Since we’re doing Medieval history this year, our read alouds have all thus far been picked from Memoria Press’s knights and castles-type books (love Memoria Press’s literature workbooks). We just finished Robinhood and are now doing Robert Green’s King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Robinhood (ironically) was a little more plausible-sounding than King Arthur and so I have to answer lots of questions like “Wait, how do you encapsulate a sword inside a stone?” and, “Why is there a hand coming out of the water?”. In the chapter we just read, Arthur gets his famous Excalibur sword, but no one talks about the fact that the scabbard that comes with it is magic. Not only is it encrusted in jewels, but if you wear it, it gives you restorative healing powers. Forget the sword, I need this scabbard in my life.
I woke up early this morning so I could get a workout in and then take a walk with Jim. (The sunrise was gorgeous, but I don’t recommend the whole early morning exercise thing as a habit). I don’t know how people maintain that schedule on purpose and regularly, I’m an NPC until at least 10 am. Thursdays are intense though, and I sometimes manage to squeeze in yogalates at the gym while the kids are in jiu-jitsu class… then I do the adult jiu-jitsu class with Charlie (although at the rate I’m progressing I will probably die a white belt). Of course today would be the day I dragged my stressed out, weary body into a calming session of yoga…only to find everyone doing jumping jacks and pushups because I’d forgotten tonight was the start of the new HIIT workout. God bless our instructor, but she made Jillian Michaels look like Mohandas Gandhi. I no longer can lift my arms, and jiu-jitsu was basically me impersonating an elderly octopus, but no one can say I didn’t hang in there until the end (actually I loved it and I hope we do the HIIT more often, but maybe I’ll skip the morning workout).
My day of progressive workouts wasn’t the most stressful part of my day though. I don’t know if I’m the world’s coolest mom or the stupidest, but I made galaxy slime today with five kids under the age of eleven. In my defense, the homeschool curriculum had it listed as a thing to do this week, and it looked fun. I’ve always wanted to make the really awesome slime with all the glitter and the nice clear glue, but I clearly did not think this one through entirely. I’m pretty sure I lost ten years of my life. It didn’t help that we were doing it at someone else’s house and there was slime and glitter getting flung everywhere. Every time someone said, “Mrs. Ramsey…LOOK!” I flinched because I knew a chair or someone’s hair or some fabric covering was about to get taken out by half-activated slime artillery (accidentally of course). They were so excited and thrilled, they couldn’t contain themselves. I console myself with the knowledge that they at least learned how to operate and use a kitchen scale, and how to convert between grams and oz., but seriously, I needed a yoga session after that enterprise.
Do you think the boys will notice if their galaxy slime magically disappears into a black hole?