A less-than-ordinary day in the life

Today we had a lot of running around to do. Usually, after breakfast, we are found at or near our big round school table doing our daily OLVS assignments 4 days a week. (One day a week is spent doing something with our local group of 35 Catholic homeschooling families. But instead, today 9:15am found us at the Orthodontist as son #2 had braces put on! It took an hour and a half to wire him up with mouth metal and thankfully I thought to bring our schoolwork to do in the waiting room.

When at last I was invited back into the torture chamber to collect him, he smiled an anticipatory smile...an orange and black smile. He had requested his bands to be alternated in those two colors in honor of his FLYERS hockey obsession! Of course, I loved it!


Knowing how painful the first few days are with braces, we are stocked with mushy food, orajel pain reliever, wax, tylenol and a new water pix. Lunch was a delicious fruit and yogurt smoothy for sore mouth. Then all of us were off to the Pediatrician for flushots and examination of a potentially broken finger.

Son #3 who had the most needle fear and almost wouldn't get out of bed today, was very courageous! After seeing the lightening fast skills of our nurse and the non-plussed expressions from his brothers, he too bit the bullet so well that even our little 3 year old girl followed in his footsteps, never crying. They've decided they always want their shots from this guy!

Thankfully, the imaging center was just downstairs and after our 3rd waiting room of schoolwork we were given what turned out to be an educational tour of the Xray room and machine. After looking at photo images of number #3 son's bones, his finger may not be broken, but it does look just awful!

Back home after 3:30pm, I let them party with their halloween candy. They were so well-behaved and exhibited amazing patience all day! I asked them to each complete a math page and then sent them into the glorious sunshine. But not before we recieved a fascinating package from QVC....our Christmas dinner. (It was sooooo wonderful and easy last year.) The cartons were filled with dry ice and, after reading the safety instructions, we had some experimental fun dripping water on it and blowing the fog around the kitchen....very cool.

All in all...even a less than normal homeschooling day provided us with many opportunities to learn, explore, engage with others in our community and even be physically challenged!

There ya have it, a less-than-ordinary day in the life. (Of course, I run the risk here that the day isn't over yet...stay tuned !)