Three Plus Two

A Day in Our New Year

Some of the books we used on the day I'm blogging about.

 I've wanted to talk about our new year for a while now.  I keep track of school years from July 1-June 30.  That was the way Missouri (where we began homeschooling) defined a school year for documentation purposes, and I have just never changed how I think about it.  This year I am trying to recover from a very chaotic year in which I suffered a lot of burnout.  I'm trying to go back to the roots of how we used to do things, which means lots of books and unschooliness.  In a book on homeschool transcripts I browsed through recently there was a chapter for "Unschoolers and the Chronically Relaxed."  I thought, "Hey, that's us -- chronically relaxed!" But I have to tell you, being chronically relaxed is very hard work!  When there aren't as many divisions between learning and life, there isn't ever a time when you're really "done with school."  Paradoxically, though, when we work this way I feel much less uptight.  If the boys don't work in a phonics workbook before lunch, it's ok; they can read to me before they go to bed.  If the big kids become absorbed in writing their novels and ignore reading history or science or whatever, it's more than ok; I'm overjoyed.  Let them write; they'll pick up the reading later.  I just put some newspaper articles on the couch where my 14 year old likes to read; I know he'll read them and we'll talk about them after dinner.  Maybe we'll watch some science tonight, who knows.

It's been a rocky process, coming back to this.  I've been working on a post for a couple of weeks in which I try to talk about this process of figuring out that while I have a few guideposts, I can't really divide up our year or our lives in the traditional way.  But I haven't been satisfied with that post, and I thought, well, maybe I could just show you a day in this new year.  I don't know if anyone really enjoys reading about my days, but I do enjoy writing them. 

 Wednesday, August 3

6:30 AM: My day starts a little later than it did yesterday, when I was awakened at 4:30 AM by Pip crying that his leg hurt.  Assuming that he was merely feeling the pins and needles of his leg falling asleep, I packed him off to the bathroom and then back to bed.  By dinnertime, it had become completely clear that not only was it not pins and needles, it was something that needed medical expertise.  So we spent part of our evening at urgent care discovering that apparently Pip had dislocated his knee somehow (not playing scooter demolition derby, of course) and although it had popped back into place on its own, the joint remained swollen and painful.  I was worried that he wouldn't be able to sleep, and therefore -- considering that Andy was out of town -- I would be up with him all night, but no, it was the baby who was up every hour instead.  I nurse the baby now and put him back down, hoping he'll go back to sleep so I can have a couple of minutes to myself before the little boys get up.

6:50 AM: No chance. Someone has left a Duplo train right outside my door, which makes a really loud noise when I step on it.  The little boys are instantly awake.  The good news is that Pip's knee isn't quite as bad this morning.  He manages to limp out to the kitchen on his own. The other boys head upstairs to build Legos, so I carry Pip up there with them.

(The upstairs room is a disaster, but I am willfully ignoring it for the time being.  A) It's 7 AM; B)I have not yet had any coffee and C)I'm trying to recover from a year of burnout.  Things are not efficient around here and I am ok with that right now. We will do a better job in time.)

While they're playing with Legos and the baby is miraculously still sleeping, I write in the spiral notebook that serves as our homeschool log, catching up on the past two days.

And I make coffee.

9:30 AM-ish: Everyone (even the teenagers) is up now, has eaten, and the little boys have also played outside and watched a Magic School Bus episode (on flight).  I've managed a shower and Katydid has fed and watered the chickens and ducks. We say our prayers, adding the prayer to St. Michael, which we're memorizing, and ending up -- from a question Farmerboy asks about St. Sebastian -- in an interesting theological discussion about martyrdom, Islam, terrorism, the persecution of Christians, and just wars.

10:15 AM: Ok, chore time. I've been trying to read from The Golden Children's Bible after prayers, but we had a good discussion and the little ones are antsy, so it's chore time.  And Leo (the baby) is cranky, so I sit down to nurse him and to read through this list of basic science fiction books. Gareth spends most of the day reading.  I'd become concerned that he only spent a minimum of time reading and working on what I thought he ought to be working on, only to escape upstairs to the books and work (his writing) that he really wanted to be doing.  So, ok, we're making a list of classic SFF novels and I'm giving him a reading journal.  I have to sort through the list, though, because obviously not all of them are appropriate for 14 year olds!

