Elena 
It’s been a quiet week in a domestically busy sort of way.
Calvin went AWOL after Sunday night. He said he was going to an amusement park with some friends and that he might stay the night. He actually went up with friends to some gated community on Lake Erie and ended up staying two nights. Of course he never phoned, left a message, e-mail or anything. So after the second night I was starting to wonder how long I had to wait before I put out a missing persons report. Luckily, he called before the third night!
This is an interesting dance that we are trying to do he and I. Calvin wants to be a adult. He wants to act like an adult. He is just unsure of what all of that entails. Does calling mean he is still tied to my apron strings? or is it a common courtesy that people still living under the same roof give to each other? I say the latter, he says the former, and Mr. Pete is just trying to stay out of it. Tomorrow is Calvin’s 19th birthday!
My little Rosie was sick for a couple of days. She threw up on the couch. She threw up on the floor. She came over, put her head on my lap and threw up on me. Not fun. She was also running a little fever. Mr. Pete said a lot of the people he works with who have little kids had the same thing – this summer fever thing that waxes and wanes for a few days. So hopefully she will be well before the weekend. None of the other kids are sick at all.
It was interesting to have Rosie sleeping it off (after Motrin, a cool bath, clean diaper and popsicle). If my little girl is sleeping all day, what am I supposed to do with myself? It was very freeing in a way and my mind started thinking that maybe I could get more done in our homeschool if I looked into enrolling her in pre-school next year. The thought was very tempting.
But the reality is I’d have to get her ready every day. Take her there every day. And she would probably bring home more sniffles and little sicknesses from the other kids. And I would miss her. The more I thought about it, the more I decided against it. It was a passing phase.
But she has to be better by Sunday!! That is our annual birthday extravaganza up on Lake Erie. We celebrate Calvin’s birthday and Gabe’s! Gabe turns 13 this year so I will officially have three teenage boys living in the house. Mercy!
I got a lot of deep cleaning done in my living room this week. Hoping to hit the kitchen and dining room this week and finish the basement next week. I also have to do the dreaded lesson plans. sigh…
While I was cleaning I thought a lot about some pretty heated (brutal) conversations that I had on line last week. Many months ago a certain blogger wrote a controversial post on a topic I have covered a lot on this blog. I blogged about her post with a link back. I’m not sure if newer bloggers understand that this is what was so neat about blogging back in the day. I wonder if many of them even know what “trackbacks” and “frisking” are? Probably not. Anyway this blogger was ticked (many months later!) that I wrote about her article. Before long she and two of her friends with whom I had also had disagreements were discussing my mental health. Cause from their perspective, don’t ya know, if I disagreed with them, I must be nuts. But with a week’s perspective and distance the entire episode seems silly to me now. It took up a lot of brain energy last week though.
Sam is not finished with his 9th grade work. I told him that if it took until October or November that was fine. That is the beauty of homeschool I guess. But I told him that I can’t start him on 10th grade work until he gets 9th grade done. The kid is a beast in math though. He sailed through Algebra 1 and has a good start on Geometry. He is just lovin math. He sooooo did not get that from my gene pool!
I’ve been slacking with the other kids as far as regular academics but I have been hitting history very hard. They watched all 14 hours of the Roots series. I think they didn’t hate it. I’m not sure they enjoyed all of it but it was pleasant enough. We did sit down and watch the very last episode together because I love the scene where Alex Haley travels to Africa and hears the history keeper talk about his ancestor Kunta Kinte! The kids found that to be exciting too. Yesterday we watched a PBS special about Chicago which ended with the great Chicago Fire of 1871. That really was well done and they enjoyed that as well. We had read a library book about it first and that prepared them well for the movie!
We also read a book about the Ohio River this week and now Mr. Pete is talking about taking a trip down to West Virginia to walk along the river. That sounds exciting and it would be good for all of us. A nice break.
Mr. Pete had a very good week! He picked up a late 80s Subaru wagon with low mileage for $600. It’s in good condition but it needs some fender and brake work, both of which Mr. Pete had done many times before. So I might have a sportier little car to drive around this fall which is a good deal for me! We now have four cars, all of them over 10 years old, three of them over 100,000 miles and all of them running well although it’s getting to be almost a full time job keeping that way. I am hardly driving at all now which is great. I can’t believe what a homebody I have become. It’s quite a change from my 20s when I use to drive up to Cleveland for a dance class or to see a show with little thought about it at all! How times have changed.
I have some transcription to do and school plans which I hope to share on the blog next week. Maybe I’ll have some great birthday bash pictures to share! Have a great weekend!
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