Is it really only Wednesday?

I can't believe it's only Wednesday. This has been a very long week. Aiden has been sick since Sunday (though he's on the mend now) with a fever. I'm guessing he got whatever I had. On Monday I just did lessons with Zoë while Aiden slept on the couch. I haven't been able to get much done in the afternoons since I've been taking care of Aiden (this obviously includes blog posts), and things are starting to pile up around the house. Yesterday, we found out that one of Tom's fraternity brothers, Brian, lost his battle with cancer, so we're dealing with those emotions and scrambling to make arrangements to attend the funeral. The one bright spot is that we've been able to have class outside on the deck all week since the weather has been so great.

School today was very busy. Zoë is starting an experiment to find out what water pollution does to plants. We also pretended to be Native Americans and foraged for food outside, made headdresses to wear and read about the Nashau River. Aiden worked on making an alternative ending to Bartholomew and the Ooblek, made our own ooblek out of cornstarch and water (that stuff is weird!), and tried to decide whether ooblek was a solid or a liquid. It's liquid until you apply pressure to it, then it becomes a solid. Strange stuff!

I managed to lose my mother of the year status by completely forgetting the kids were supposed to go to a homeschool program at the science center yesterday. Somehow the date didn't make it onto my google calendar, and things were so crazy with finding out all the news about Brian that it slipped my mind. They were both really mad at me, but I apologized and told them there was always next month.

This weekend they leave for several days in Chicago with Nana. They have plans to go to the Field museum, Museum of Science and Industry, Addler Planetarium, and the Sears Tower. Nana's going to be exhausted! I plan to take at least one day to do absolutely nothing while they're gone. HA! As if I could possibly lay around and do nothing... Perhaps what I mean is that I'll refuse to do anything that looks like a responsibility. The other three days I'll spend cleaning, organizing and lesson planning.