A Week in the Life

Remember in elementary school when the days would absolutely d-r-a-g? When Christmas and summer break took an eternity to arrive? When lazy Saturdays were actually lazy?

Life isn't like that anymore, is it?!

I guess I need to be satisfied with some quick highlights here and there on my blog...it's better than nothing, and I'll be grateful later on when I do the 2014 digital scrapbook that I took the time to do at least this much. My last post was a "day in the life" episode; this will be a collection of musings about each day of the week.

A TYPICAL WEEK FOR US IN THIS CURRENT SEASON OF LIFE...

Monday
The first day of the week is usually a good school day for us. We rarely ever leave the house on a Monday. These days are similar to the "Day in the Life" post--school and household activities keep us busy all day. I usually bake bread on Mondays as well, a double batch so we can have sandwiches for Tuesday Park Days and a quick lunch 1-2 other days of the week as well. Monday evenings I have to take time to write out homeschool assignments for the kids to take to their classroom during my PWOC time (more on that in Tuesday's paragraph). The kids get the appropriate worksheets and put in their folders, and we put all the items in the school bag (a great canvas Sonlight bag), since the older 3 kids share books for reading. Recently Tobin joined Boy Scouts, so either Ted or I make the trip with him to Support Site for the meeting. We have yet to get in our groove with this--we may be able to carpool a bit with another family nearby, but they are moving this spring. Once a month we will piggyback our chiropractor appointment with this trip...it's almost like a date night!

Tuesday
We get up and moving early on Tuesdays, leaving the house by 8:15 at the latest. We drive to Support Site for my ladies' Bible study (through PWOC, Protestant Women of the Chapel). Once we arrive, the older kids have duties: Charis takes Zaden to his classroom, Tobin drops off library books and takes Lucan to his classroom, Arden carries the school bag, and Kenna helps me with any random things I need help carrying. (Most of it fits in Seanin's stroller basket.) Once the kids are signed into class, I head to fellowship hall to enjoy breakfast (classes take turns bringing meals) and fellowship. We have a time of corporate worship, announcements, and often a testimony or devotional time, plus creative prayer activities. Then we break into our different classes. There are 6 classes offered this semester. I'm teaching a wonderful group of ladies, my second time going through The Hole in Our Gospel with a class. We wrap up by 11:30 so we can go pick up our kiddos from the amazing child care workers.

If weather is good, we have lunch at the park with other homeschool families--Tuesdays from 12:30-2:30 is Park Day. I dash over to pick up our raw milk, meat, and veggies--and now fresh eggs!!--from a co-op group that has been going on for a number of months now. We love it! Such a blessing. I pack the cooler and then enjoy hanging out at the park with other moms. We purposely cram school into the other days of the week so we can have this luxury. The kids adore spending time with their friends, and I need the mommy time! Tobin usually poops out on the crowd and goes to the Suburban to hide with his new stash of library books. For as talkative a guy as he is, he still really needs his alone time, and he loves the fact that he can go to the library during PWOC time to get new books. He has built quite a rapport with the Italian who works there as a librarian!

I try to get us home in time for Zaden to still get a nap. Usually he and Seanin are MORE than ready to sleep by this time. The kids help me unload the truck and clean up the breakfast mess that we left from our whirlwind departure in the morning, and then the kids scatter to do their own thing. (Today, with the amazingly beautiful weather we had, most of them ended up back outside playing on the trampoline.) Depending on my energy level, I work on dinner prep, catch up on messages, or sometimes just collapse in a heap for a short nap or rest time!

Tuesday evenings are baths for little ones, so Ted takes care of that duty while I help Charis with kitchen clean-up. Tuesdays are also sweeping nights...also Charis's duty...so if I'm not too fried I do help her out with her chores. But just as often she does all the dishes and sweeping on her own, especially if I have to nurse Seanin! I'm so thankful for her help! The boys shower and are supposed to clean the main floor with some help from Kenna. Tuesday evenings are also read-aloud nights (on non-Olympic nights, lol).

