Seven degrees. That was the temperature this morning. Seven degrees. And this is tidewater Virginia. Seven degrees.

Yesterday it didn’t get above freezing, and everything is ice this morning; all the outdoor faucets are frozen up. The younger children hauled hot water from the house to the chickens and the dogs and the rabbits, and Christopher and I lugged buckets out to the horses.

Saturdays are school and work days for us (Mondays are holidays). The kids have school lists to finish, Pete has a sermon to wrap up, and I have more maps to do. Maps are on my horizon for the next few weeks. I did get the first two hundred pages of manuscript back from my editor this week, but I haven’t nerved myself to read the comments yet (next week, I promise. I’ll update you then).

So what do homeschooled kids do to entertain themselves during breaks, when it’s too darn cold to go outside?

Behold the Blobs.

blobsarrive11

This is indoor blowing-off-steam time; Dan and Ben crawl around under comforters making blobby noises and Emily attacks them with her plastic sword.

blobsapproach2

Inevitably, Blobs go bad and attack each other.

blobcombat1

blobcombat2

This is the point at which Mom says, “Okay, time for everyone to come do their grammar…”

Showing 14 comments
  • Karen

    Funny! Our boys play soldier with their foam swords, or “Spy Games”. They get an hour after breakfast to run around and wear themselves out before I collect them for their various lessons.

  • Sylvia

    One of my favorite things about home schooling is that children have time to be blobs.

  • mary kathryn

    What is it with kids and dragging blankets around the house? They must want all the world to be their beds!
    And do your kids moan when you say the “g” word, as my students do? Grammar, argh!

  • Amanda Read

    It’s icy cold down here too (Alabama). We’ve had to bring hot water to the chickens, whose water buckets have stayed quite solid for two days. Saturday is a work day in my opinion too…mostly for house cleaning around here, but I might have to do extra studying because I’ve started college now.

    ~Amanda~

  • Christina

    Good luck getting blobs to do grammar!
    What I want to know is…How do you have such a fantastically clean looking house when you homeschool all of your kids?! I have one at home (plus a 1 1/2 yr old) and one in Kindergarten at the school at our church. My house is a wreck. And I mean, like a train wreck or a plane crash or a ravaged-by-a-robber wreck.
    I admire you guys a lot!

  • Christine

    It was 9 degrees yesterday a.m. here. Today, it’s 29.

    My kids built a “compound” of sorts out of their cubes. It makes it incredibly difficult to walk around in our living room. Then, a space war broke out and the compound was attacked. . .

  • Heather Q.

    Emily looks like she is about to put some Karate Kid moves on her brothers. I don’t know about you, but now that it is slightly warmer but damp, I am colder than I have been all weekend.

  • Bonnie

    LOL! I live in western NY and my kids do that every morning, all winter long. It’s how they stay warm (and entertained) before getting dressed. They are blobs, rocks, large grubs, animals in a “den,” kings, queens, you name it.

  • Heidi

    Well, sorry to all of you ladies. We do have a hard time with the “G” word but if you’ll come and visit us here in Honolulu, we can all take our blobs to the beach when grammar is done. It does serve as a great bribe and the blobs love to boogie board 🙂

  • Becky

    I echo Sylvia’s comment…my children have time to be blobs with homeschooling…or ballerinas/princesses, or jedi’s-in-training, etc., etc….Thanks Susan, for sharing your life with us! And yeah…what is it with kids and the dragging of the blankets thing?!?!

  • melissa in Australia

    please , please send a cool breeze this way ! it is 42oC. much too hot to do any grammar. it is even too hot to go to the beach.

  • kelli

    looks a lot like our house in this january weather. we hit 20 below last week. yep, we were all just blobs in blankets, too! (thank goodness exciting things like the premiere of Lost are here to help us through winter! ha!)

  • Cindy

    That is so funny!! My 14 year-old son spent the Christmas holidays entertaining his 5 cousins (ages 10-1) by being the blob. Very similar to your picture, but when the “attackers” get too close, the blob might just reach out and enfold the younger one into “the blob”. It is great fun, judging by the screams of delight.

  • kelly smith

    I can’t get over how clean your house is! How do you do it?

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