Three Plus Two

A Week in the Life: Wednesday

This morning the boys are up at 6 AM and out in the dining room, building with Legos. 

I am convinced that they keep waking up earlier and earlier because they have ESP.  Whenever I think, I will wake up at x time, then, if they're going to get up at y, they pick up on this somehow and adjust their wake-up time to x-5 minutes.

It isn't really a good morning.  It is blustery and cold.  About noon, sleet spits against the windows, just like yesterday.  Long fingers of slate-colored cloud scrabble across the sky.  The twins are tired from getting up too early.  I am tired from not having any early morning time (at all) to myself (for a long time).  I have breakfast with Andy before he goes to work.  Andy has yet another headache.  We eat our eggs and both hope that it will not turn into a migraine. 

The twins and Chipmunk are fairly calm as we say prayers and read this morning, which is a blessing.  We go through our catechism together again, then Farmerboy disappears back into the dining room to work on his Legos some more.  I read to the big kids from The Catholic Church: The First 2000 Years.  The small inaccuracies in this book have started to bug me.  The format is wonderful, but... I may be in search of a better church history soon.  After I read the section on Constantine, we switch to Our Island Story and have a discussion about how fictionalized history shows bias.  (The portrayal of Edward the Confessor, a saint, had to be dealt with, and then of course there is the usual portrayal of William the Conqueror.)  After I send Gareth and Katydid off to do morning chores, we discover that Pip has been silently dismantling the rack in the laundry room that holds the brooms and mops.

The twins and Chipmunk continue their whirling way through the morning, playing divers and bionicles...

...asking for bird guides and fishing books...

fiddling with my camera so I have to spend a good fifteen or twenty minutes on fixing it, doing a lot of punching and wrestling, stamping and coloring...

and in general, wearing me out.  For some reason through all this I allow Katydid to help build Legos with Farmerboy, but Gareth sits on the couch and finishes reading Beowulf (I guess he was inspired by Seamus Haney on DVD last night).

Somewhere in all that I manage to write out a list of history projects for Gareth to choose from to finish up our year:

(He just needs to choose one.) 

Since the table is a wreck, I allow the kids to eat pizza in the family room and watch an episode of SciFi Science. I sit at the wrecked table and eat leftover quiche and peas and try to collect my thoughts on our mornings and how to handle them.

The little boys spill their drinks, turn off the TV so everyone yells at them, are banished to their room, and escape to turn on the bathtub (again).  (Some of our bathroom doors do not actually close all the way.)

Time for a nap.  

Since they're now playing some sort of "predator fish are attacking and we must fight them off" game, I pull out some fish books from our ocean bin, and they settle down remarkably well to listen to me read 3 Let's Read and Find Out science titles.  Then it's off to bed... after jumping on the beds, rolling around on the floor, and throwing a fit about not having any books to look at.  Finally, however, they are all asleep (thanks be to God!) and I emerge from the bedroom to find that the Legos have been put together, Katydid is working on her Wildflowers notebook, Gareth is doing algebra, and Farmerboy is in the hallway playing with his new Lego creation.  I drag Farmerboy into the family room to do handwriting while I have a snack.  I sit down to make some notes on these entries because I think he is also drawing a complicated picture to illustrate his handwriting, but no, he is just going very slowly because it is the exciting part of Redwall.

I am a pushover, and I let him listen to the exciting part.  Even though this means we are going to be doing phonics and math at 4 PM.  Again.

After we finish up with schoolwork, it's time for laundry (the clean stuff is piling up and I need to fold it) and dinner.  Our weekend threw off our normal routine, so I don't have any meals planned for this week.  I make chili, which is a no-brainer, and we eat late (around 7) because Andy did our grocery shopping after work.

After dinner, I do the dishes, the kids pick up and sweep, Andy packs a suitcase for a business trip, then we peruse the books the UPS man brought this afternoon:

... and Pip and Pop write birthday cards  to Chipmunk, whose birthday is not until August.

And we go to bed at 10 again.

