Barely a whisper

What's worse than a woman who can't talk?
A Mom who can't talk.
What's worse than a mom who can't talk?
A homeschooling mom who can't talk. (especially one that teaches two co-op classes with 7 active, talkative students and who was supposed to have an prospective homeschooling mom come over to chat and see how homeschooling works around my house)

I've had a bit of a cold for a few days. Yesterday, my voice was a little creaky but seemed otherwise ok. That is until I decided to give my mom a call in the evening. Within 10 min. of getting off the phone, my voice started to fade. By morning, it was barely above a whisper. I waited a while hoping it would come back as I got my day going. No luck! I had to call my friend and whisper that I'd have to reschedule. Her response? She made me a pot of soup!!! How cool is that?!?

I decided to go ahead with the classes today but thought I would talk just a bit and let them play "Take Off!" (a fun, geography game) and Mad Libs card game. I actually ended up talking much more than I had intended but it was the quietest class ever! They had no choice but be quiet if they wanted to hear what I was trying to say. By the time we got to the games, my voice was almost completely gone.

We have class again in the morning but it's a quiz and report day* so I'll have very little talking I need to do.

My kids are taking advantage of the fact I can't talk much by playing on the computer right now instead of getting ready for bed since they know I can't yell at them from my computer even though I'm just a room away. :P

*In case you're wondering-Report day started because the kids were starting to talk way too much in class (just random, stream of conscious type talking not on topic or even in the general neighborhood of on topic chatter) so I decided to give everyone an opportunity to talk in class each and every week. We alternate between reports on countries and scientist. The following week they have a quiz on what everyone presented. If it's countries, they have to tell me the country, capital, what the people are called and then find it on a map. For the scientists, they tell me who they were, when and where they lived, what they did and then place them on a time line. The students range from a 3rd grader up to 2 eight graders so it's a challenge to keep things as even for them as possible. I think I'm going to have to make some more accommodations for the 3rd grader since she's struggling a bit with memorizing the info.