Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday party. She turned five a few days before. After all the stress and worry I put myself through, it actually went well. Even the cake looked pretty good. I could have gotten a much prettier one from a bakery, of course, but where’s the fun in that?

Anyway, I’ve been generally feeling like I am floundering, both in homeschooling and in life. I get overwhelmed and I just don’t keep on top of things the way I want. Other moms in this area don’t usually have birthday parties at home. It’s Not Done. If for some reason a person does have one at home, they hire entertainment. Even for babies, parties are held in restaurants or play spaces with programmed activities. Every single party we’ve had has been at home. This year I was planning to have a skating party. There is an ice rink close by and they have party rooms, and I thought it would be fun to have a party there since Bunny loves to ice skate.

But January is so full that I never managed to make that plan happen. And we had a great time anyway, probably better than if we’d gone to a skating rink. So I have to reconsider the wisdom of those fancier parties.

Also, as part of the party we had the kids do a treasure hunt. My kid read the clues aloud as they found them and had the cognitive flexibility to figure out how to look for the clues. She did have the ‘home team’ advantage going for her, but I was still proud of her.

Bottom line is, however badly I’m doing, dd si still learning better with me than her equally smart friends are in our local oft-touted preschool program.