Wednesday
During the day, Wednesdays are pretty much like Mondays and Thursdays--school activities and regular household stuff. I try to get at least one big load of laundry done on Wednesdays. Evening is when things get different for us. Ted comes and goes very quickly, taking Charis and Kenna with him after he changes out of his uniform following work. They pick up Emily, a teen friend who lives close by, and drive to Support Site. Charis and Emily attend Club Beyond, the military youth group program led by a wonderful, godly man, Arturo, along with amazing volunteers. The teens get dinner (usually pizza) and have a lesson and small group time. Ted and Kenna hang out until 7:00, when Kenna joins the older girls and attends a worship dance team rehearsal. Ted then goes to the chapel to meet with the praise and worship team to prepare songs for the Sunday service. His involvement with the band has been such a blessing.

Meanwhile, at home, Tobin and Arden help me clean up, motivated by the opportunity to have some Wii or computer game time after Lucan and Zaden are in bed. Once all the little boys are taken care of, I let the older boys turn their brains to mush while I have some "veg" time, too--reading or browsing online or whatever until Ted and the girls return home. Some or all of them are usually hungry, so we feed them leftovers and hear about their evening before we all crash.

Thursday
This is usually a day much like Monday. However, starting in March, we are going to add an afternoon activity: a drama class! My plan is to take the older kids to the class at my friend Becki's house (she's the one teaching the class) and then go next door to our Italian friends' home to work with Salvatore and possibly his younger cousin on their English. Salvatore hasn't been able to come to our house for English practice the way he did last year since his mother is expecting twins in the next month or so! And so since our kids will be out his way, I figure I can just hang out and enjoy visiting Emilia and help her son and nephew with their English. Salvatore's grandmother Stella has been so gracious to help us with our housecleaning in exchange for English lessons, so I am happy that we can start the lessons up again soon! Thursday evenings are a welcome quiet night with the whole family at home. Bath night again for the little ones and time to read out loud together.

Friday
We squeeze in a bit of school Friday mornings, and then at 10:30 Mimmo, our Italian music teacher, arrives to give Tobin, Arden, and Charis piano lessons and violin lessons to Charis as well. We are currently borrowing one of his keyboards, since our electronic piano has apparently died. Sigh. We really do need to investigate our options and just get a new one, but that has been on the back burner for awhile. Anyway, lessons go until 12:30 or a bit later. I try to keep the little ones out from under foot. This usually involves all of us going to the 3rd floor so they can play while I do laundry. Fun, fun! Ironically, even though the play room is on that floor, Zaden doesn't want to be there unless I am! So doing laundry seems like a great way to keep him playing up there...except more often than not I get stuck up there sorting and spraying and he decides he really wants to be DOWNstairs...so then I dash downstairs to extricate him from Mimmo's leg/keyboard/whatever. So at that point it's all of a sudden BAKING TIME! And then EVERYONE wants to be in the kitchen with Mom! Oh, yay!

So we make banana bread. Or cookies. Or hot dogs or quesadillas or sandwiches. ANYTHING. Anything that involves standing on a chair and making a mess getting to taste food pre-lunch. And I feed the younger ones, too, so that their lunch is done by the time lessons are over and the older ones (who are of course STARVING by this point). We try to finish most of our schoolwork before this point, but there usually is something to finish up. Still, Friday afternoons are pretty low-key, which is nice.

Friday evenings are homemade pizza and movie nights. Twice a month I attend the Mission of Light outreach, a local ministry dedicated to helping spread Jesus's love to the women who are trafficked in the Naples area. (I really, REALLY need to blog about this, don't I?! OK. I will, I promise!) At this time the teams go out from 4-6pm, so I'm still able to come home and enjoy some movie time with the kiddos. And our current "movie" choices are actually the week's new episodes of Duck Dynasty and Mythbusters! By the time we finish watching those, we are DONE. I'm sure the kids could stay up later, but Ted and I are too fried. Daily wake times of 5:00 or 5:30am will do that to a couple of bodies, especially if those people are parents!!

Saturday
Whew. There just is not really a typical Saturday around here! Saturdays often involve laundry catch-up and deep cleaning. Trips to the local market for produce and our favorite Italian food products. Birthday parties or friend events for kids. Naps. Day trips to see something in the area. We do try to get to bed at a reasonable time so we can get up and make it to church early!

Sunday
We used to always make pancakes on Sunday mornings, but since we have to leave the house around 8:15ish, and since we have way more bodies to get ready to leave the house than we've ever had before, we don't do this anymore! Sometimes we do pancakes on Saturdays, and sometimes for dinner on Sunday evenings! But Sunday breakfasts vary nowadays, and we tag team to make sure we've got everyone loaded up at a reasonable time. Ted has to arrive early to set up with the praise team. I usually begin the service in the cry room nursing Seanin and then make my way to "our" pew before the end of the singing.

