“Ree! Ree! Peeees?” is what Elliora says as she clambers onto your lap, shoving a book into your hand.

How could you possibly say no?

p.s. New banner, in honor of Annalie’s 8th birthday party, which will feature miniature golfing and dinosaur cupcakes. Thanks, B!

We’ve had a string of good days lately. It’s probably due to a combination of factors—we’re recovered from all the travel we did in January and February, no one is sick, everyone is sleeping better—but I think the biggest factor is that we’ve gotten back into a routine.

I know that I function better when life is somewhat predictable, and I know that my kids do too. For some reason I have a really hard time sticking to a routine, even under ideal circumstances; throw a baby and frequent travel and a husband regularly working long hours into the mix and all is confusion and chaos and lost tempers and pouting and hands thrown up in defeat.

A few weeks ago I stumbled across some reading and math workbooks that looked like a good fit for Annalie. I had Annalie look them over, and she thought they looked good too. We talked, and agreed that we were going to start out by doing one lesson per day from each book. That’s not very much, considering that last year before Elliora was born we were consistently doing two to three hours of sit-down schoolwork per day, but I figured it would be a good way to ease back into things.

At first, Annalie resisted every suggestion that it was time to do some schoolwork, but I stayed calm and persisted. She thought it was pretty cool when I told her that she could take a pre-test before each math chapter, and if there were concepts she already had a grasp on, we could skip some of those lessons. Within a couple days, she had stopped arguing and was doing the work with no complaint. Now, she actually seems excited to sit down and do school. (Of course, this is in addition to all of the unschooly things we do every day, but it seemed like it was time to re-introduce some discipline back into our days, for both of us.)

Today, she suggested that instead of doing the one page of reading in the workbook, she could read the Magic School Bus book that my mom had just sent her. I told her that was a great idea. She read every single word in that book to me, without hesitation or angst. We paused several times to discuss additional information she’d gleaned about the subject (teeth) from Wild Kratts (you might want to turn your volume down before clicking that link). The reading moved from the dining-room table to Elliora’s bedroom briefly when there was a diaper change, and Annalie didn’t even blink, just moved, made herself comfortable in the nursing chair, and kept reading.

Something seems to have clicked for Annalie with both reading and math recently. She’s had the skills for a long time, but it was almost as if she wasn’t emotionally ready to read on her own. Now, she’s suddenly doing multiplication and adding two-column numbers in her head with ease. She’s reading pretty much everything she sees without much difficulty at all. She still isn’t what I’d call a reader, which makes me a little sad, but that’s okay. I imagine that there are a lot of people who would shake their heads at all the hours I spent indoors reading books as a kid when I could have been outside enjoying fresh air and sunshine.

I think when she’s ready, Annalie will discover chapter books and how reading them is like seeing a movie in your head. (Also, she’ll discover the house rule that kids have to turn off the light at bedtime…unless they’re reading. That’ll probably motivate her to read more!) Until then, there isn’t really a reason to rush. One of the best things about homeschooling is that kids have the freedom to move at their own pace. And I’ve been doing this long enough now that I know Annalie really will move ahead. She doesn’t really do slow and steady. Just when it seems like she’s been stalled in the same place forever, she’ll leap and bound far ahead of where I would have expected her to be. And that’s absolutely, totally okay.

In addition to the ease with which we’ve been getting schoolwork done every day, Annalie has gone from surly and uncooperative to pleasant and helpful when it comes to unloading the dishwasher, playing with Elliora while I make dinner, putting her toys away, running downstairs to fetch me a Coke Zero, whatever. I suppose her change in attitude is partly because she’s consistently getting more sleep, and partly because she’s not seven and a half anymore (she’ll be eight in two months). But mostly, I think it’s because we’ve gotten a good routine going.

Annalie knows that when she wakes up, she can play games on my laptop or watch one of her shows until Elliora and I come out for breakfast. She knows that after breakfast, she can play till 8:45, when I’ll ask her to unload the dishwasher if it needs doing. She knows that after that, we’ll sit down and do some schoolwork until it’s time for Elliora’s morning nap, and so on. And knowing what’s coming next seems to make her happy.

