We are taking our basketful of books about penguins back to the library tonight to get a basketful of books about the Middle Ages/knights/castles/etc. We have learned a lot of factual stuff about penguins, particularly Emperor penguins. (Ask Brianna or Micah or Kiara about the blubber experiment, which was one of our favorite learning activities. Actually we are all pretty in awe of Emperor penguins right now.) But we also enjoyed reading helen Lester's books about Tacky the penguin. Lots of fun. This morning we reread our favorites, and I just wanted to keep this delightful line: "A penguin full of porridge does not fall like a snowflake."

Homeschool day 1
We started with Breakfast and Books and read Three Cheers for Tacky (Tacky's a penguin), and Living in the Wild: Emperor Penguins with Reading Bear. Then we did our morning day, date, weather, calendar stuff after hanging up the whiteboard in the hallway. That led to an interesting conversation about how we count the years and A.D. and B.C. Then the termite guy came and Bri wrote in her journal and then wrote a page for me about what she already knew about penguins. Reading her page let us work on lower case t and review some of the spelling/phonics concepts. I was pleased with how well she self-corrected when I asked prompting questions. Then she did a math ws/coloring page. We made a blue Jello Antarctica with marshmallow icebergs. Then we had fish sticks and grapes for lunch. Then Micah and Kiara arrived and we went with them and Barbara to see "March of the Penguins," which we highly recommend. Back at our house, we had Micah and Kiara with us until dinner/prayer time so we had our Antarctic snack and then they decorated their penguin folders. While they were doing that, we got to talk about camouflage. Then we weighed and measured all the kids and compared their size to the size of an average Emperor penguin. (Bri is the height of a tall Emperor penguin, but about half its weight.) I went into the kitchen to pitch in a tiny bit with dinner prep and enjoyed overhearing their living room playtime from there. Clearly, they could handle review on their own: "Hurry--get on the ice (the futon on the floor)! A leopard seal is coming. . . . It's okay, he can't get you on the ice." "I'll be the dad and take care of the egg--Brianna, you're the mom--go to the sea and eat a LOT of fish, okay?" By then, some neighborhood kids had arrived. When it got a little crazy, I read a couple more books they chose from the book basket while Paul and Barbara handled the veggies and hot dogs on the grill. Others showed up and prayed and played and eventually went home. Brianna just told Paul a lot about Antarctica and emperor penguins. Then they read one last Tacky book for the night. Now we are headed for bed, where Brianna is listening to a library audiobook --This week she's been listening to the Felicity books of the American Girls series, which we are using as our American history springboard. I know this is way too much information for the rest of the world--it's mostly something for Bri and I to be able to look back at and remember what that very first day was like.

I had no idea at the beginning of this day that there were so many blessings hidden in it. In fact, I was rather emotional and non-expectant, mostly because I have had an asthma flare-up, the first in quite a while. I even had to haul out the nebulizer. And I had forgotten how lousy it feels to not be able to sleep more than two hours without waking up coughing and gasping for air and then later that just weak and shaky and all-is-not-right-with-the-world feeling that persists as you are aware that the air is not really getting very far down into your lungs. I actually started to cry, thinking, "What have I done with this decision to homeschool Brianna? What is going to happen on days like this, days when I am so weak and uncommunicative?" Big negative spiral clearly heading toward "I'm a total loser and negatively impact the lives of everyone around me."
I decided to take a positive action to head it off and sat down at the computer to get a few of the resources for our first unit printed out and look for a few more goodies. Well, that was fun and fascinating. I am amazed when I realize how much I will learn by teaching Bri. And in the back of my mind, this underlying certainty that I dwell in began to push back through the fog to the surface: It takes a community and God has so richly blessed us with a great community. The thought of saying that I am going to homeschool Brianna just strikes me as absurd and arrogant. Even making that Paul and I doesn't change that. But the absurd statement woud not be true anyway-- we have a community, with a nurse to teach health and an opera student to teach teach music, and a lot of other people consistently asking Bri what she has been learning and answering any questions she presents them with the best they can. People in our community are even asking when our first day is so that they can help us make a big deal of it. Amazing.
I had also had a few twinges at 7:30 this morning, just not being a part of that whole first-day-of-school scene that has played a big part in my life from so many angles. We did not start school today. We are starting on Wednesday. (Before the asthma event, Bri and I had some hopes of making a trip to New Mexico with my parents before we jumped into our fall routine. But since we are home, Bri is ready to get started. We compromised on Wednesday since I still need to pull a few things together and she does not have her desk exactly the way she wants it for school.)
But today still gave me some answers about what would happen on a day like today. When Bri got up, she started asking questions about how her daddy and I met and then going on to the next step and the next. I told the story to my rapt audience of one. We really have not started school yet, but the mindset is already there, so as we went, there was math: "So if Daddy thought Mommy would be there at 1:00, but she didn't get there until 3:00, how many hours did Daddy wait for Mommy?", etc. When she was surprised that we didn't first figure out that I was pregnant because of how fat I got, we went online and talked about some pictures of development in utero. Cool. Then over lunch, we brought out the photo albums and those brought out more stories. What a sweet day. I actually feel much better now--although Bri did not manage to motivate me to help her clear out her junky desk drawers. And I am so excited about Wednesday I can hardly wait.
Today has reminded me of all the positive reasons that we found for homeschooling after the initial negative ones of escape-from-DISD, where I had been focused on the negative ones lately because they are the ones I expect to help other people understand our decision. I am going to write about our decision here soon so that those who don't understand it can at least see some of our thought process. But for today, I am thinking of the precious picture Bri and I looked at today of Uncle Harvey holding Bri when she was 3 months old, and I am hearing his familiar words echo through me: Praise God from whom all blessings flow!