  

A Week in the Life: Tuesday

I managed to wake up at 6:30 AM, but... so did the little boys.  We still didn't sit down for prayers until 9:15, but this morning instead of just talking we did our catechism (Baltimore Catechism #2/The Holy Eucharist), then reviewed what we knew about English history to Edward the Confessor, tried to connect it to what was happening in Europe at the time (before we left for TN we were studying Charlemagne), and I read a chapter from Our Island Story.  The rest of the morning was very busy as I just tried to keep up with the twins and Chipmunk. 

Wet and cold weather.  By the time I left for my doctor's appointment in the afternoon, the rain was mixing with sleet and snow.

 

The little boys begged me for insect coloring pages, which I printed off the computer.  Chipmunk "dotted" a picture of a beehive with Do-a-Dot paint markers.

We also made earthworm books -- the one thing I had "planned" for this week.  I printed out some pages on Sunday night.  Some of these pages are from this set of nature notebooking pages.  This is Pip's book.  Pop dictated to me how he put together his earthworm farm from last week. 

Farmerboy was supposed to be doing his handwriting, but mostly he was listening to his Redwall CDs.

Andy came home around noon so I could go to an OB appointment -- very frustrating, as the tests say I have gestational diabetes and yet my every day sugar numbers are quite low without special diets, etc.  Trying to keep the diet has again resulted in a slight weight loss over a period of 5 weeks or so... which I do not think is so great, but the midwife seemed to think was fine.  I'm still pricking myself 4 times a day and feeling way overregulated.

I arrived back home to a box in the driveway: a birthday present to Farmerboy from my mom.  When I walk in the door at about 3:30, Chipmunk is not napping, Gareth and Katydid have finished their required work for the afternoon, and Andy is trying to juggle Chipmunk and Phonics Pathways, and Farmerboy is having a very hard time concentrating.  All ability to focus is totally shot by the arrival of the box. 

Sometimes you just have to give up.

After I tell Andy about my appointment, he runs down to the post office and retrieves our mail, which has been piling up for a month.  Then he gets on the computer to do some work, and I sort mail.  Gareth is very happy to see that his subscription to Pokemon magazine has been activated and disappears into his room with it.  The American Girl catalog is also scooped off the stack in a hurry.  Chipmunk and I look through the rest of the interesting catalogs later on in the recliner, since my back is killing me.

Andy makes steak for dinner and doesn't even catch the oven on fire.  (Almost).  While we eat, we watch episode 1 of The Adventure of English, a 6 CD collection about the history of English.  The little boys aren't enthused, but the big kids (especially Gareth) find it interesting.  Episode 1 brings us up to William the Conqueror.  And Seamus Haney reads part of Beowulf.

After dinner I read the usual stack of books to Chipmunk.  Andy gives the little boys a bath (always an adventure) and does the dishes.  I attempt a little laundry, but I have shooting pains in my back -- sciatica or a pinched nerve?  We get the boys ready for bed, and Andy reads the customary bedtime Biggles to the twins and Farmerboy, then heads back out to watch TV with Gareth and Katydid ( Drums Along the Mohawk) while I wrestle with Chipmunk and we both finally collapse around 9:45.

Nighttime prayers for me tonight -- part of the chaplet for Our Lady of Sorrows, a randomly opened page in my prayer book.

A Week in the Life: Monday

Well, today isn't "typical" in that we're just getting back to our routine from being away... and being sick over the weekend... but on the other hand it is typical because something like this always happens to throw off my neat plans of how "getting back into our routine" should go.  Over the years I've learned that imperfect is better than nothing, so here we go.

7:30 AM: Since I have been a little sick over the past few days, and Andy has been really sick, and most of the kids have been sick... I wake up late.  The twins and Farmerboy are already up.  Fortunately, Andy is feeling better and gets them set up in the family room watching Word World while I struggle out of bed and take care of Chipmunk, who tells me he is a "doggie" this morning.  I make juice and get breakfast for the little boys and myself, attempt (several times) to wake up Katydid and Gareth, and get online for a few minutes while I eat.

