be told, I got the idea from Silvia. We did "wie heißen Sie?" {what's your name?}. I have a few from Spanish and Latin as well. 
• Next we went through the first 10 Presidents. A miscommunication between the three of us caused tensions to rise, and omission of a President. We got it figured out and put Martin Van Buren back in the line-up. We also dealt with the attitudes.
• Habits- one of the three is doing quite well with their chosen habit. The other two still have some work to do {I will admit, I am one struggling with my 'bad' habit}. And because of the little flare-up above, we talked about a habit we all have that we need to work on now. 
• We closed with prayer. We are praying for a local family that is headed to Israel, an online friend who is in the hospital because of mitochondrial disease {her birthday is today!}, each other and unspoken prayer requests. 

This is where the first difficulty arose. My habit is follow-through. Last night I'd written on the very large, takes-up-a-wall whiteboard things that needed to be done today, and some for the rest of the week. The first thing was that after Round Table, chores were to be worked on. It's in nice bright orange. It was 'missed'. I allowed the kids to go off and do something else after Round Table. I realized, rather late, that I did not make sure the chores were done Sunday, either. 

I had errands to run and that took another 45 minutes to an hour out of the school day. After we got home it was lunch time so I made homemade mac-n-cheese. I can't {again, I don't} eat that because of the cheese and wheat noodles. But the kids both really like when I make it for them.

This is where things really started to go south. Attitudes were sour and the complaining and whining started. We had not done our science experiment last week because we didn't have what we needed. We picked it up when we did errands, so we were good to do the experiment. Rather than get farther behind in our science, I just tacked it on to today. We have less today scheduled. It's written on the very large, takes-up-a-wall whiteboard. In bright orange. 

One kid got huffy; the other got huffy. Then we did our science; both were smiling at the end. I missed the huffiness at the start {possibly even at Round Table this morning!} and should have addressed it then. Since I didn't the next thing was pretty much to be expected. 

An assignment that one didn't like led to a very poor attitude. Poor attitudes get screen time privileges taken for the day. It escalated to one being sent to their room for quite a while. Voices were raised, tears fell, and then quiet. 

One of the injustices that had been done {or so the feeling was} is that some of the family members do not listen to the other. We don't take the time to hear what the reason is or what would be better, in their opinion. So I did just that; I listened. 

The silver lining in all of this? Lessons learned. Discussions that reach to the heart. At least I hope.

Every day is a learning experience. Even the difficult days. *The things we do in this life are not to be done for acknowledgement. They are to be done because it is the right thing to do; it is our duty.

*I will add that I emphasized somewhat the things I'd done today in terms of 'sacrificing my time' for a reason. As mothers there is so much we do that is not acknowledged. It doesn't need to be. It shouldn't need to be. One of the issues being dealt with today with one of my kids was that "only the bad things are acknowledged." To which I replied, the good things are our duty; the bad things are in need of discipline and correction. That's why they get noticed so much quicker than the good.