11:00 AM: Math with Farmerboy, with Pip contributing from the couch, and Pop listening in.  I'm trialing Saxon 3, with modifications.  I have him do one of the worksheets, which counts as a little bit of language arts, too -- writing dates and days of the week.  I think we'll be skipping some of these lessons, though.  We didn't do a lot of math last year, and I thought Saxon might give us the structure to fill in the gaps along with some living math books and our Montessori activities, and I thought FB would enjoy the "meeting" aspect. FB runs outside to check the temperature for our chart; it's 96 degrees already.   He wants to keep counting by 10's; he made it to 1000 yesterday, but today we have to do a little review of place value to write 1010.  I make a place value chart for him since our base 10 blocks aren't handy, and in the process I draw a thousand cube.  FB is fascinated by the way it looks 3-D and demands to know how I did it.  So instead of doing the graph Saxon says we ought to be doing for this lesson, we draw cubes and cones and prisms, and try to fiure out how to make an S look 3-D.

11:30 ish: The boys want to read Pagoo, which we started because we've been thinking about taking a Gulf of Mexico vacation.  While I read on the couch, the twins and Chipmunk sit at the table and draw ocean pictures.  Pop is concerned to get the correct number of legs on his lobster, so I give him The Usborne Illustrated Encyclopedia: The Natural World and he finds a picture to draw from.  FB says, "I love barnacles." 

12:00 or so: Break to clear the table and make lunch. The little boys start playing a game of "lobsters attack the hermit crab" using laundry baskets.

  
You'll note the hand poking out of the laundry basket?

I check in with the big kids about their mornings.  Gareth has spent the entire morning working on the novel he's writing as his One Year Adventure Novel (which is actually taking a lot longer than a year, but who's counting).  Katydid did some Rosetta Stone French, but mostly she, too, has been working on her novel.  They both tell me the same thing: "How do people write 30 page first chapters?  How do they write enough pages to make a novel?"  I just laugh. One page at a time, kiddos.

A couple of books arrive via UPS at lunch time:The Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan (for me and anyone else who's interested) and Paul Johnson's A History of the American People (for Andy and anyone else who's interested.) I try to steal a few minutes book browsing and checking my email.

1:30 PM: Time to gather in the little boys to read before quiet time.  Katydid has been singing in her room.  Gareth has been reading... something. The Goose Girl , I think.   Nobody wants to go outside today, which is good for Pip, who can't in any case.  FB informs me that it is 100 degrees.  He's been upstairs building with Legos and listening to a Hank the Cowdogbook on audio.

I read one chapter from This Country of Ours.  We're reading about Columbus.  And this is August 3, the anniversary of the day that Columbus set out from Spain! Excitement!  FB says we should have a party.  With cake.  I'm not sure I can pull off cake today. But it's a good idea.

2:00 PM: It takes a while to get Leo and Chipmunk to actually take a nap. Actually, only Chipmunk really takes a nap.  Leo just keeps popping up, so I'm not able to do much with the big kids and I can't settle into a book while I'm rocking him either, which is frustrating, but I'm not sure it has entirely to do with Leo.  Katydid works on her math (Life of Fred: Fractions) and Lingua Mater, reads Bernd Heinrich's  Summer World (I am a Bernd Heinrich fan) and also Fellowship of the Ring. Then she works on marine biology using the weekly plans from Fieldwork, Theresa's marine biology blog.  This looks pretty schooly, but most of it she chose. I made some "weekly guideline" charts this year, but I am trying hard not to think of them as hard and fast requirements.  They're mainly to provide the structure that is sometimes necessary to remember that you really wanted to learn French, for instance, and that you probably need to do that every day.

Gareth spends a long time doing Geometry (Jacobs), then sits on the couch reading The Andromeda Strain.  He didn't make it all the way through Algebra last year, but by the end of the year I was concerned that what he was learning most was how to hate math.  So we stopped and I poked around the Living Math site and we decided that it was probably okay to take a break from algebra and work on geometry instead, and here we are.

