Summer school...

Summer. The sun comes out, and suddenly I want to do nothing more than relax and shrug off any sort of constraints to the pursuit of nothingness (constraints being schedules. and any tasks pursued for reasons other than my personal enjoyment). Consequently, in the past couple of weeks, there hasn't been a whole lot happening in la escuela de Koch. Late bedtimes for the kids, followed by equally late awakenings in the morning, have led to days that are terribly out of sync for all of us.

I'm awake by 6:30 every morning, usually earlier. I sip coffee, and spend time reading email, blogs, and playing on Facebook. When Little Brother was going to school each morning, I had a perfect pattern of: coffee, computer, shower, wake the boy, sit together while he ate breakfast, he gets dressed, I finish getting ready, jackets on, say goodbye to Big Sister, and we'd head out the door. I'd return to the house to find Big Sister fed, dressed, and ready to homeschool. We'd do all our schooling while Brother was at school, and be done by noon at the latest. The kids had the whole afternoon to do as they pleased, and so did I. I was happy. Kids were happy.

In the absence of a real driving need to be out the door at 8:30 each morning, our routine has greatly suffered. I'm still up at the crack of dawn sipping coffee, but my hour on the computer has stretched into two. The kids are up nearly as late as Mom and Dad, and they stagger out of bed at 9, 10 or later. They sit, half-asleep, on the couch in the living room until their growling stomachs eventually drive them to the kitchen to seek out nourishment in the form of oatmeal, fruity pebbles, or (if mom is distracted) a bag of chips. The remains of yesterday's ongoing "game" (it's how they refer to the days-long sagas of pretend play they create) are strewn across the living room carpet, and both of them are drawn in. Not being in any real hurry to accomplish anything, it's now almost 10am and I'm still unshowered. By 10:30 or 11am I'm clean, clothed, and feeling ready to take on the day, but the kids are now fully engrossed in the game. By noon they are hungry again, and I take advantage of the break in their play to at least have them get dressed so we can do something, anything outside of the house. At that point, shifting gears to sit down and do some schoolwork is unappealing to all three of us. The end result is that I end up feeling like we've been incredibly lazy, with nothing to show for our time but a floor full of star wars characters, littlest pet shop animals, and various magnetics pieces scattered from one wall to the other.

I really can't see taking two months completely off and losing whatever progress Big Sister has made over the course of the last few months. Plus, I much prefer to spend the year working hard for a couple of months, and then taking a week or two off - much more manageable, in my opinion. I do need to find some kind of balance so that I'm not sucking the fun out of these long, sunny days, but right now the scale is tipped way too far in the other direction. My intention today is to get us back on track. Hmmm... how to make this work? I think what I'm going to do is let them continue to follow their own sleep patterns, and make sure I have myself ready for the day before they wake up. That way I can be ready to jump in with a little school time in the moments before they find themselves sucked into taking General Grievous to a birthday party for the spotted dog. Wish me luck!