9:45 AM: We're finally sitting down for prayers.  When I got out of the shower, I was greeted with the news that one or both of the twins had gone on a rampage, which meant the family room had been destroyed.  What I mean by "destroyed" is: all the toy bins were dumped out, there were blankets strewn all over the floor, and at least one of the book bins was scattered everywhere.  I had the offending twin help pick up the books at least before we sat down to prayers.  Otherwise, prayers wouldn't have happened until 11 AM.  I had already decided that after prayers I was just going to go over what to expect today, this week, and the next 5 or 6 weeks, but the little boys treat it as if we were reading: I must find dinosaur coloring sheets, get out the markers, etc.

10:15 AM: I send Gareth and Katydid off to get dressed and do chores.  We've talked about what we're doing for history until June (William the Conqueror/Battle of Hastings), the merits and demerits of various planning tools, Katydid's Literature for a Young Lady plans, and Gareth's science -- physics.  The physics discussion turned out to interest everybody, as it involved cannonballs.  I am pleasantly surprised to cover Newton's Laws and Galileo's famous gravity experiment in the space of about 15 minutes.

Farmerboy has been so taken in by the physics discussion that he has his "experiment kit" out before I can tell him to change his clothes so the rest of us can work on the disaster in the family room.  This kit is a Sonlight Science supplies box augmented by lots of batteries, copper wire, tape, and whatever else Farmerboy felt like keeping there.  He does a few battery experiments, then he thinks about taking something apart, so he and the twins get out our broken "stuff" and the screwdrivers, then the Snapcircuits... which eventually turns into about an hour of science/art work for all the boys, including Chipmunk.

The robot mobile Pip and I made from circuit boards.

11:20ish AM: By this time, Katydid and Gareth have finished their chores (Katydid took over Gareth's chicken chores because he has a sore throat) and are settled into... some kind of work... I don't know exactly what because I am still darting hither and thither to keep up with the little boys.  Now that the boys are done with their work, they want to hunt flies and ants with a fly swatter but they're also demanding food, so -- snack time (various fruit, mainly).  I finally get Farmerboy to change clothes, but I give up on getting the littler ones in clothes before we tackled the family room... and another big mess I just discovered in their bedroom.  We all work on the mess for a good long while... some of us more willingly than others.

12:00: Good enough.  I'm starved.  And tired.  I wrestle the boys back to the bedroom to change their clothes and brush their teeth.  Yes, right before lunch.  Farmerboy turns on a Redwall CD; Gareth has drifted away from his work back to his room (he was reading volume 1 of Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples, and then we had a discussion about what to do for spelling); Katydid is hard at work on a bird book she has just decided to write.

12:30: Finally it is lunchtime.  Leftover pasta and sauce (for some of us).  Chipmunk eats 3 or 4 chunks of pineapple.

1:00 PM: The twins have gone on a rampage again because I was trying to finish my lunch, and it was raining so I couldn't let them outside.  This time they rope Chipmunk into turning on the water in the bathtub so they can go wading.  They all suffer the consequences, which seems to be what they need in order to calm down.  The boys (except Chipmunk) settle into setting up a war of Confederate army guys, Playmobil pirates and knights, and aliens?  Katydid is playing with Chipmunk.  I am making notes on this post.

2:00 PM: I've gotten some laundry going, lunch chores are done, and now it's time to read to the boys before naptime.  Pip mysteriously crawls into bed instead of reading or wrestling with Chipmunk.  I read a couple of transportation-related board books to Chipmunk, then Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln and part of Ghosts of the Civil War to Pop and Farmerboy, by request.  Gareth and Katydid begin their math in the dining room.

3:00ish:  After a short nap in the rocking chair, it's time to do Farmerboy's required work.  He's listening to Redwall again and is not happy about stopping to do phonics and math.  We manage about 30 minutes and just finish by the time Chipmunk comes out and wants me to hold him.  Then Pip arrives and starts pestering the big kids, who are working on a One Year Adventure Novel lesson. 

