Getting back into it

We took a little over three weeks off of school for Christmas break and started back up after New Year's.


Excepting today's 60 degrees, it's been really cold.  


Which means my Southern-bred kids don't go outside.


Which means we've had a lot of togetherness.

Lots of togetherness.

Me:  "Be quiet!! You guys are louder than doomsday!!"

Lizzy:  "What's doomsday?"

Me, sputtering with frustration:  "Something that's really loud!!"

I can at least enforce quiet within the school room, even if I don't have the heart to make them go outside and play.  In fact, they enforce each other during school hours.  I sat down to do kindergarten with Caleb the other day and he scolded the others:  "Be quiet! I'm learning!"

Grandpa showed up one morning with donuts.  I had just come in from a run, so I told the nearest kid they needed to eat something healthy for breakfast first and then they could have a donut.  When I came back after a shower, they all reported to me on what they ate (they police each other).  Liz gave me a whole explanation of how she ate granola before her donut, and then Caleb, prim and proper, said, "I ate, however, cooked oatmeal."

Halfway Day was last Friday.  Grandma being out of town, our crowd was sparse, but Grandpa and Daddy pulled through with the requisite oohing and aahing.

And here's news to me:  apparently if you leave plastic--or even metal!--toys outside, in a sand pit, for example, when the temperatures are sub-zero for a while, they turn so brittle that they fall to pieces in your hands when you try to play with them next.


Caleb also learned this the hard way a few days ago at the beginning of the January thaw.  Actually, he learned it first, and then I learned it when he came inside crying hysterically with a shattered dump truck in his hands.  


After calming down somewhat, I sent him back outside to gather in any more beloved toys to the garage so it didn't happen again.  


He came in sniffling a few minutes later and crawled onto my lap and said, "I didn't find any more beloved."

May your beloveds be safe and your homes at least a little bit quieter than doomsday this January.