I had a hard time getting up again, but when I did, I worked out and then I did a 2.5 hour Secret Santa gift exchange with my AXB guys. We had so much fun catching up and exchanging gifts!
While I was thus occupied, Lily was going deep on lessons with Lydia. They worked on Ancient Greek, and Lydia learned the entire Greek Alphabet!
After that, Lily read in the Old Testament with Lydia and Mary, and tried to help them understand it in its historical and anthropological context.
I was feeling tired today, but once I got myself going, I played Mahjongg with Lydia, Mary and Lily. Then we tried to play 7 Wonders and learned that it is complicated, so we gave up and we will try again after I study it a bit.
I then played Operation, Scultapalooza, and Outfoxed with Ammon and Clarissa which was great because they had a lot of screens today.
When I finished with Ammon and Clarissa, I went upstairs to find that Lily and Mary were having an epically bad piano practice. Lily was completely at her wits end, and we were close to quitting piano altogether. We are still in a bit of a gray space for what the future looks like, but Mary really pulled herself together, and worked hard with a perfect attitude for the rest of the night and made a lot of progress and we are very proud of her. I’m also incredibly grateful to Lily for what she puts in to help the kids learn discipline, skills, the importance of working for rewards, appreciation for investment from others, and not being entitled. I believe Lily’s work with them on their instruments is a big part of why they are turning out so beautifully, but it is hard, hard, hard work, so thank you to Lily and thank you to the kids for also wanting it. Mary could have quit tonight, we gave her the choice. And like Lydia did before when things got to a dark spot with her, Mary chose to continue and not quit even though she knows it won’t get any easier, and that makes me very very proud. I’m also grateful to Lily for sticking with it even though practice can be extremely hard on her. The hope is that after today, things will get better.