Being outside makes me tired

I didn't plan it, but we've pretty much skipped school this week.

Monday the girls were cranky and I wanted to get some cleaning done. We did go to the library and on our weekly nature walk. We watched some lizards and spiders while swinging on a swing. It was beastly humid and started to sprinkle so we raced back to the car.

Tuesday was a spur-of-the-moment nature trip to a local forest with the homeschool group. I left Glitter at school and took Sparkle to tromp in the woods. She enjoyed catching grasshoppers and running around with the other kids. (According to http://bugguide.net/node/view/3904 it is the juvenile or nymph form of the Lubber grasshopper.)



Wednesday I decided to go to the electronics superstore instead of doing school. I wanted to buy something to connect my computer to the tv. I was picturing doing memory work with the girls snuggling on the sofa and watching the TV instead of in front of the tiny computer screen. The sales associates were singularly unhelpful and mis-informed. One sales associate dreamed up her own ideas of how the cables worked, such as using an s-video cable to transmit audio. When I asked another sales associate about the return policy, she told me to read the back of the receipt which I didn't have as I hadn't purchased anything yet.

Thursday I dropped Glitter off at school and took Sparkle to a local park for a new playgroup. She was the oldest one there, as the other kids her age were in school. At first she didn't like it but after playing around for a bit she made friends. Then after picking up Glitter it was off to swim lessons. The girls had been having consecutive lessons, which meant that I spent the whole time with one bored girl or the other climbing all over me. I managed to get Sparkle switched to the same class as Glitter. Once again, Sparkle didn't like being lumped with younger kids. It didn't help that the younger kids were doing better than her. While I don't like that she is struggling to learn to swim, I think that it is good for her to see that being older doesn't automatically make her better - hard work makes a bigger difference.

Tomorrow is Friday, and we are scheduled to go berry picking.