At this point, however, I am a tad frustrated with the way naptime has gone and unfortunately this frustration comes out as an "Is that all you're going to do today?" lecture because I have forgotten that I am relaxing.  It would have been so much more productive to have a discussion about The Andromeda Strain, but this doesn't hit me until later. 

It also happens to be 104 degrees.  I check the thermometer when I give up trying to get the baby back to sleep and take him out to get the mail.  Katydid, however, has been taking pictures outside.

All the birds are panting it's so hot, says Katydid.

And somewhere in there the little boys watch some episodes from Jonathan Bird's Blue World, upon which they are hooked.

5:00 PM Time to make dinner.  I pick up where I left off yesterday before we went to urgent care -- making zucchini bread.  Chipmunk helps.

 

It's grain-free.  I make it from a recipe in The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. We have chicken sausages for dinner, and the kids get to eat in front of the TV.  (Because I'm tired. They watch a DVRed episode of Iron Chef: "Battle Cucumber!")  Then we do after dinner chores, and the kids all mess around for a while, and Gareth and Katydid pick up the articles from the weekend Wall Street Journal that I left on the couch (about "unwriting" and why fantasy fiction deserves more respect, and whether or not the Easter Islanders really committed "ecocide") and we have some discussion about that.

8:00 PM: It's 99 degrees.  Andy texts me that he's in Atlanta.  Almost home.

8:30 PM: We're getting ready for bed.  FB and the twins choose readers to read to me. FB reads part of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  His reading is improving, just slowly.  I found Writing Road to Reading in a box I was unpacking in the spring, and so we're using the word lists and reviewing the phonograms.  Andy usually gets the phonogram flashcards out at bedtime every night, and before he reads their bedtime story, he calls out phonograms and the boys fire back words that start with them.  This sounds like a classroom, except that the boys are all in bed (or in their sleeping bags) and they think it's a lot of fun.  I don't do this tonight, though.  Tonight the boys read to me on the couch in their pajamas, and then Katydid reads The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor to them while I put on my pajamas, and then we pray and have a little theological discussion about whether saints help you themselves or if they have to go get Jesus so He can help, and after that I am required to sing "Away in a Manger".

9:30 PM: The house is finally quiet and I am nursing Leo to sleep.  The big kids are still up, of course, reading, taking showers, etc.  I read my Bible, and then I work on this post a while before Andy gets home around 11. 

So that's how our year is starting out.  Some of it's planned and a lot of it isn't, but it seems to be shaping up okay.

 

 

 

 

 

Today

Today started out in my "office", where I worked with my super-organized daily planning system...

...otherwise known as "post-its on the refrigerator".

And then there was...

Graphing of Legos...

... requiring lots of concentration.

There was bouncing...

... and reading before quiet time...

Afternoon work...

And snow in the evening.

Tuesdays are halfway decent around here, usually.  How was your day?

 

The New "Normal"

The view from Katydid's rebuilt "hut"

I've wanted to do a "day at our house" post for a while now, but never seemed to have the opportunity, or I thought, wait till we get a routine and things are normal again.  Well, I am now admitting that our new "normal" is not exactly what I hoped it would be.  On the other hand, it's probably adequate, and certainly could be a lot worse.  My biggest challenge is -- as always -- keeping the little boys from injuring each other, themselves, or the house.  I didn't know why I thought that would change just because we moved a thousand miles.

So this was our "normal" day, such as it was.  If you are a new homeschooler (or an old one), I hope this will encourage you that other people's kids run outside in their pajamas first thing in the morning, and throw pencils at each other, and sometimes husbands get phone calls from wives who are trying to eliminate the title of chief zookeeper from the long list of jobs they perform, but in the midst of all of this stuff, there's a little stargazing and some art, too.

