A DAY IN THE LIFE

So far I have these ladies joining me in chronicling their day today ~

Karen
Roberta
Lis (maybe?)
Michelle
Karen from NY

Here I go (drum roll) --

7:30am~ I wake up and take my basal temperature. My kids are still quiet and my husband is getting ready to leave for work. Since I'm still not 100% healthy I slept in. I really don't like sleeping past 6am and my usual routine for the past three months has been to wake at 5am and go to the YMCA to exercise and then do a little bible reading and prayer in the parking lot before I drive home a little before 7am. So today is going to be different. I jump in the shower after reading the morning devotional from Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. I have to have some spiritual nourishment before meeting the day! It comforts me by describing the extent of Jesus' anguish and sorrow on the cross and how that experience has perfectly qualified Him to be my faithful High Priest. Amen. I have a little prayer time in the shower (one of my prayer closets) and then remember that I don't have to "do" my hair today because we're all getting hair cuts. Yeah! That will save me some time. As soon as I get out of the shower and put on my bathrobe I have three "knocks" on the door. My two youngest and the dog want to come in. The dog acts like he hasn't seen me in a week. We all go down and get breakfast which is cereal and yogurt that needs to be shared because there's only two cups left for three kids. My oldest does a great job sharing and not whining too much. Now it's 8:21 and I have to go monitor what's going on upstairs and see how many chores I can do without tiring myself out. This is the busiest week of the year for our family. Both my husband and I are involved in our church's Easter drama, the Easter Story. Last night was the dress rehearsal which I skipped because I was sick. Tonight starts five straight nights of performances plus an afternoon one on Saturday. I don't need to do too much today because I need to have enough energy to get through tonight! I'll post again around 9:30.

10:15am~ Well it's 45 minutes past the time I said I would post. We got caught up in morning chores and our devotional/morning meeting time. Between 8 and 9 I like to get the kitchen cleaned up from breakfast and have some time to do my chores and train the kids in doing their chores. Usually the kids forget to do their chores and sometimes even to get dressed if I don't remind them every day. I used to get frustrated that they weren't as committed to the schedule as I was (*grin*) but I've slowly realized that a lot of parenthood is spent reminding your kids of stuff. (I forgot that I haven't told y'all about my kids. Some of you know but I'm sure some of you don't. We have three children; two boys and a girl. J is 9 and in third grade, C is 6 and in kindergarten, and S is our girl and she's almost 5. We also have a dog who is 1 year old.) So the boys worked together to collect the trash and my daughter did a great job cleaning her room and getting dressed. Sometimes she gets frustrated and says she can't do it but other times she has a real diligent streak. I'm thankful today was a diligent day. We start around 9:20. My goal is to start by 9 but that only happens about 30% of the time. Oh well. I'm trying not to be a slave to the clock. We meet in the dining room/school room. One corner is devoted to a small bookcase and has some whiteboards hung on the wall. In the next house, Lord willing, we'll have a real school room which is not doing double duty for something else. Our devotional/morning meeting time consists of reading the Bible (Proverbs 21 today), working on memorizing a verse, singing a hymn of the month which corresponds to what they're learning in children's choir at church, reading from Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic and reading a children's devotional type book. The one we're working through right now is called Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends by Sarah, Stephen and Grace Mally. It's been a really good resource in teaching my children to treat each other with respect and love. We definitely have a lot of interruptions, whether it's from the dog licking someone's feet or someone thinks of something out of the blue and starts talking about it or someone gets in someone else's chair. Today the dog has been good but we've had two interruptions for "bathroom problems". I won't elaborate :). One cool thing is that while the other two were in the bathroom, I got into a conversation with my middle child about why Jesus died on the cross. It's all about the journey, right? Right now my kindergartner has done some handwriting work and my oldest is working through a test prep book in preparation for the Iowa standardized test he'll be taking on May 8th and 10th. Georgia requires homeschoolers to test starting in 3rd grade. Well, I have to go now. I need to go read with my middle child. He's working through Phonics Pathways and the Bob Books. I'll post some more before lunchtime.

1:59pm~ Well, so much for the best laid plans. I should expect that by now but somehow I feel as if things should be more ordered and predictable. I hope this happens with those of you with a lot more children than me. Anyway, what has happened since around 10am? I read some with my middle child, the kindergartner. He's almost done the second box of Bob Books. He's definitely not progressing as fast as my oldest but that's OK. With my oldest I found I could skip pages in Phonics Pathways if it seemed there was too much repetition, but with C we're reading every single word. We've started doing our reading time on the sofa and without fail the dog comes up and wants to play so we have those distractions. After that I let the two youngest watch some TV while I go work with my oldest on his test prep and start working on math. What's my youngest been doing all this time you ask? She is very good at occupying herself (books, coloring, play-do, etc.) and I haven't done much structured work with her yet. She learns a lot by just listening to her older brothers and I'm confident she'll be ready for Phonics Pathways next year. The one thing I struggle with her about is the amount of TV she likes to watch. She asks about it a lot and I say no a lot. I guess it's genetic. I grew up watching a lot of TV too. At least I've trained them to ask and not just turn it on. So by now it's 11:30 and the two young ones have finished their TV show and gone up to their rooms to play quietly. I keep working with my oldest on his math (we just switched to Saxon from Singapore) but I get interrupted by the phone. My brother-in-law calls to inform us of yet another unforeseen conflict with our joint trip to Disney next month. It's really not his fault but it's putting extra stress on my husband who's worked really hard to put this whole thing together. So after talking to both of them I help my son cut out some fake money for a math activity and then I realize it's noon and we should stop. I'm frustrated that a lot of times we don't get done a whole lesson either because of poor planning on my part or "real life" interruptions, but I keep telling myself that they are progressing just fine. Next it's on to lunch and reading aloud. I try to eat something as I'm preparing the kids' lunch so I can read aloud to them while they eat. We're almost done Anne of Green Gables. Yes, my oldest really likes it and wants me to read the next book! Today was sad because we read the chapter where Matthew dies. Boo hoo! We loved him. This is my favorite part of the day even though I wouldn't call myself a drama queen. I just love to do the different voices and read really well written books to my children. I wasn't at my best today with a stuffy nose and all, but we got through two chapters. One to go. After cleaning up the kitchen and having some leftover birthday cake (my birthday was last Thursday), we embark on coloring some eggs. My mom had very graciously remembered to buy some extra the other day and even hardboiled them for me! Thank you Mom!!! We just finished and now the kids are upstairs playing a computer game.

Well, that's all for now. I have to make some phone calls and prepare for the Easter production tonight. We also have to leave early for our haircuts at 3:30pm. It doesn't seem like we did much "school" but there was much learning going on even in the inbetween times. I'm looking forward to reading about everybody's day!

Blessings!