Was the last night of my life as a parent whose kids went to school. They came home on the afternoon of November 30th and Claudia asked me, “Can I say ‘damn’?”

I said she could. “I’m never going back to that damned place,” she said. And Béla nodded.

So that was it. Whatever I did during the days before a year ago, stopped. We had already begun some home education activities prior to that day — I’m pretty sure the blog started before December 1st — but that is our official start date.

Which makes today, and particularly this afternoon/evening, a notable time.

Today, I wanted a lemon meringue pie. So Tucker went to Acme and bought me one. We made non-Thanksgiving-leftovers dinner.

He did a Miura-ori origami tesselation with Béla.

(And since Tuck was in a geometric mood and does not like getting all his holiday presents at once, I gave him the geometry poster pictured in this post — which I really love too and hope to find a place to hang where everyone can take time to look at it a lot.)

Claudia practiced her new general-Eastern-European accent with a conspiracy theory about the slug we found in the kitchen, and the notification I got about a breech in my Netflix account security.

They also both practiced their cursive writing with a worksheet generator I found — so we used the lyrics to the English Beat’s “Mirror in the Bathroom” for text.

Claudia read for hours, then came downstairs in a silver lamé cap and carrying the Oxford Children’s Edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey and she and her brother had a swordfight.

I have no regrets at all about the past year of their lives and think homeschooling is the best thing that ever happened to us. It is exhausting and my self-care has suffered. For sure. But. We are all learning.

Without Tuck, I would have failed months ago and they would have been back in school. He does far more than I would be capable of on my own and I am so grateful for him. The kids love him so much. ALL kids love him so much.

We have a very, very big day tomorrow and a very full week ahead.