Morning: 

Our morning was pretty typical.  I wish I could say it wasn't -- it was a little more intense than usual, but nothing beyond the pale of what has gone before.  I didn't manage to get up before the little boys, which got the day off to a bad start.  Then, in the first 45 minutes of the day, there was Lego throwing, fighting and quarreling, poking the baby's eyes, a whole bunch of discipline, and the aforementioned call to the husband, at which point the words "I quit" and "preschool" may have been uttered.  Or shouted.  Or something.  The boys were banished to their room.  Then they were banished outside because they were destroying their room.  And the blue lightsaber was removed from its owner's possession.  And Gareth was asked to go outside to keep an eye on the boys while I helped Katydid do her math (long division, which began in a Developmental Math book and then switched to Saxon 6/5 because it wasn't explained well enough).  Then I took a shower. 

A fourteen year old's idea of "keeping an eye" on his brothers is different than mine, let me just say.

So after that was sorted out, we prayed and started chores.  It was 10 AM. ( I have no idea how it took 3 hours for me to eat breakfast and take a shower.  I nursed the baby a few times, too, I guess.)  The little boys somehow had their clothes changed and got their teeth brushed, in spite of Pip's attempt to flood the bathroom by filling up the sink.   After chores, everyone got situated with some work.

• Gareth read the Boy Scout merit badge booklet for Automotive Maintenance.
• Katydid went outside with the camera.  She might also have worked on her Tropical Birds notebook , since she often does work on it in the mornings. 
• Pip and Pop both wanted to work in their math books (Modern Curricula Press Math K) .  I had wanted to give Farmerboy a reading lesson, but Pop needed help with the page he wanted to do on clocks.  I asked Farmerboy to get out his math book instead (Seton Math 2).  He got to work doing some double-digit subtraction, but my working with Pop distracted him so much that I had to promise to buy him some headphones (to block out the noise).  Pip and Pop both did two or three pages on time and graphs and practiced writing some numbers.  (Their fine motor skills lag behind their brain skills and the heavy emphasis on writing in the MCP book is something we're working around.)

Then Pip and Chipmunk started throwing crayons at each other and were banished to the backyard again.  I had Katydid show Farmerboy how to use the Flashmaster to practice math facts and brought out the metal (mine are plastic) insets for Pop to help his fine motor skills.  Katydid said, "I love these things," and started on her own inset, and so I left the three of them at the table, drawing, and went outside with Pip and Chipmunk and nursed the baby and reviewed some phonics with Pip.   When Farmerboy and Pop were done drawing, they came out and showed me their pictures (they drew paleontologists after finishing up the insets), and I gave Farmerboy a short reading lesson in Phonics Pathways and showed Pop how to use the Flashmaster.

And Daddy came home for lunch, mostly for moral support.

Afternoon:

Our lunch lasts from 12ish to about 1:30.  The kids usually ride their scooters and mess around out front on the driveway.  Today they drew with sidewalk chalk.  Gareth drew moas, which he learned about from his current science/geography read, The Future Eaters, and terror cranes, which I think he learned about by osmosis. 

(We have an interesting driveway.)

(I also spent some time wondering if it would count as a narration.)

The twins began to act up again, which was how I knew it was quiet time.  At around 1:30, I call everyone in to clean up lunch and then I read to everyone 7 and under.  Farmerboy's "school" books which I've been reading at this time include Aesop's Fables for Children and Minn of the Mississippi , which he narrates.  Or at least, which I am attempting to have him narrate.  Narration is something I have been thinking a lot about lately.  Today, however, we just read from the stack of library books: Let's Count it Out, Jess Bear! for Chipmunk; Stars, Stars, Stars for the other boys; Mystery Vine: A Pumpkin Surprise because I felt like we ought to be reading some kind of seasonal book.  I'm not sure if the boys enjoyed this one too much or not, but the projects in the back were somewhat interesting to them.  We may be growing a sweet potato vine soon.

