The kids and I were lounging on my bed reading this week’s Five in a Row title (“Gramma’s Walk”) on Monday when our once-leisurely morning took a turn for the chaotic. Rockford was leaving for a business trip, and we’d planned to drop him off at the airport in the afternoon. Except that once he checked his itinerary, he realized he’d been wrong about when his plane was leaving. A good deal of rushing around later, and we got him to the airport on time. Then we went home, made a picnic lunch, drove to the park, discovered there was some sort of festival going on at the park, tried to go to a different park, got lost, finally got there, had lunch, played, encountered a pack of wild rude girls, had tantrums and came back home. Phew.

This, friends, is not my idea of a Good Way to Start One’s Week. Happily, things did improve and settle down a bit. My mom came over on Tuesday to stay for a few days, and that’s pretty much like having an in-house nanny. And that’s a big win in my book!

Monday

I’m trying to do some cooking lessons with Poppy, and this week we decided to talk about eggs. We talked about their nutritional value and all of the great things you can do with them, then we made some fried eggs for Poppy and omelets for me and Pete.

Additional work: Handwriting, Spanish, “Doctor Dolittle.”

Tuesday

Health, handwriting, Spanish and “Doctor Dolittle.”

Wednesday

Handwriting, Spanish, ballet and “Doctor Dolittle.”

Thursday

Spanish, and we finished “Doctor Dolittle.” Poppy was pretty upset that the book had ended.

Friday

We talked about simplicity and realism in art, and I helped Poppy make a sketch of a rose in a vase to paint. And when I say “help,” I mean I flipped the paper over and sketched it for her after she’d drawn a giant black squiggle. I usually let her do her own interpretation of whatever we’re doing, art-wise, but I wanted to emphasize the “realism” part of the effort.

Additional work: Spanish, handwriting and a new read-aloud: “My Father’s Dragon.”

I’m experimenting with a nearly year-round schedule this year. We’re doing three weeks of school followed by a week off from August through June. Next week is our first break, during which I’m going to be gathering materials and putting things together for our second three-week session.