Christmas Holidays

I am LOVING my Christmas holidays! I realized today that we haven't even been on holiday for a week yet and we still have more than a week left. Woo hoo!!! I knew I needed a break, but didn't realize how badly.

I'm not taking a total break, though. Although I'm not following through on the plans I had made on the weekend. I had listed out a bunch of stuff that meant I was going to be working on stuff a lot during the day. I've scrapped that and am enjoying myself for the most part for now. Have been tackling the basement, doing a little bit of school stuff, working on my crocheted blanket, napping (always good!), shopping, etc. It's been very nice. I figure I have to make sure this is a very enjoyable and relaxing time or I'm not going to be ready to get back into the groove when school starts.

It's been interesting seeing the kids' reaction to less structure and no requirements (essentially). They have their Christmas gifts they've been bouncing around with, but they've also been seeking out things they haven't touched in a long time. Dd even pulled out a Jon Nagy (sp?) art set she's had for a while and did a wonderful sketch involving shading. It's wonderful she's able to learn all that essentially on her own because I'm not much of an artist! Ds has been demonstrating just how much he does know about letters and sounds, crazy kid. It's been nice to see because there were questions Christmas day about my nephew (same age as ds and in school) and if he's begun reading. Of course, the homeschooling mom in me had my heart sink because ds has not really begun reading yet. Then he turns around and reads almost all the names on the tags at our Christmas gathering and two days later a 25% off sign. "How do you know that's 'off'?" "I just do." lol. There's always that little panic that people will judge your child's progress and 'blame' any apparent lack thereof on homeschooling. *sigh*