Pip had been informing me for a while that he was VERY TIRED, so I informed him that it would be best if he would take a nap on my bed and sent him off with a stack of castle books.  He surprised me by actually going to sleep.  Chipmunk fought his nap tooth and nail for about an hour before he finally succumbed, and the baby (I can't call him Leo, so maybe I will call him "Tank" instead? "Future NFL Linebacker" perhaps?) fussed for a while, too, but finally he also went to sleep and I moved on to helping Gareth with algebra (Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra, which we're using with Fred's Home Companion) and Latin (First Form Latin), both of which have been nudging me in a little over my head.  My problem with algebra is that the Fred books really make you think, which is good, but which I was not taught how to do, and my problem with Latin is that I haven't been keeping up with the kids, so they're now ahead of me.  But with the help of the workbook answer key and the textbook we are able to come to some understanding of the diagramming in lesson XI.  While he was waiting on me to put the little ones down, he read The Future Eaters, but we still have to have a little discussion about time spent and amount of work accomplished.  He therefore pulls out The Grammar of Poetry, which he is enjoying much more than I thought he would, completes a lesson on puns, and calls it a day at about 4:30.

Meanwhile, Katydid works on a grammar lesson from Our Mother Tongue, reads Sun Slower, Sun Faster (an historical novel of Church history), Greek Myths, by Olivia Coolidge, and works on Editor in Chief, which she is not assigned, but which she enjoys doing anyway.  I'm not sure if she did Latin or not while I was busy with the little ones, but usually this is time for Latin.

Around 3:30, I call Farmerboy down from listening to Harry Potter on audio for the 478th time so he can do his copywork.  He's using Copybook 1 from Memoria Press, because it's easier for me to have it all laid out.

At 4:00 it's computer time and I make dinner.  Chicken Cacciatore tonight, with spaghetti squash (which 5 of 6 kids think is "okay".) 

After dinner (about 5:45/6:00 ish tonight, which is a bit early for us), Andy takes Gareth outside to go through his Boy Scout Automotive Maintenance merit badge book with him.  Katydid and Farmerboy tag along, and the little boys ride scooters and bikes and pretend to shoot lasers.  It gets dark and we look at the moon and identify Venus and count airplanes.  Then it's inside for chores and pajamas and Andy reading Mattimeo at bedtime and me nursing the Future NFL Linebacker to sleep and it all begins again in the morning.

 

 

 

 

Summer School

I'm trying to keep everyone somewhat busy and yet still do a lot of sitting (and nursing).  "School" is therefore in session... sort of.  I'm reading aloud in the mornings and requiring math of the big kids and some phonics of Farmerboy (starting next week, after I get our Explode the Code online account set up.)  That's it.  But here's what our days have actually been like...

What we did yesterday:

• Read aloud 1 chapter of Minn of the Mississippi, 1 chapter of Robin Hood (the Howard Pyle version - forsooth!) in the morning, You Can Name 100 Dinosaurs to Chipmunk and Pip at naptime, and at bedtime Andy read 1 chapter of The Buffalo Knife, by William O.Steele (to everyone) and a chapter of Mattimeo, Redwall #3, (just to the little boys).  
• Gareth read The Tombs of Atuan (Ursula K. LeGuin) to himself.
• Katydid wrote... something.
• Boys all built Lego castles.
• Katydid made sandwiches for lunch and brought them outside for a picnic while I nursed the baby.
• A discussion about the physics of trebuchets at lunchtime.
• Everyone played in the hose... for hours and hours.
• Gareth looked over his new Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra.
• Katydid did a couple of pages in her Key to Decimals workbook.
• Katydid and Farmerboy made an "ocean" in a big Rubbermaid container.  Then Farmerboy made his own ocean in a 2 liter bottle (i.e., water + dirt, rocks, shells, sticks, etc) and noted later that everything had settled to the bottom.  Had a discussion about sediment.
• Gareth and Katydid played Wii Secret Agents.
• Everyone except Gareth (who had a doctor's appointment) spent a good long while watching the Giant Ocean Tank webcam at the New England Aquarium... and also grousing about how their mother had already packed all the ocean books.
• Kids decided to watch Finding Nemo.  Gareth and Andy went to Scouts.

What we did today: (I'll try and update tomorrow, since we still have an evening to get through!)

