I don't know how Bobby does it. He worked all day yesterday, came home, chain-sawed (is that a verb?) the tree-trunk, and then was ready to go climbing. And then he was able to stay awake and watch a movie when we got home afterwards. I work hard too (she said, slightly defensively) but there's no way I could put in a day like that.

About half an hour ago, Stephen and I lugged some of the tree bits down to the verge (a back-breaking, mosquito-ey job), and Steve has, on his own initiative, been raking leaves for the last little while. He's been spurred into motion by Bobby telling him that he'd be paid for all gardening labours. Unfortunately the work is putting him into an absolutely foul mood, and he's grumping and moaning and complaining at his sisters, who're scooting on the sidewalk. Mumble mumble lazy brats, only one who ever does anything round here, mumble groan, ridiculous, place is going to the dogs, mumble mumble. It's like there's a 75 year old man trapped inside his 14 year old body.

There was no school again today (Frances clean-up), and I'm giving Em the day off tomorrow as well. She's going to come along to the homeschool group and see whether she thinks she'd click with any of the other kids there. We'll be seeing a play and picnicking afterwards. At the moment, Emily continues to lean very strongly to being homeschooled, but I just don't want her to rush into it without knowing exactly what she's getting herself into. She has been coming up with (and executing) various projects on her own, the aim being, I think, to prove that she'd be suited to homeschooling. Over the weekend, for instance, she read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and today she researched Asperger's Syndrome on the web and typed up a report. Later on this afternoon, we're going to check out the tree-trunk and do these activities. She and Soph are also tracking Ivan, and marking its latitude and longitude on a map each day ... So I'm sure she'd learn lots, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to prove that to some county official and get her placed back in the appropriate grade if, later on, we decide that homeschooling is not for us.