It makes perfect sense, really. I’m the same way. I can handle unpredictability better than she can, probably, but I am a lot happier when I know what’s coming up, even though I resist schedules. That’s why I am writing this post: to remind myself, when I start to slide away from the routine, that it really does make things easier. And if we have a routine, then we get to experience the best part about living a predictable life: doing something unpredictable! Being spontaneous is about a hundred times more fun when you have a routine to break away from.

October 2: Annalie’s been doing a lot of drawing on her easel chalkboard lately. I thought this one, of a pear on a branch, was particularly good.

October 3: Class in in session. (Homeschooling can be kind of awesome. In our dress code, pajamas and bedhead are perfectly acceptable attire.)

I looked out the window of Elliora’s room and saw four deer across the street in our neighbor’s yard. (One of the deer is just to the left of frame, behind a bush, so I didn’t bother trying to get it in the shot.)

October 4: I couldn’t get Elliora to lie on the couch for our monthly photo session; she kept rolling away. I tried to sneak some photos in one day when Katy happened to be in her bedroom while we were in there playing, but I couldn’t get Elliora to look at me for a single photo. Oh well. This is very representative of 10 months.

We got a new chair from our neighbors who were getting rid of it after it didn’t sell at their garage sale. Elliora loves it and has already figured out how to push it up against the couch and use it to climb up.

October 5: Troy had to come home on a lunch break. I grabbed the opportunity to take a photo of him and the girls. (He normally wears civilian clothes on his commute and changes into his uniform at work, so we don’t see him in uniform very often.)

Elliora, just reading in her chair.

October 6: My friend Carrie, who is married to a Swede and used to live in Sweden, mentioned that October 4th is National Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden, which inspired me to try making some tasty Swedish cinnamon buns, also called Kanelbullar. I knew that Swedish pearl sugar I bought just because it was pretty would come in handy someday.

I went painting pottery with both girls, and all things considered, I won’t be doing that again anytime soon. I managed to keep Elliora entertained and paint at the same time but it was exhausting.

I painted this sign (“NO WHINING. Kthx.“) for my friend Katie as an unbirthday gift for her to hang in her high-school English classroom.

October 7: Elliora decided that her toy basket looked like a comfortable place to sit.

October 8: We were invited over to our neighbors’ for pizza and the last swim of the summer in their pool. I was sitting in their living room when I glanced out the window and saw they had “Live long and prosper” painted along the inside of the fascia on their front porch, so you’d see it as you walk out the door. I’ve been over there a half-dozen times and never noticed it before.

Elliora on the left at 10 months; Annalie on the right at 17 months, in 2005.

October 10: Elliora has discovered a love of being underneath tables. We’ve discovered how many gross things and choking hazards normally live underneath our tables.

October 11: Elliora has also discovered the basket by our fireplace where we keep firewood and old newspapers. She takes her job of spreading every last sheet of newspaper around the room at least once a day very seriously.

Speaking of Trekkies, Elliora looks adorable in her ThinkGeek Starfleet Academy Cadet onesie, don’t you agree?

October 12: It’s really hard to make mashed-potato casserole look pretty.

October 13: I love it when geeky friends come bearing geeky gifts. Well, technically Laura painted the bowl on the left for me because I painted a dottery bowl for her with a BBT quote (which I never got a photo of, I just realized). And Sonja mailed the bowl (with quotes from the song Friends Forever in the Scrubs episode “My Musical”) to me, she didn’t give it to me in person. But the point stands.

October 14: These apple-pie cookies (via smitten kitchen) were extremely delicious. I kind of want to go make another complicated, time-consuming batch right this very second.

October 15: Elliora getting a taste of fall. (Har har.)

October 17: Rainbow sparkly fingernails! The polish (Rainbow Connection, natch) is from the OPI Muppet collection. It made me happy every time I glanced at my hands. Too bad it chipped and peeled so easily. But I’ve been told I should try a base coat next time and that might help.

October 18: Elliora is a climbing fool.

October 19: We went on a leaf walk for science, collecting red and gold leaves and talking about why trees change color in the fall. Annalie copied a list of words for handwriting practice and just to help her learn the words. I threw a couple of pictures in there and told her to write the words for the pictures. The picture for #6 was a tree, and I had to laugh when I saw how Annalie had spelled it. When I pointed her mistake out to her, Annalie thought it was pretty funny too. She said, “I don’t know what I was thinking. I know how to spell ‘tree!’”