A much better day

Well, things can shift like magic. I had thought that part of yesterday's blahs with the kids had been due to the weather, which was rainy-icy-foggy-ick. But today it's the same weather, but all is sunny in our house. It's 12:30 and we're done, DONE, and that despite the fact that we didn't get started until 9:30...I was on the radio doing a couple of spots on a morning show and THEN I even had a nice workout at the Y (counterbalancing chrusciki effects).

Everyone did piano, karate, math, logic, history (Ancient Romans and what they had to do with Jesus's crucifixion), Writing Road to Reading words (Easter-themed), and handwriting.

I found a really nice site for practicing math facts:
http://home.indy.rr.com/lrobinson/mathfacts/mathfacts.html
It doesn't look like much but the girls really liked it; you can tailor it to practically any level for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Madison even found it a challenge to do all four at one time; she didn't always realize the proper sign for the operation, and so she got some wrong. I'm pleased to say that my little perfectionist has become more relaxed about missing answers; that is, it's no longer a tragedy when she gets a few wrong. Not that she LIKES it, of course, and she's not careless or casual about it, but it's no longer a reason for hara-kiri.

A mark of how well we did this morning was that Madison's handwriting work was copying that dreaded song "Die Forelle" for the Bach Children's Chorus that has been giving her the willies, and she was ok with it.

I told her the story of how I hate doing taxes SO MUCH that one year in order to get through all of the paperwork, I took it all to Chili's and slowly ate my way through loaded nachos as I sat there on my own sorting and completing forms. The waitresses were understanding, even amused. At the end I had a virgin pina colada to celebrate. I said that I thought that Die Forelle was enough of a mental obstacle that we could use the same principle, and gave her a small dish of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips, her favorite, along with the paper, pencil, and lyrics. She smiled at me gratefully, and got to work.

And now I get to work the whole afternoon! Good thing, because clients are calling.