4:15 PM: I release the hounds.  Gareth has worked through algebra, Latin, and a novel-writing lesson, and read a bit of Rosemary Sutcliff's Outcast.  It is now his turn to have computer time.  The little boys decide they want to watch a Star Wars movie for their screen time.  (It's been raining all afternoon.)  Katydid is still working on her Wildflowers, Weeds, and Garden Flowers notebook (begun today), and then decides that for her computer time, she will write a blog entry about her chickens.  Chipmunk's asleep again and -- wonder of wonders -- stays asleep when I put him down.

5:00 PM: More laundry, unload the dishwasher, start dinner.  Crustless cheese quiche.  I use 14 eggs and we still have 5 dozen in the refrigerator. 

6:30 PM: Andy is home and we sit down to eat.  In addition to the quiche, there are peas, and strawberries and blueberries (thawed from frozen.  The strawberries are local.)  I don't have to fight with anybody to eat, which is nice.  After dinner, there is a giant light saber battle and then chores.  My wonderful husband does the dinner dishes for me so I can sit down and put my feet up.

10:00 PM: The little boys are finally in bed and asleep (Chipmunk finally decided to give up the fight) and so am I, after an evening of reading stacks and stacks of books to Chipmunk, discovering with Farmerboy that the French burned Schenectady in 1690, listening to Gareth read Pokemon field guides to Pop, trying to figure out how to handle copywork for myself... and worrying about Pip, as we try to determine whether or not some of his behaviors indicate that he has Tourette Syndrome, too.  I try to read the Bible and pray in bed before I go to sleep, but Chipmunk has a lot of "vim and vinegar" tonight, so... I hope God understands. 

Week in Review: April 19-23

Technically,the only schoolish thing we did this week was to add math back in on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday so we could concentrate on unpacking,laundry,and putting the house back in order -- a slow process, but progress is being made.  Also, most of us (including me, today) have come down with colds.  Not horrible colds, just -- colds.  I could have predicted it, actually; we're always sick this time of year.  Farmerboy's birthday was yesterday and seeing him lying around on the couch listening to book 1 of the Redwall series on audio all day reminded me that the week he was born, Katydid came down with pneumonia.  I always wondered if those germs floating around our house were what prompted his early labor, fetal distress, and 3 day NICU stay.  So, this week, his 7th birthday -- grateful we all just have little colds.

You'll notice, however, that I have no pictures of Farmerboy's birthday.  That's because Katydid used up the batteries in the camera the day before taking pictures of chickens.

A Buff Orpington hen at the feeder.  Note the absence of birthday cake or candles.

Anyway, even though it was not technically a "school" week, you can't keep good kids down.  A few highlights from this week:

• Katydid and Farmerboy decided to make part of our yard a "park", so they cleaned it up (which was nice)
• Katydid spent hours practicing her archery.  Farmerboy and Gareth joined in sometimes. 
• Farmerboy listened to several discs of Redwall.
• Pip,Pop, and Chipmunk worked on the Montessori animal puzzles, in addition to the other puzzles we have the in the cabinet.
• There was NOVA watching.  Now everyone wants to "crack the Maya code".
• There was reading on Gareth's part, but I am not sure exactly what books he had going.  He always has about 10 at a time.  I know I saw The Land I Lost (about Vietnam) and The Encyclopedia of the Ancient Americas. 
• There was a little math: Jacobs Algebra for Gareth, Key to Decimals and Key to Fractions for Katydid, and a page or two from Seton Math 1 for Farmerboy before he got sick.

The big deal this week, though, is worms.

 

And dirt.

The little boys have been building "worm farms".

I saw some instructions in More Mudpies to Magnets to fill a glass bottle with dirt and cover it in black construction paper to block the light.  Because the glass is clear, when you take the paper off in a few days, you can see the tunnels the worms have dug.  Theoretically, anyway.  The boys collect worms every year, but this year I suggested a new spin by covering the container with black paper.  Soon, we'll take off the paper and see if the worms have tunneled or... died.  (Sometimes we have trouble keeping the soil damp enough.)