Church ends at 10:30. Because Ted and the kids do AWANA in the afternoons, we have chosen not to be involved in Sunday school at this time, leaving us more time to go home after a time of visiting (and usually a dash into the commissary--we may try to avoid it, but with a 34-mile round-trip, you do what you have to). We have lunch together and try to hear from everyone what he/she learned at church or in class, and then it's nap time for me, Seanin, and Zaden. Ted and the older 5 kids do AWANA and I enjoy an afternoon of peace and quiet!

Sometimes we also watch the live video feed of the service from Canyon Ridge Christian Church, our church in Las Vegas, which begins at 6pm our time. But not always--it depends on the rest of our day.

And then we're ready to start all over again on Monday!

Mon-daze

I began this week by allowing myself to "sleep in," i.e. not wake up to an alarm clock.  I woke at 6:15, late enough to make me feel I had gotten a little extra rest (despite waking every 2-3 hours to go potty or shift positions), yet late enough that I felt I had squelched most of my early-morning productivity.  The lack of a structured schedule this summer has really taken a toll...as much as I tried to have us follow a basic daily schedule, remaining flexible for our varied activities, about the only thing we've really stuck to is our Bible Bee work.  And even that has not been as in-depth as it could (should?) be.

As late as I finished my quiet time, everyone else but Lucan was still asleep--we were all up pretty late last night, as the kids and I hung out at the N's house (just around the corner) for the kids to play while I visited with Eilene a bit.  I decided that I didn't want to skip my exercise time, so I gave Lucan his milk and a banana and plunked him in the stroller.  We set off for a nice long walk, and it was good to move again.  I've been a bit slack the last couple of weeks and had only walked maybe a couple of mornings instead of my almost-daily routine.

Everyone was still asleep when Lucan and I returned.  Kenna and Mom woke and joined us before too much longer, and I finally dragged the older kids out of bed at 10 a.m.  (We MUST get to bed earlier tonight!  This schedule will NOT do at all when we begin our school year!)

After a late breakfast, Charis, Kenna, and I headed out for a few errands.  We went to Walgreens to take advantage of some back-to-school specials--our church is doing a community outreach, trying to put together 700 backpacks for needy kids, and next Sunday is the last day for collecting items.  I had just a few things I wanted to get...I must say, homeschooling actually means our school shopping is drastically reduced!  I did stock up on more dry erase markers and mechanical pencils, plus a 3-subject spiral notebook for each of the older 3 kids, which will be a bit of a change from their loose leaf notebooks we've used the last few years.  We'll see how we like this approach.

Anyway, we headed to Charis's orthodontist appointment, and then to the library.  Then I treated the girls to lunch at McDonald's (shhh!  Don't tell the boys!), and then home again for some rest time and Bible Bee work.  I managed to sort through some piles of baby boy clothes that I've been given (or in some cases, have been returned--we gave Lucan's clothes to a boy from church, whose mom is passing them back to us now!).  It looks like our new baby will have PLENTY to wear...if we can get him through the first few weeks with the very few newborn size clothes we have!  Guess it depends on how tiny or big he is whenever he makes his appearance!  I'm not one for purchasing newborn clothes anyway...they outgrow them so fast...but I do like to have a couple of things they can appear in public in right away!  At least it's summer, and we don't have to worry much about layering!

So, one more thing checked off the to-do list.  I'm actually starting to feel mentally prepared for having a baby in the house again!  I've been physically ready for weeks, LOL.  I'm getting SO uncomfortable, and sleeping is almost as much of a chore as being awake these days.  I wake up feeling achy or in pain--I've had nighttime contractions and/or shooting pains in my lower abdomen pretty much every night, multiple times a night, and it's far from restful.  I can't lie on my right side very long before I get stabbing pains in one particular spot, but if I only sleep on my left side, I wake with a stiff neck and a sore shoulder.  I know, I know, it's all worth it, right?!  But it definitely makes for a loooooong last month of pregnancy.  I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow, though, so hopefully the end is in sight!

It's FRIDAY!