• More webcam watching to start the day.  The nurse shark with the ripped fin was somehow christened "Fred". 
• Scrounging for unpacked books resulted in a little information on tidepools, coral reefs, and sharks.
• The latest "cliffhanger" chapter of Mattimeo narrated to me by Farmerboy (don't worry; I don't assign narrations of bedtime reading!!)
• Taught Katydid to make fried eggs.
• Read aloud Little Farm by the Sea to Chipmunk and another chapter of Minn of the Mississippi, roughly half a chapter of Robin Hood.  It's not bedtime yet, but I expect that Andy will continue to read from The Buffalo Knife and Mattimeo (especially since Farmerboy is adamant about NOT MISSING any of these books.)
• Katydid drew in her nature journal.
• Gareth worked on a map for the novel he's writing.
• Lots more play in the hose.
• More model "oceans".
• Discussion about how the oil spill might affect migrating birds.
• I boiled a batch of eggs.  (Hey, that was a big deal.  I have a 3 week old baby.)
• Katydid worked on decimals some more and Gareth started on chapter 1 of LoF: Beginning Algebra.  He got frustrated when he saw how much there was to chapter 1, but felt much better when we looked at the table of contents and realized that if he did an entire chapter a day he'd finish algebra I in 12 days.  We're shooting for 45 minutes/day.
• I read more of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and discovered that lichens are so slow-growing that big ones are probably hundreds or thousands of years old.  Had to stifle the impulse to run out to the woods and see some really OLD lichens.  I was sitting on the couch, nursing.

A Week in the Life: Saturday 5/1

All photos in this post by Katydid.

This Saturday was a little different because Andy was still out of town and didn't get home until late that night.  But on the other hand it was fairly typical in that the line between "school" and "life" gets blurred even on the weekend.

This is my third attempt to write this post (my first two attempts were eaten by Typepad), so it's going to be a little less detailed than some of the other posts.

Basically:

With swim lessons done for the season, our Saturdays are a lot less hectic.  This morning we did our normal chores and then headed outside to enjoy the beautiful WARM weather for a while before we left for Katydid's violin lesson.  We noted that the crabapple trees had burst into bloom overnight:

 

And that the yard was now full of dandelions, which the boys enjoyed decapitating (way too much):

 

Then we brought Katydid to her violin lesson.  She's practicing for her recital at the beginning of June, and has chosen to play two hymns from her traditional Catholic hymnal.  While she is at her lesson, the boys and I run a couple of quick errands and then we go through the McDonald's drive-thru for lunch.

Back home, we pile out of the van and spend a couple more hours outside.  Katydid immediately grabs her nature journal, binoculars, and the camera.  The little boys alternately climb around in the woods looking for fortresses and follow Katydid on her nature observations.

One of the first things she does is to check out the bluebird boxes, because the boys and I discovered nesting materials in both of them the other day.  It turns out that a chickadee is using at least one of them.

(Note: as of a few days later, she counted six tiny eggs in this nest.)

Later on she takes the camera out to the outer garage and manages an extreme close-up of the Eastern Phoebe nest in the rafters:

 

Because the camera was so close, the eggs look more like our bantam chicken eggs, so at first we were all a little confused.  But then Katydid explained how close this shot was, and we realized that the eggs look a lot larger in the photo than they are in real life.

Considering that we started the week off with rain and sleet, we are more than happy to spend as much time outside as we possibly can.  I make an easy puff pancake for a late dinner, and we somehow escape Andy's trip without our own trip to the ER... although the evening did not pass by without a big wagon accident, in which a 13 year old learned that he is capable of pulling a kid's wagon far faster than is probably good for 4 year olds, even if they really like it. 

We finish up the day by all crowding onto the couch to watch Doctor Who, because well -- daleks!  Winston Churchill!  Spitfires attacking space ships! What could be cooler, I ask you?

And now that you know we are a family of TOTAL geeks, our week in the life is done.

A Week in the Life: Friday 4/30

Friday is "extra chore" day.  All I have from our Friday (4/30) is one lone picture:

 

... in which Chipmunk and Pip put pots on their heads and pretend to be daleks.  (We have to be prepared for Saturday night.)

After that the day is much less exciting.

