Otis: " So Ben, how was school today?? was it fun??
Ben: "Yeah, it was fun, but I didn't learn anything"

That's my boy!!! School began this week. It has been a lot more fun teaching than I thought it was going to be. He is a great student and very eager to learn. Today was the letter "M". Calvert, the homeschooling program, provide a number of exercises for him to complete and throw in some fun stuff such as finger painting the letter and looking through magazines for things that start with "M" cutting them out and making a collage. The math was kind of redundant so I cruised us through that. Today was music class, but we decided to skip the music and go shelling on the beach instead. The key
to the success of homeschooling is to keep it inventive and fun....I guess that's the challenge of teaching in general.
I did not wake up very well this morning. The kids slept in which is always a welcome respite. After sneaking into their rooms to see if they were still breathing(when do you stop doing that I wonder), I ran back into bed and dozed off. So I was VERY surprised when at 7:30 I awoke to someone banging on our hull yelling ' Hello Independence'. I quickly got dressed and ran outside, accompanied by both of the kids he had just woken up! He started by apologizing for waking me up....to which I wanted to respond "well, if you were really sorry you would not have done it, huh?". He was on the boat behind us and wanted to borrow our tire pump to go for a bike ride. So, he woke up the entire family because HE wanted to go for a bike ride. UGH. I mumbled something and gave him the pump but was most unimpressed. I really hope this is not cruising etiquette or O and will be very lonely on this trip.
I forgot to mention that we are on a mooring in Shelter Island. The mooring belongs to a hotel/restaurant on shore but some people in Block Island told us you could use the mooring and if the restaurant says anything tell them you had planned on going there for dinner. Which works for us because free is our favorite word. I would be a little more hesitant to take one but they have about 15 moorings and only three are being used. One by us, the other by tire pump man.
Shelter Island is an upscale, well manicured, tastefully done, quiet island off of Montauk. No Starbucks however, but I am slowly getting used to that(what happened to 'the one of every corner' mantra??). Being back in NY has made me almost giddy. The weather is glorious, the water is warm and life is good! Billy Joel has a a house and boatbuilding yard here so in honor of him I have delighted(my word, not theirs) the kids to some rousing renditions of Piano Man.
Due to the last six weeks of vacation eating, three squares plus hors' douvres and cocktailing, my clothes are telling me to shut the trap and start exercising ASAP. So today the new regime began with a long bike ride. We bought a fifty dollar Wal Mart bike in Maine...it's a little heavier than I would like but....nuff said.. It feels good to be out there by myself with nobody beckoning for an hour. I think the hour of daily exercise will become my sanity on this trip.
We are not sure what the NY plan is at the moment but it looks like we are going to make our way toward Mamaroneck at some point. We are staying here tomorrow as it's O's birthday and it is suppose to be 83!!!! I am going to bike into town and look for a fish market to rustle up some birthday sushi!!!!
FYI: we didn't catch ANY fish on the journey down. At one point the fish were running all around us but still nothin..oh well, Nemo is safe for another day.
If I was more of a morning person, I would get up at 5:30am tomorrow and go over to tire man's boat, pound on his hull for fifteen minutes, apologize for waking him and ask him if he has a little dish soap I could use..............