It's Friday! Ted's off work for a 4-day weekend, and we're preparing for the first field trip of the school year. It's a "Wade in the Water" class at Wegerzyn Gardens. The older kids have play dates scheduled with friends for the afternoon, so it should be fairly quiet around here. Ted plans to take Kenna with him when he runs some errands during Lucan's nap time, so I'll have a chance to think about our menu and grocery shopping list--hopefully the last time I will do this before our big Williamsburg/D.C. trip!

The last three days we practiced our daily schedule, minus some key school activities, LOL. But the transitions seemed to go well, and that was mostly what I was wondering about, particularly the time Kenna would be spending with her older sibs. I'm hopeful that we have a workable routine, but we'll see how things go when we have a full day's worth of school to do! This week we just eased back into math (although there was nothing "easy" about that first day--oh, my, I really should have kept on the kids all summer!) and read the one read-aloud book from our Sonlight Core 2 that we missed last year. It was well worth reading! (The Apprentice, for those familiar with the core.) Charis wrote on her blog about the Bible Bee experience during her language arts time, while Tobin sneaked in some workbook time on his new Sonlight language arts books. (I've finally stopped worrying about keeping to the Instructor's Guide schedule! If Tobin wants to work ahead in phonics and vocabulary, why should I stop him?!) Arden spent time reading on his own, and all the kids did really well with their one-on-one time with Kenna. Hooray!

The other schoolish activity that kept the kids busy was Tobin's "Dig a Glow Dinosaur" project. We had bought the kit for him a couple of years ago for his birthday, but we never seemed to have an opportunity to get it out and do it. It's a very messy project--a block of plaster with dinosaur "bones" hidden inside. There are tools to chip away and brush off the plaster, mimicking archaeology, and then you assemble the skeleton and voila! You have a glow-in-the-dark artifact, LOL. The deck is covered with red plaster, and my kitchen floor has been too, though we've mopped a couple of times since! But it has kept all 5 kids intrigued; Tobin has generously allowed his siblings to bang away and excavate bones along with him. (The fact that the project wasn't finished in 20 minutes probably has something to do with him "letting" the kids "help!")

The Sonlight books have at least been separated into piles: Science, history, Bible, electives, and Charis's new readers, which is a VERY large pile! I've teased her that it looks like she gets to read the best books! The rest of the family may steal her readers and read them together, LOL! We will definitely read Meet Thomas Jefferson before our trip, since our first stop is Monticello!

The plan is for me to assemble the IG notebooks and start our regular school schedule next week. We may very well take two weeks to cover one scheduled week, but we'll see how things go. The kids are beyond excited to begin the next core! Tobin came home the other day, puzzled because he had told his (public school) friend that he loved school, and Daniel had basically told him he was weird, because no one else he knew even liked school! That made me feel extra joyful. :-)

Time to go pack lunches so we can enjoy a picnic after our field trip...that is, if it doesn't start raining!

ETA: I should probably mention--though most of our blog readers probably know this from Facebook--that Charis did not make it to Nationals for the Bible Bee. But she did rank #144 out of 912 primary contestants! (Only the top 100 can go to Nationals.) Hopefully this will be encouraging and motivating for her in future years!

Systems and Schedules

After taking so much time off in December, I was greatly anticipating the return to a regular schedule. Life just goes so much more smoothly around here when things are predictable. Breakfast whenever you want it and lounging around in pajamas all day sounds nice, but the bickering and short tempers that seem prevalent on schedule-less days outweigh whatever sense of relaxation there may be. (And let's face it--relaxation may happen for the kids when we don't have school, but not for Mom!)

I knew we'd need to tweak some things with our schedule, particularly when it came to chores. Now that we're getting close to finishing our second school week in 2010, I think I can safely say that we're doing fairly well. The house is staying cleaner than usual, and we're actually caught up with school work despite having January 4 off as a family day and January 8 off as a snow day. We've also had play dates and run errands, and my sanity has remained intact, so that tells me we're definitely on the right track, LOL.

Today I'll just write about our new approach to chores. This is something I was praying about for a long time, knowing that we needed to get the kids more involved with household tasks. Chore charts were just not working for us. We might stay up with them the first couple of days of the week, but inevitably life would put us behind. Then there was the matter of inspection--if that didn't happen, then there was no accountability. And what about training the kids to do harder jobs and to do a BETTER job? That needed to be taken into account also.

So here's our new system--for now. I'm sure it will change, but I'm pleased with it so far. I have an index card file box with two main categories: Weekly Service Opportunities and Extra Service Opportunities.

