Just yelled my head off and sent all the boys to their rooms.
It started this morning when I was fetching dirty laundry and asked The Mercenary to bring any stray clothes down to my room so I could sort and wash them. (Note that I do all the washing, drying, and folding [...]

So, here we are at the several-weeks-into-the-school-year point, and things are going well. I KNOW! Wonderful, in’nt it?
The older boys have finally stepped over to the dark side. They actually believe that they can do the work set before them. On top of that, when I assign a task, they [...]

Sing the Hokey Pokey to learn left and right.
Spin in circles while practicing your counting to 100
Offer a choice: “Do you want to read on the red couch or the brown couch today?”
Act out stories with Papo figures.
Draw a picture of the story you just read.
Go on a bike ride in the middle of the [...]

photo credit: Busko
The older boys have been a lot more independent with their school schedule this year. Today there was a bit more computer-game-playing happening than I liked, so I called them on it.
Me: Have you done your Spanish lesson yet?
TechnoBoy: No…I’ll do it now.
momentary pause
TechnoBoy: Have YOU done your Spanish lesson yet?
Me: [...]

Okay, when last I wrote I mentioned that I’d gotten locked into a power struggle with The Manager on Thursday morning. Basically what happened was I started the day explaining to the younger boys that we were going to do our lessons in two blocks. Immediately after breakfast, we’d do the first half [...]

photo credit: Ikhlasul Amal
Tomorrow is the last day of the third week of school. Last year at this time, I posted about some battles that I was having with the boys. Some time later, a group of women who disagree with me on some basic parenting philosophies found the post and spent [...]