ADIOCL IX
Time again for A Day In Our Crazy Life!
If you would like to catch up on past editions of ADIOCL, here ya go:
Volume VIII: N is 7.5, L is 6, C is 4.5, and J is 9 months old
Volume VI: N is 6.5, L is 4.5, C is 3, and J is in utero
Volume V: N is 6, L is 4, C is 2.5
Volume IV: N is 5.5, L is 3.5, and C is 2
Volume III: N is 5, L is 3, and C is 21 months
Volume II: N is 4.5, L is 2.5, and C is 14 months
Volume I: N is 4, L is 2, and C is 9 months
Here was our day on Wednesday, November 16, 2016.
6:05 AM: I begin to hear J talking in her crib. Although she has had some middle-of-the-night wake-ups this week due to teething, they are becoming more rare these days and I am finally feeling more rested in general. Yay!
6:15 AM: my alarm goes off. My "schedule" that we've been following lately dicates that I should get up, get dressed, and begin prepping school and other things for our day, but J is chatting happily with herself and there's not a sound from the big girls' room so I hit the snooze. I can hear M getting up and starting laundry, then getting his laptop set up. He will work from home today.
6:30 AM: I get up and put my workout clothes on. Then I grab J and give her a quick diaper change.
6:40 AM: I turn on the coffee that I set up the night before (lovely to just stumble into the kitchen and press a button and be well on my way to wake-up juice) and settle J in the high chair with some Cheerios.
6:45 AM: N is up. I greet her while pouring myself some coffee. I'm also shuffling through homeschool papers and printing a few things for school later. L peeks her face out shortly after.
6:50 AM: Normally the big girls make breakfast for everyone these days, but Wednesdays are Mama's day. The big girls start on their grooming (getting dressed, brushing hair, teeth, and tidying their rooms) while I start putting banana pancakes on the griddle. I made up the batter last night. {Up until about a month
ago there was no prepping things the night before-- I was cutting myself a huge break when I was more sleep-deprived at the beginning of our homeschool year. Now I'm happy to have a less foggy head and a small bit of energy left at night to get things ready for the next day... it does make life a lot easier in the AM.}
If you would like to catch up on past editions of ADIOCL, here ya go:
Volume VIII: N is 7.5, L is 6, C is 4.5, and J is 9 months old
Volume V: N is 6, L is 4, C is 2.5
Volume IV: N is 5.5, L is 3.5, and C is 2
Volume III: N is 5, L is 3, and C is 21 months
Volume II: N is 4.5, L is 2.5, and C is 14 months
Volume I: N is 4, L is 2, and C is 9 months
Here was our day on Wednesday, November 16, 2016.
6:05 AM: I begin to hear J talking in her crib. Although she has had some middle-of-the-night wake-ups this week due to teething, they are becoming more rare these days and I am finally feeling more rested in general. Yay!
6:15 AM: my alarm goes off. My "schedule" that we've been following lately dicates that I should get up, get dressed, and begin prepping school and other things for our day, but J is chatting happily with herself and there's not a sound from the big girls' room so I hit the snooze. I can hear M getting up and starting laundry, then getting his laptop set up. He will work from home today.
6:30 AM: I get up and put my workout clothes on. Then I grab J and give her a quick diaper change.
6:40 AM: I turn on the coffee that I set up the night before (lovely to just stumble into the kitchen and press a button and be well on my way to wake-up juice) and settle J in the high chair with some Cheerios.
6:45 AM: N is up. I greet her while pouring myself some coffee. I'm also shuffling through homeschool papers and printing a few things for school later. L peeks her face out shortly after.
6:50 AM: Normally the big girls make breakfast for everyone these days, but Wednesdays are Mama's day. The big girls start on their grooming (getting dressed, brushing hair, teeth, and tidying their rooms) while I start putting banana pancakes on the griddle. I made up the batter last night. {Up until about a month
ago there was no prepping things the night before-- I was cutting myself a huge break when I was more sleep-deprived at the beginning of our homeschool year. Now I'm happy to have a less foggy head and a small bit of energy left at night to get things ready for the next day... it does make life a lot easier in the AM.}
Mmmmmm... banana pancakes. Have I mentioned the recipe here before yet? I think I have, but I'll say it again. It's just 1 mashed banana, 2 eggs, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp baking powder. I whip it all up in the blender. We make them small because they can be tricky to flip.
7:15 AM Normally we have our "circle time" at about 7:30 and I have the girls eat afterwards, but today I let them eat as they wake up because they're all complaining of being starving and it's going to take me a while to finish the pancakes anyway. They continue to work on grooming in between platefuls of pancakes (topped with frozen blueberries! yummy!) as they come off the griddle and the bigger girls move on to their morning chores.
Earlier in the year we were doing chore sticks but we have switched to a chore chart that seems to be working a little better-- more structure and regularity for the girls, less opportunity for sticks to get lost ;-}
8:30 We do "circle time"... I just gather the girls and we read a story; nothing fancy. It has worked well to have a starting point to our day, and a deadline for them to have chores done. We read The Most Magnificent Thing and a few poems from Jack Prelutsky's It's Thanksgiving! J is usually still eating in her high chair while we do circle time, but since today we're later she is crawling all over me while I read. The big girls don't mind too much.
