And we're rolling, rolling, rolling on the river.

Summer vacation 2010 has officially ended. Labor Day weekend has now come and gone. Most children have begun their school year, whether at home or in a traditional setting. And Malachy and I are starting to get our home-schooling groove on.

Today we were all up early, enjoyed a rare and harmonious breakfast before Steve had to cycle off to work. The three of us actually sat together and ate before school/work! In the past, our mornings were filled with so much tension and stress as I would be frantically running around, slapping lunches together, prompting Malachy to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush his teeth, comb his mop, gather his school supplies, backpack, sweater, jacket........ and then off he'd go with Steve driving to the neighborhood Elementary school. By the time I would hear the Jeep leave the driveway, I felt like my blood pressure would hit the roof. Today was surreal.

As Steve was kissing us goodbye, we were logging onto Malachy's french language program. There was a small hitch in the recording function of the program, but without missing a beat, we went to the kitchen to start with his math (in other words, I didn't freak out!). Using the math tools that CAVA sent us, Malachy was able to breeze through the lesson and I could see he was quite enjoying himself. Malachy is an excellent speller and today's spelling class was easy-peasy for him and we completed two spelling lessons in about the same time as one lesson should take. We then moved onto Language Arts. We enjoyed a nice, lentil soup for lunch that I had on the stove all morning. We had a pleasant conversation while we ate and then he went outside to swing and ran around with the dogs for about half an hour. I tidied up the kitchen, and prepared for our afternoon lessons. We finished a little before the neighborhood school ended their day and yet I felt we covered so much. It truly went remarkably well today. I can see the shape of our lives changing already in this short time.

I think I'm getting it.....