Pop has been carrying a book about worms around with him for days and does not understand why we do not have a field guide to worms.  We also read A Handful of Dirt yesterday,which was a little difficult for the little ones because it's a longish picture book written for older kids, and because Pip and Chipmunk will not stop punching, kicking, shoving, biting or wrestling with each other for more than about 3 minutes at a time. 

In fact, the hyperactivity level here has gone through the roof over the past week and it is really exhausting me.  But I suppose that's fodder for another post.

A Week in the Life

I continue to get back up to speed with life, both real and virtual. This morning I saw an interesting post at Charming the Birds from the Trees beginning her participation in the Week in the Life project .  Yesterday I had been catching up on Sarah's blog and enjoyed her Day in the Life post.  This morning, surrounded by trip chaos that was in the process of being beaten back little by little, I thought,  hmmmm.

I like writing "day in the life" posts (I have a whole  category for them,actually, going back 4 years).  To be honest, I think they are some of my most valuable posts -- not to anybody else maybe, but to me as Iook back.  But often while I am keeping track of our day, I end up thinking that maybe it doesn't give the whole picture.  The day I choose to track may be wonderful or awful,for instance, but that doesn't mean that all our days are wonderful,or that all our days are awful.  I once tried to keep track of one of our weeks (in more detail than the usual weekly review), hoping to provide a little more balance, but I got bogged down in the details and never finished.   But I like this project's emphasis on the photoessay and on the ordinary. As long as I don't try to put down exact times for everything every day, maybe I'll be able to do it. 

Not this week, though, as we have not achieved "ordinary" yet.  Next week.  I hope. 

Anyone else participating in the project this week?  Leave me a comment and let know!  (I love reading those sorts of posts.) 

What I Did on my Spring Break

We're back!  We got home yesterday around 4:30 after a long three-day drive. The wind was howling and temperatures were in the 40's (a far cry from the beautiful sunny 80's we experienced most of the time we were gone), but that did not stop the kids from gearing up and heading outside to investigate all the changes in the yard that have happened since the last week in March.  For one thing, all the snow is gone. For another, all the meltwater is, too.  The day before we left three weeks ago it was still Lent and much of the yard and garden was underwater... under ice... a gigantic mud pit.  In fact, when I let everyone outside to clean out the van before we left, the siren song of all that water and mud was too strong for the boys to resist, and I ended up doing an extra load of laundry that night... right before Pop slipped off one our dining room benches, bit straight through his lip, and endured his customary pre-vacation trip to the ER.  (The doctor and nurse on duty both shook their heads and said, "Boys.")  But now mud and injury are both distant memories as the forsythia and daffodils are blooming, the grass is turning green, and the crabapples are even forming little flower buds. (A bit early, I think.)

I am still surrounded by trip chaos -- laundry, suitcases, backpacks, and a bare refrigerator -- but I thought I would just make a quick post to let my 6 or 10 faithful readers know that I am still alive.  Here is a brief rundown of "what I did on my spring break":

• Got a tan.  Did I mention beautiful, sunny weather in the 80's?
• Forgot my camera.  So, alas, no pictures.
• Went to the zoo.  Saw grizzly bears and wolves.
• Missed meeting up with Jen and her family. Still bummed about that, but... next time! :-)
• Ate way too much drive-thru food.
• Noted that too much drive-thru food is NOT GOOD for certain small members of my family, who now need to detox in order to become human again.
• Ate catfish. Yum.
• Attended Easter Mass in a beautiful, vibrant church.
• Drove around looking at dozens of houses.  Unfortunately, most could be eliminated as good places for us without even walking inside.

All right, so I dropped that last unobtrusively at the end, but I guess it's official now, so I can say something about it, although "it" has consumed a great deal of energy since Christmas...

We're moving.  Some time this fall.  To west Tennessee.

If you know of a suitable house for a large family and a flock of chickens, let me know.