My Kids Are Grounded...Forever!

We are in the midst of a week-long punishment called grounding.  I've been a parent for almost 11 years and this is the first time I've wielded this horrifying tool against my children.  The details surrounding the punishment is, to my mind, a "that's it" moment.  But according to my husband it's quite hysterical.  Yes, he laughed when he found out the reason why I grounded the kids. Let me just say it involved a kiddie pool and a near empty bottle of Dawn dish detergent. 

He who laughs last laughs the hardest.  This grounding thing is actually kinda cool!  There's no screen time, yes including the Olympics, no playing with neighborhood friends and certainly no laughing. Except for me, I'm allowed to laugh in an evil sort of way.  Okay I'm kidding, they are allowed to laugh a little bit.

Funny thing is before they were grounded they were already getting on (my) nerves.  They were fighting over EVERYTHING, who gets to watch their show, who gets to sit where, how to spell banana properly and even who should breathe first. Yup, that petty. So the Dawn incident was supposed to be really funny but it was the last straw for me. I sounded pretty convincing when I laid down the long sermon as to why they are grounded (and then my husband laughed!).  To his credit the husband laughed away from the scene of the crime (and criminals!) thereby not tarnishing the beauty of my speech about virtue. 

So here we are, almost half-way done with the week-long punishment and it's been wonderful.  It has been the most peaceful last few days.  Gone are the petty bickering and tattle-telling.  In it's place are four children who are playing well together, laughing at the silliest things and coming up with creative things to do without the aid of electronics. Don't be too impressed they are still hoping to get chickenpox so they don't have to do chores!  But at least there's no more long-faces about it.  They know that I reserve the right to extend this punishment as I see fit. 

Since I am enjoying this so much I think I will make a declaration that they will be grounded forever.

Back to School - a "how do you do this?" post

This year I am homeschooling 4 children out of 5 (hyperventilating!)  My youngest student, the kindergartner is, by our family standard, behind.  At this age, my oldest three were reading, riding their bikes without training wheels and can speak in tongues (that last part is an exaggeration).

You would think that I would consider myself an expert by now but the opposite is true.  After a quick assessment of Pablo's academic skills it is making me nervous that I don't remember how I taught the others.  Maybe I didn't really teach them, maybe they were just born geniuses?!  lol  Yup, I am freaking out. It didn't help that we were watching videos of the kids reading at age 4. As the fourth child, we might have babied (is that a word?) Pablo a little longer and did not apply the rigors of scholarship as early. 

It promises to be a busy school year with the absence of my usual "know-it-all" homeschooling bravado.  I think I need to go hide in a cave for a week or so to figure this all out.  Actually I need to go to this retreat - http://www.educatingforheaven.com/2012/07/fanning-the-flame-a-retreat-for-catholic-homeschooling-mothers/

Hopefully, in a couple of months I will be laughing at myself when Pablo begins to read the Odyssey. So how's your homeschool planning going?