Our usual Friday routine goes like this:

• Breakfast
• Morning prayers (at least a Morning Offering, Our Father, and Hail Mary to start our day. Our Lady of La Salette instructed the children to whom she appeared to pray both morning and night, at least an Our Father and Hail Mary, if they couldn't do more.  So this is what I take for our bare minimum every day.)
• Baltimore Catechism (we're currently working through #2) and read aloud (in today's case, more on William the Conqueror in Our Island Story).  The kids usually draw or color during this time.  This morning I must banish Lego daleks from the table so that certain boys can concentrate on the catechism.
• Kids dress, brush teeth, and start daily chores --  Gareth (collect eggs, empty and load dishwasher, wipe counters, take out recycling); Katydid (feed and water chickens, bring and sort laundry, MTWTH wipe out bathroom sinks); Farmerboy (pick up family room); little boys (brush teeth and put on clothes without driving everyone insane).
• After their daily chores, we move on to extra chores -- Gareth (clean all bathrooms and take out bathroom trash); Katydid (fold one basket of laundry, put it away, pick up the always messy laundry room and vacuum it, help watch little boys; Farmerboy, Pip, and Pop (pick up the hallway that functions as our toy room for Legos, Playmobil, and Star Wars action figures); me and Chipmunk (work on bedrooms, picking up, vacuuming etc.) 
• Lunch time!
• Outside (This Friday happened to be warmer than the previous Thursday, thank goodness, so we spent a while outside.  Considering that we had been mostly stuck inside all week, I chose to let the big kids have more outside time when I took the little boys inside for naps, instead of making them take the usual two hour work period.)
• Work on Fridays generally consists of projects, nature walks, art, maybe a Latin quiz, reading... but no math or grammar or other textbooky things.
• Wii and computer time for all (including me)
• Dinner (frozen pizza tonight, as I am tired and Andy will be out of town until very late Saturday, but we do often have "pizza night" on Fridays)
• After dinner chores --  Gareth (pick up living room and entryway, sweep floors, vacuum rug); Katydid (wipe table, pick up and sweep kitchen and dining room floors); Farmerboy (clear table, pick up family room and vacuum rug), Pip and Pop (assigned each to a big kid as a helper); me and/or Andy (dinner dishes and kitchen duty, laundry).
• The usual stack of books for the little boys and bed... 10:30 at the earliest when Andy is out of town.  I stopped trying to put them to bed earlier, because they went to bed at the same time whether I tried to put them in bed at 8::30 or 10:00.  It's much less of a fight to wait. 

A Week in the Life: Thursday 4/29

Thursday begins about 5:30 AM when Andy leaves for the airport.  I should get up, but I go back to sleep until 6:45.  Around 7, I find that the twins are up and have opened all the drawers to Farmerboy's dresser and are climbing them like a ladder.  This dresser is not attached to the wall.  The boys therefore begin their day with serious discipline.

Then we move on to breakfast.

And Pokemon...

 

The twins are their usual whirlwind in the morning.  After we all do catechism together and I read aloud to the bigger kids, I sit down with them and we do "math" (what they call workbooks).  They like having books like the older kids.  Both of them go through several pages of Modern Curriculum Press Phonics K because circling is a novelty.  Then it's on to Montessori animal puzzles.

We get the Botany puzzles out, too, but they're a little more difficult.  Katydid gives a lesson on parts of the flower.

 

And again, outside after lunch with tulips.

It's about 55 degrees and the wind is blowing 20 or 30 mph.  Cold.  But sunny.  

Gareth tells me the twins are playing in the garden, but a few minutes later they take off up the hill.  Fortunately Katydid follows them (with the camera).

 

Here they are in the woods.  Without telling me where they were going.  Gareth, Farmerboy, and I spend about 30 minutes looking for them.  When they all come out of the woods, they get the "Tell me where you are going first" lecture. 

Then it's time for a nap, and book work for the three older kids.

Then we have pancakes for dinner in front of the TV.

Then I read a bunch of books to the little boys.

Then it's 10:00 and I wrestle them to bed. 

At nearly 11:00, we all are finally asleep.  Just a typical night when Andy is out of town.

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.