9:00 The bigger girls start on school. I help C finish dressing and grooming while they do. She tends to be our Pokey Little Puppy with chores and getting ready, but I figure that's age-appropriate so I give her extra help most days. Today she and I split up the dishwasher chore since it's so late-- I do the silverware and she does the rest.
Miss J wanders around and plays contentedly while we're doing chores and school. I finally get her dressed around 9:30.
The big girls' morning school consists of a 10-20 minute activity on each of the following subjects: math, writing, grammar, spelling, handwriting, and occasionally a little Spanish. The idea is that this block of time is review on concepts they already know, or self-directed learning on the iPad, so that they can do it mostly without my help. We save the baby's naptime in the afternoon for newer concepts that require more of my teaching and undivided attention.
9:45 Once I have J dressed I start packing my gym bag and our diaper bag to get us ready to go to the Y. (My Y membership has been sooooo great. I've tried to make it a priority to get us there three times a week, and it has been totally worth it. The girls love the child watch room and I love the "me" time. Win win.)
10:20 The big girls are done with morning school so we load everyone into the car.
10:30 We depart for the Y!
10:40 We arrive, I drop the girls off in child watch with their favorite baby-sitter friend, stash my stuff in the locker room and work out. But not before taking a deep breath and enjoying a quiet moment after the morning chaos.
(happy locker room selfie, pre-workout)
I warm up on the elliptical for 10 minutes (and I watch a little Farmhouse Rules while I do... so comforting!) and then do a strength circuit from the Kickstart Series of HHHM.
11:45 I'm showered, refreshed, energized, and ready to pick up the girls!
12:00 On our way home the big girls help me by singing and chatting with J to keep her from falling asleep in the car. We arrive home and we're all pretty starving. I had packed a snack for the girls that they ate while in Child Watch at the Y, but I haven't had anything since breakfast so I scarf three (maybe 4?) energy bites that C and I made yesterday.
These were just a combination of different energy bite recipes from the internet-- we used medjool dates, peanut butter, vanilla extract, rolled oats and chocolate chips. Processed in the food processor and rolled into balls. C has been such a little helper in the kitchen lately and we really loved making these.
But I digress.
12:10 I ask for a volunteer to make lunch for the big girls and L sweeps in, so that frees me up to make a quick egg salad sandwich for J. I help myself to a few spoonfuls of egg salad while making it!
She scarfs this down along with some raisins and blueberries. I talk L through making canned chicken noodle soup for the big girls
while I chop up some apples to go with it and get a bottle ready for L.
12:45 L is serving the soup to big girls while I give J a wash-up, change her diaper, and feed her a bottle during which she falls dead asleep.
12:55 I emerge from J's room looking to find lunch for myself. Unfortunately our salad greens are pretty slimy so I settle for a mug of soup with some carrot sticks and hummus.
1:00 The big girls are finishing so I send them downstairs to practice violin (we have a "lesson" together once a week and I write them a practice sheet/checklist that they use for the rest of the week). C hangs out with me upstairs and we chat while she steals some of my carrots and hummus.
1:30 The big girls are done practicing and I'm done eating and cleaning up (clean-up after meals is so much faster and easier now that the girls empty the dishwasher first thing in the morning!) and so we gather on the couch and read some of The Sentence Family and the girls diagram a few sentences with me.
2:00 L and C run downstairs to play together and J is still napping. I ask M if it's okay if N and I run out to do an errand. He agrees to keep an ear out for the baby while he finishes working, so we head out and go to Ocean State Job Lot to pick up printer paper, coffee, and canned goods for our church food drive coming up on Sunday.
2:45 We arrive home to this:
Two girls dressed to the nines and fixing themselves a snack. M is just finishing up a pilates workout. N settles in for an hour of math with Dad (he is teaching her this year using Khan Academy) and I sit down to answer some emails.
3:15 J is up and I give her a quick snack in the high chair (Corn Chex!) while I finish up the emails.
4:00 PM The girls and I run out again for a trip to Old Navy to hit up the $12 winter boots sale. They are all given balloons at the checkout line and chaos ensues. J is hungry and fussy and demands a balloon but we are all afraid she will pop it as she squeezes it with her razor sharp fingernails and so I have to take it away and she gets mad. The other girls aren't helping things much by running around bopping each other on the heads with their balloons trying to "get static". Not the best time of day for a shopping trip, Mom.
5:15 PM We arrive home-- Wiggles to the rescue while I warm up leftovers.
5:45 We eat.
6:15 J is finished eating-- I get her cleaned up in the bath, then put coconut oil all over her (which seems to help her eczema a lot!) and put PJs on her. M cleans up after he and the big girls finish.
6:45 I have another bottle ready for J (did I mention that we stopped nursing just after her 12-month birthday? she still takes a bottle of toddler soy formula before bed) and I rock her and cuddle with her until she's asleep.
7:00 The big girls are in bed for what we call "reading time"-- they can read quietly or draw during this hour. I help M finish cleaning up, he folds some laundry, and I get a few school papers ready for the next day.
8:00 Lights out for the big girls. M and I retire to bed where we chat for a little bit, then read our books.
9:30 Lights out for Mom and Dad!
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