In which life slowly returns to a more normal version of chaos.

So school is over until August. I have no solid obligations (barring the occasional doctors appointment and such) from now until school starts. Today was detox day one. the kids, as expected, were a mix of dreamy and horrid all day today. I can't, in good conscience at least, continue to enforce a 7pm bedtime. I tried 9 tonight and it was horrid. Everyone exhaustedly screaming for no discernible reason. I think maybe we'll do 8 tomorrow and try that for a week, then slowly advance to 8:30 if they seem to be able to handle it.

I need to sit and reflect on this last year, but can't bring myself to do it yet. The out-of-home-school experiment was a 50/50 toss up as far as success goes. On the bright side I have a good idea of where the kids are in terms of educational levels. This will make life easier next year. On the bad side we're still making payments (yeah, we're slackers) after some miscommunication on the part of the school and some laziness in getting clarification myself we owed more than we could really accommodate. They'll get the money eventually, slowly. I feel awful about that, but what can I do?

On tap for "sometime this summer" is a trip to visit my dad. He's built a large treehouse in his back yard for the kids. They know about it and can't wait to go play in it. Dad is working on his roof at the moment so we'll wait until he's not involved in that to go visit. I think he has plans in early July so we're probably looking at mid-late July. Am I crazy? Mid to late July in Ohio? Egad. I guess it's probably not a whole lot worse than here though.

Other adventures on tap include the new Magic House, the wading pool and farmers market (a favorite of mine), perhaps another camping trip (shorter this time, just the family I think), water fun in the back yard (should say mud fun), movie nights, slumber parties, cleaning and organizing and decluttering, exploring a new career path for dh (not ready to announce just yet, stay tuned), time with family and friends, and yard work. Yee-haw.

So one kind of chaos comes to an end, while another slowly begins to take over. As long as I don't have to be up at 6:45, I'm good.