Big surprise, eh? This is my finding of the summer on the data set I had my hands on. I'm writing it up and submitting it for a poster presentation. We'll see how that goes.

ETA: This is by maternal report (meaning it was concerning enough to inform the mom of, I'd wager this was UNDER reported, rather than over reported)

This time, it's me who started school... so far so good. One day under my belt... and tonight I need to prepare a presentation, and work on an abstract for submission for a poster presentation next April. My Wednesday class starts this week. The balance between kid needs and my own school time requirements will be interesting.

On another note, I'm heavily entrenched in "soccer-mom-dome". With two kids in soccer, and Phil now volunteering as a ref, I am the taxi on the weekends. Crazy schedule:

• Monday - all kids have dance, including Chloe now, so literally hours are being spent at the dance studio
• Tuesday, kinder-group outings (informal) in the AM, and Phoebe ballet in the afternoon
• Wednesday, me at school all day, Phil at home with kids, Phoebe has afternoon Music Theory and then soccer practice
• Thursday, me at school, Phoebe has afternoon Mandarin
• Friday, early kinder day for Piper, standing park-playdate, Phoebe flute, and regular library run
• Saturday, soccer for the P's, Nutcracker rehearsals for Phoebe
• Sunday, church for the kids (date bike ride for Phil and I), and sometimes Nutcracker rehearsals again

Toss in there the homeschooling, runs to and from preschool and kindergarten and other playdates... I think most of my studying will be done in the evenings.

Homeschooling continues to go well with Phoebe. She's often done with her work by 9 or 10 AM (sometimes never getting out of her jammies), though some days she'll trickle through, banging out her routine math/spelling and then work on schoolwork in fits and spurts between playing. One day last week she was clearly exhausted, and said she needed a break from "Daddy Math" - her big word problem of the day - and so we let her beg off of it, and she did it the next day. If it weren't so hot, we'd be doing more baking (but who wants to fire the oven up to 350 degrees to add to 90+ degree heat outside, therefore either making us sweat like pigs, or making the air conditioner work extra hard - which we have broken down and used just these last couple of days). She's also rereading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so I've made it a focus of some activities as well, and we'll culminate in a book report.

Piper's still loving kinder. I went to her Back-To-School-Night this past Thursday, and everything looked great. I loved that they already had tons of artwork up around the room already. I think my favorite art project of Piper's was the "What did you do this summer?" drawing. Piper had drawn a VERY nice airplane, complete with her face peeking out of the window. What was hilarious was that the windows from the front of the plane back to her face were oval, like they usually are, but the two windows in the back were square and paned. I couldn't stop laughing, it was so cute! She was also very proud of her "Caught Being Good" recognition that she had received that very day, and as the teacher was explaining "Caught Being Good" she told Piper's story. I made sure to tell Piper about it.

My school year starts again in a week and a half, and I have to finish a paper by then - or at least that's how I've decided to culminate my summer research residency. So, I'm off to work on that now.