It's feelin' hot, hot, hot!

Last year I was appalled when my indoor thermometer climbed to 89 degrees inside. Yesterday, before we left at 12.30 for the lake, it had already climbed to 85 inside. The place we were going was NW of us, but it was still 94 degrees outside when we got there. Yesterday morning I had a ladder propped on the dining room table to try to reach the skylights with a staple gun. Mackattack said one would have to be desperate to attempt that and she's right. Definitely an inner-redneck solution to the heat problem, but since I have a fear of heights, it didn't work out for me anyway. Imagine my surprise to return home and discover someone had stapled blue flannel up there. We'll see today what different that makes. When we went to bed last night the house had cooled inside to a reasonable 82 degrees. Ack.

Thank God that shade still truly means something in the NW, because I still wasn't hot enough to be enticed into swimming. I wore my suit just in case, and my children were all three at it with full abandon, but not so much me. Each of our kids bit it at one point or another, submerging themselves in the water, but they reacted wildly differently. G cried and heaved, her little heart beating like a rabbit's until she rallied and went back to it, while N coughed and yelled, but then cheered and ran to tell me of his adventure before diving back in. I was with D-baby when he tripped on a rock and fell toward me in chest-deep-for-him water. Through the clear lake water I could see him looking up at me, hair waving, eyes big and beautiful. After a pause I realized he wasn't coming up on his own, so I reached down and stood him up. He sputtered a bit then grinned real big and said " I see you inna lake, Mommy!" No drama, no trauma. We need to teach that boy to swim.

This is my third meetup with a forming homeschool group on this side of the bridge. I find myself really seeing a need in G&N's lives to be around other homeschoolers and children of their own age. Yesterday, Dougie was the baby of the group, and treated accordingly (which is to say, largely ignored but definitely tolerated and not run over.) CM was a group I joined for me. I needed the contact and the friends I made there. I love my Moms from there, really love them, but as far as the children, while they enjoyed the friendships they made there, I kept going for my own personal edification for just a while longer than I should have. Other homeschoolers left the kiddie-parts of the group before me for similar reasons-- the older kids were being put in school or preschool, so it was my kids and toddlers. I can keep my friendships, and intend to, but part of the privilege of a homeschool life is that my kids enjoy being with kids of a wide variety of ages, older as well as younger.

I have long resisted the idea of needing a homeschool group, but this one might just click with me. They seem genuinely nice, and more to the point nice-like-me. They laugh loud but mostly at themselves. Further, I know them from various places as well; we have former CMs, Moms from a now-defunct homeschool co-op here in GH. It's like a second chance in that respect, because I now get to know the women I had to pass by because I left a group or chose not to join another. New year, new thing?


Random:

Other homeschoolers: have you noticed how it feels like the new "school year" begins in the Summer?