First Day of Homeschool!!!

It is currently quiet time! Something that started out as a Godsend two and a half years ago has transformed from six sleeping little children and one sleeping mommy to one sleeping toddler, three reading little boys, and one writing momma. We had our first day of homeschool today. I wanted to reflect a bit while it was still fresh in my mind.
I woke up at 7. I set the alarm for that late because I knew I was still too cough-y to work out. I mistakenly thought 7 would give me enough time to read from the Bible and have a quiet breakfast. Wrong! Gavin and Rhianna were already awake making faces at each other and entertaining themselves with funny noises. I convinced him to read his sister a story... quietly. I opened the Bible to the 5th chapter of Romans and heard pitter patter of Danny feet heading up the stairs. "Is it time to homeschool?" He asked eagerly and headed toward his homeschool basket. "Not yet." Gavin offered to read to him, too. What a considerate big brother! I was able to read a couple chapters and pray briefly. I will set the alarm for 6:30 tomorrow. That'll show 'em!
I had planned on the house being super organized by today. I had NOT planned on all seven of us being sick with the Swine Flu for the past two weeks. So the house is passable, but not even clean, much less organized. It will be a work in progress. I am still hopeful that dh will be able to fix a few things, hang some curtains, and help rescue our bedroom. He is supposed to have oodles of time off during the next couple of months, but the internet bugs found out and decided he has to spend much of that precious time off from police-work, to spend on computer-work. I will write down some things that I would love for him to do for us and ask him to write down some goals for his time, as well.
Meal plans have been made through the next two weeks. Yay! I need to go to the grocery store though so I can follow them. I need to prepare kids' snack ahead of time or use it for a lesson or reward and have kids help. We spent an hour for snack time. I was also distracted by my urge to visit with my honey instead of making a needed phone call or getting out books for the next few hours of school. Lots of "wasted" time.
Rhianna did better than she could have. She is still coughing so I couldn't take her to daycare. She has been extremely stubborn lately but she didn't do too bad today. I got pretty frustrated once when I was trying to deal with her bad behaviour and had other kids trying to talk to me at the same time. The interrupting has got to stop! How? Practice waiting, I suppose.
Ashton was working on some math problems today. Some subraction facts I thought for certain he would have no problems with really stumped him. Even after I walked him through a few times he was still confused. I will be working on that with him tomorrow. Maybe it's time to buy some mini-marshmallows for hot chocolate.
Brendan read for me the same way his previous teacher said he read for him.... wonderfully when right next to me, but when on the other side of the room, not so much! Lots of playing with the book, gazing our the window, tying his shoes, and anything else instead of reading. I need to have more concrete expectations of what two boys should work on while I work with one child at a time.
Daniel was sure excited when I told him last night that he would get to go to school with his kitties. The look on his face was pretty cute. This morning while we were reading one of our books he made sure to get Sasha.
Well, Rhianna is awake and in a foul mood. Yippee-skippy! The fun of the afternoon begins.