St. Thérèse was the miracle worker for me with the conception of our last baby, too. I wasn't sure we'd be able to have another baby, and I was praying a double novena to St. Thérèse (up to her feast day and then beginning again on her feast day). I was pregnant by the end of the novena, and our baby boy was born June 23, the eve of the Nativity of John the Baptist, for whom he is named! ❤️❤️❤️

Aww, it's frustrating when your days are not going how you want. I think, though, and I say this very lovingly, you are confusing a rhythm with a schedule. You may not like the rhythm that you've fallen into—with late bedtimes and sleeping in until 10, but that IS a rhythm. We mamas always want some order to the day because chaos is just so exhausting. And there's certainly room, and value, in reining a chaotic situation in and starting afresh. But, making a plan and writing it out with the word "rhythm" at the top (as I have hopefully done myself, maaaaaannnnnnyyyyyyy times) doesn't make it a rhythm. It makes it a schedule that we hope will work better than the rhythm of chaos we've found our way into. Sometimes a schedule is just what we need to pull ourselves out of some bad habits and doldrums. But we can't ever successfully impose a rhythm because it's just what's happening in our days whether we're thinking about it or not. My best suggestions for establishing a new rhythm are to try something new that you've never done before, like a class away from home, for example. Things usually have a way of stabilizing when there are a few things we "have" to do because we've committed to them. From there, try to relax and know that as homeschoolers, we have the freedom to have later bedtimes and later wake up times than our school peers. There's nothing inherently superior to a 6am wake-up. Enough sleep, nourishing food, some outdoor play, some quiet time indoors, some hard work. These are the things that really matter.

We know a family who pulled their two high school age children out of school for a year and went to Europe just to explore (it helps that they could afford this). I had a brief moment thinking, "Oh, my, won't they be behind their classmates when they come back?" And then of course I realized, duh, NO. They will have had this extraordinary experience to travel and learn and see the world. The requirements of any school paradigm or curriculum are arbitrarily set. Of course they can just jump back in wherever. Thinking about this got me thinking again about learning and family and how we meet the important needs of our children—and it's usually not in the ways we expect it to happen. Not in the formal lessons, not in the carefully crafted schedules, but in the freedom swirl that goes on around and in and out of all of that. It's all part of how we are formed into the individuals we become.

You can get through this, Nicole. You have a new baby, which is such a beautiful, holy time for your whole family. Enjoy that! Drink it in! He is such a gift! This time will end up as such a deep gift to all of your children even if it doesn't feel like it now.