Weekly Service Opportunities are tasks that I want done every week. Thinking in terms of 3 kids working each day, I grouped like tasks in sets of three. Ideally, of course, 3 kids will do 3 tasks every day, Monday through Friday. When the chore is finished AND inspected, the card goes to the back of the stack. If we have a crazy day and don't have time for chores, no big deal. We pick up where we left off. (However, I always have the option of moving the cards around and placing ones at the front of the stack that I want to be sure we get done!) Here are the tasks I've set up for this section:

* Deep cleaning bathrooms
1. Kids' bathroom
2. Guest bathroom
3. Basement bathroom

* Vacuuming
1. Vacuum library and entryway
2. Vacuum dining room
3. Vacuum family room

* Vacuuming
1. Vacuum boys' room
2. Vacuum girls' room
3. Vacuum Lucan's room

* Vacuuming (see a trend here?!)
1. Vacuum stairs from 2nd floor to main floor
2. Vacuum stairs from main floor to basement
3. Vacuum or sweep tile in kitchen and eating area

* Quick clean bathrooms (same 3 as deep cleaning)

In addition to the Weekly Service Opportunities, the kids have Extra Service Opportunities. These are additional tasks that I'd like them to do weekly or bi-weekly, but ones that won't cause my stress level to rise if we don't get to them.

There are two ways these will get done:

1. Kids are driving me crazy and need to be gainfully employed. They will be sent to the chore box and may choose any one of the first 3 cards.

2. Kids want to earn extra tickets and choose any of the first 3 cards. Once the task is complete and inspected, they earn however many tickets are indicated on the card.

I guess this leads to our ticket system! I'll have to post that another day...

Getting Back on Track

I've known for awhile that I needed to majorly tweak our daily schedule. The one that had been posted on our refrigerator was put together at a time when Kenna was nursing 4-5 times a day and napping about 3 times a day, so obviously it's been obsolete for awhile!

Last week I made it a priority to evaluate our activities and put some structure to them. I've long known that in our household, anyway, unstructured "free time" leads to mass chaos, major sibling squabbles, and a frazzled and frustrated mom. I prayed a lot about how to handle the afternoons, which is where things have ALWAYS broken down. The kids were whining to watch various PBS programs, and I had no rhyme or reason for letting them or not letting them, other than I would feel guilty if it seemed they had been having too much "screen time." Computer time was another issue--it used to be in the mornings, taking me away from school instruction when someone strayed into another web site and couldn't figure out how to get back to the game at hand. (There were also issues with Tobin finding new web sites that I hadn't had a chance to approve!)

So. Last Wednesday I had a working schedule together, and we've been practicing it for a week and a half trial run. It's even color-coded; thanks, Sarah, for that idea! (I just need to get a new color cartridge so the colors are the right ones!!) So far things seem to be falling into place beautifully! I'm sure this will last a short time, as Kenna is bound to realize that things are going smoothly and decide to change her routine. For now, however, I am grateful for the sanity this is providing.

Kids want computer time? Check the schedule--you get it two days a week, with each child getting their turn during one particular time slot.

Kids asking to watch a PBS program? Check the schedule--you get Super Why 2 days a week, CyberChase 2 days a week, and Word Girl on Fridays.

Mom wants to meet a friend at the park or run some errands? I have two blocks of time during which we can do such things--and we aren't "giving up" anything terribly important.

Chores will be done after breakfast, right before school...as soon as I put together our chore chart! (Actually, "family service" chart. Helping each other should NOT be a chore!) This is one of the few things left that I need to work on.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. It really helps me to stay on task, as I tend to stray to the computer if the kids seem to be playing nicely together. Inevitably it ends up that I get wrapped up with what I'm doing and all of a sudden kids are yelling, crying, getting hurt, and I'm yelling back because they're irritating me and DARN IT, WHY CAN'T I SEEM TO HAVE ANY TIME TO DO WHAT I WANT OR NEED TO DO?!?!

Now, if I can stick to the schedule, I have blocked times to do office work, and the kids are gainfully occupied--AWAY from each other!

As you may have noticed, however (or maybe not), this does leave me much less time for blogging! I've barely been able to skim my friends' blogs, let alone write about all the fascinating things going on in our lives. Hopefully I'll get better at spending my office time so that I've got our home accounts, my business activities, and "fun" computer time balanced.