Beautiful clear morning here; the stars are still out and it's quiet and peaceful. Both Stephen and I have adapted to this early-rising thing, and I actively enjoy walking him half-way to his bus stop in the mornings. Half-way because that's all his fourteen year old dignity will permit.

The concert yesterday was lovely. The bit Sophie liked best was where they had some dancers from Orlando Ballet come in to do a piece from Swan Lake. There was a collective indrawing of breath from all the little girls in the audience when they saw the ballerina in her sparkly white swan tutu - it was very sweet. And the picnic was enjoyable too. We went to both those with the homeschool group we joined up with last year.

From there, we went straight to the science co-op. This was organised by the second homeschool group : the bigger one, that I joined at the start of this school year. Again, Sophs enjoyed this very much. She did three simple experiments, learned about hypotheses and predictions, and was absolutely fascinated by the bridge-building experiment (build a bridge out of one piece of card; see which design holds up most pennies).

I was a little apprehensive about going to the science co-op because I knew that someone from the group, who, from her emails on the group list, comes off as a very scary, angry person, was going to be there. I mean, freakishly touchy and ready to take immediate, belligerent, offense, and with a kind of extreme libertarian survival-of-the-fittest mentality thrown into the mix. The bizarre thing is that, in person, she seems quite normal. Her smile seemed a little fake, maybe, but that was all. And her kid seems perfectly nice. So I don't know. Maybe she just goes all weird when she's in front of a computer monitor?