Mommy shuffle!

Apologies for the absence. For the past week and a half my internet connection was down and my cell phone has been missing. Joyfully, my honey has braved the customer service calls to get the internet up and running again, and I have found my cell phone. It was on silent, behind the computer screen!

In the interim, our homeschool life has been hectic. Our school days this year seem to last way too long, and it's running into our soccer, ballet, play time afternoons. The topic has come up in casual conversations with other homeschooling moms, and I've come to the conclusion that it's a sixth grade kind of thing. The extra work load at that level seems to have thrown off our not-so-perfect balance.

Here's the sitch: the first 4 assignments (dailygrams, religion, penmanship, varied reading assignment) go by swimmingly, and are followed by a well-earned break. After this, every little bit of schoolwork accomplishment seems to be followed by a a self-determined bathroom break, water break, snack-break or break-break of some kind. This goes for all three doing schoolwork. By the time I rope the first one back to the table, one of the others has snuck off. This has been quite detrimental to our actual quality free time. I'm sure we'll figure this out eventually, but if you have any wisdom that would speed up the adjustment, I would love for you to fill me in!