Friday, February 25, 2011

STOP SHOUTING!

Yesterday was... interesting. It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't a normal type day for us. But, oh well, I learn the most during those "not normal" days.
Everything went according to plan for getting ready for the day and eating breakfast. The kids ran off to play before we started school in about forty minutes. Lately Kaeley has been wanting to instantly finish her morning school to get it out of the way and that's fine with me. However, yesterday she decided she wanted to play instead. Again, that's fine with me. As long as she gets it done sometime before lunch I don't care when she decides to buckle down and get it out of the way. So, she went to play in the room with the siblings.
I don't know what got into my kids, but they were loud! Kaeley was doing a very long-winded siren. Nathan and Alynna learned how to make high pitched gurgling noises in their throats. They all kept yelling at one another to communicate even though they were two feet away from each other. I kept telling them to talk quietly. They kept answering that they were! I closed the bedroom door, so they could be kids and I would stop being harassed. They were so loud this small effort didn't make much of a difference. It was just one of those mornings that I kept shouting, "Stop shouting! Why is everyone is loud!"
A little before 9:00am I knew that school was not going to happen in the usual way. Their energy was just way vamped up to come crashing down to do school. We quickly switched plans and went to the playground instead. It was a good choice. It was instantly beneficial to my well-being to be out in the brisk air, letting the sun hit my face, breathing in great outdoors, and seeing my super loud children running down the street screaming. The screaming didn't seem so bad outside. :)
We were the only people at the playground for quite a while. The kids played in the woodsy side of the park, pretended to make camp fires, and tried to coax squirrels out of their trees. Two city workers drove up in their park truck to clean up the large palm branches that had fallen down and raking up trash and debris. Nathan, my child who likes to talk non-stop at strangers, ran up instantly to them and shouted, "Hey, Man! What are ya doin'?" His loud jabbering went on and on. Why were they taking the branches away? Why did they have a truck that was white? What were they going to do with all the trash? Where did they get that shovel from? One man was quiet. One man was very gracious to the children and encouraged them to help clean up. Kaeley and Nathan went right to work picking up the large debris that they could find. Kaeley worked more than Nathan. He was too busy yelling at the strangers.
We were at the playground for a good two hours. I thought we had let out enough energy to do some quiet school work once we got home. However, that was not the case. Everyone became quite loud and energetic all over again! Kaeley finished her Daily Quiet Time and two pages of Math. At this point in my day I was tired and my ears were tired and I couldn't wait for everyone to go to bed. We cancelled English, ate an early lunch, and I demanded an early nap time.
An early nap time meant an early wake time, so there was very little school in the afternoon.
Over all the day was productive, but odd. Odd days are okay for me though. Odd days are often good in stretching my flexibility, which is still a newish skill for me to exercise.

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