quiet time

The kids went to my mom's house on Saturday after J's dance class and we got some much needed quite time.
I cleaned the whole house yesterday and had some time for myself today.....it seems like there isn't time in the world for everything I'd like to get done around here...
I did get a chance to organize the kid's room finally.

We get a break like this about every 3 mos....

Before we dropped them off Friday we did so many errands it was not funny... I had a Dr appt, then went shopping at the vegetable stand, did laundry, did our taxes, F got his hair cut and went to the library with his father. whew..... :)

Thursday we did our math and me and F looked up some web sites for his animals in Italy report that is due this Friday. He is stalling again because he doesn't want to do this specific country. Once he has his mind made up about something it's hard to get him to do otherwise...we are working on that because he needs to understand that in life you don't always get to do what you would like to do. I explained that for the previous classes some of the kids didn't want to do the country that was picked by the majority but they did it anyway and learned something in the process, we went over the concept of democracy.....
So basically he is going to do his report when he comes home and go and present it in the class on Friday and hopefully learn something about compromise as well as animals in Italy.
It brings me to the thought that how is this different from school? He is required to do something that he really doesn't want to do because I tell him to....I know that the majority of the time he learns things that he really wants to learn and has fun doing it so it sticks in his mind....I guess this time I just have to leave it be and teach him about what it entails to be a part of a group. I guess when thinking about how this is different from being in school is that we have a discussion on why he should do what he really doesn't want to do and to finish what he started and he starts to learn about the value of democracy and about being a part of a group making group decisions.
Hopefully this will benefit him in the long run....

J on the other hand seems to be a little easier to teach so far, she is interested in so many things, she now knows most of the alphabet by sight and a few letters by sound. She is willing to go anywhere and try anything new. I hope this lasts until she goes to school....if she ever starts regular public school....