Quiet on the blog almost always connotes busyness at home.

Last night I watched my children dancing with joy and abandon. These days, its my very favorite thing to see. I can't explain what it does to me---something akin to the satisfaction of feeding a hungry toddler good food. I see them dancing and feel as though all is right in the world and we're going to be okay.

This week they have a scheduled pizza social with the local homeschooling teens Monday night, yard work at Grandmother's house on Tuesday, Ropes Course on Wednesday, homeschooling park day on Thursday, and Friday is always for cleaning up in preparation for the weekend. We'll be super busy this week obviously.

But these past two weeks the busyness hasn't been so obvious. I'm very busy thinking. And I'm busy watching. I'm seeing kids doing a whole lot of reading, taking more responsibility for house cleaning, and easing into a new, more adult, rhythm. They sleep late, stay up late. I'm up early and go to bed early. We're splitting here in a gentle new way. They have almost the equivalent of half a day on their own while I sleep. Very strange and new, mundane and inevitable.

One theme keeps repeating: coercion is not nearly as powerful as choice, especially when it comes to education. What they choose may be far simpler, but runs far deeper than forced learning.

Both kids now have their own bank account and get a small monthly deposit from our family account.

I bought a basketball goal and Dear Boy set it up on his own. It was actually a tough job and took him three days. I was very proud of him when he finished and good lessons were learned---not the least of which: how to decipher instructive English written as a second language.