I've been feeling really down today.
I'm just feeling like I'm totally failing at this parenting/homeschooling thing. It just feels like everything is SO HARD, and that I'm just not measuring up at all. I'm wondering if CM makes sense for us, as sometimes I feel like we aren't getting anywhere at all.
We have done Suzuki Violin forever. My son has just finished 5 years... and is barely into Book 2 (ie, he probably wouldn't be put in a Book 2 group class...) - and this last year he learned 1 song. My son just finished 2 years officially, with another year where I taught her the basics, and is 1/2 way through book 1 - I think she learned 1 song maybe this year too. The teacher "dismissed" us as students.
My son can hardly narrate at all after 3 years of doing CM. It has improved (his first year, I'd get "I don't know" or maybe the last idea of the story "the cow came home"... now I might get 3 or 4 sentences with the main points, so that has improved... but it doesn't often seem like he remembers much later either. I don't think he is reading at grade level. We restarted math last year - starting at the beginning with RS level B... so he is going into "grade 4" being able to add, and do a little subtraction.
My daughter is more advanced - her birthday is right at the cutoff for school, so she would have been in Kindergarten in school, (if we lived 2 miles away across the river, she probably would be put in grade 1...) - so I considered her grade 1. She can read fairly well - possibly a bit past grade level, and finished RS level B - so in that way is doing ok - but she now seems to "HATE" reading, when this time last year, she still liked to read... and I don't think her reading has improved at all this last year. (I didn't focus on reading with her at all last year as she could already read.... - just had some easy books in her level for her to read...)
As for habits - we have them.... - all bad! Well, maybe not ALL bad... but my kids' rooms are disaster areas most of the time... my girls think that cleaning a room is making a path so I can get to the crib. They do chores. My son is actually very good at it - he is getting to be very helpful - and he will generally empty the dishwasher, put in any dirty dishes that may be around, get dressed without my asking - so he can then ask if he can play a game on the computer...
I'm just tired of doing all this work, suzuki, homeschool, habits of orderliness - without seeing much in the way of results.

That's not to say that some things aren't worth perservering even through pain and suffering, but it's ok to take a break.