Sometimes people wonder what I do all day. This is something I often wondered about when I only had one little baby and was considering homeschooling. So I thought it might be helpful for somebody out there to read about what our typical day looks like.
Provisos:
Every semester is different.
Because of the fluid nature of homeschooling and the many things that crop up with so many people under one roof, this day might occur four times in one week and then only once in the next. But it is fairly typical right now.
I will do this in installments, since the narrative is too long for one post.
Please, no one decide against homeschooling, having a large family, or getting married.
A Typical Day
6:30 a.m. Alarm goes off. Superguy wakes up Fifi.
7 a.m. After 45 minutes of nursing baby in bed, I get up with her – she’s too grunty and snorty to sleep with anymore.
Get up and bring Honeybee down. Change enormously yucky diaper and nurse her again.
Braid Fifi’s hair, make her lunch, yell at her for leaving parka at school. Kiss goodbye.
Sit down and nurse baby again, put her in car seat for morning nap.
Say morning offering.
Nuke leftover coffee and eat toast with peanut butter while reading current book.
Try to wake up children.
Get dressed and for once make bed. Feel good for a moment. Yell at children to get up.
Wash hair. Get Kewpie dressed.
Finally children are up, pour cereal and slice bananas, finish loading dishwasher. Take load of laundry down to the laundry room, fold a load, retumble damp stuff.
Noticing myself full of anxiety about the future and state of world for these children when adults, I go upstairs and pray earnestly. Feel better. Can only do so much.
9:05 a.m.
We begin homeschooling routine, starting with a morning offering before our messy family altar. Buster reads a prayer for priests, and Sweetums prays for Jesus to make our hearts like His.
Next, Buster practices the piano. Sweetums lingers over simple addition and subtraction, I give Truckster a reading lesson. Kewpie is wandering around talking.
The morning progresses, with a variety of lessons, phone calls, and requests for snacks, which I deny. Baby wakes up, requiring diaper change and nursing.
Then after reading, math, piano, and me nagging everyone to stay on track, it is almost lunch time. Buster disappears. He’s reading the Fellowship of the Ring, and steals every moment possible for it.
Kewpie follows me around, talking. Every time I go into the kitchen, she picks up the large plastic stepstool and sets it down right next to my feet, so that she can see what I am doing. This used to be charming when I had one child. Now it is maddening, since the bouncy seat for Honeybee is also in the kitchen and since when the dishwasher door is open there is exactly 3 square feet of space in which to walk. Remind myself that she is doing her job as toddler. Remember to kiss her and tell her she is a good helper. Turn on radio and ask her to go play. Sigh when she protests that she doesn’t want to go play. She is opening medicine bottles and pouring old milk from one dirty cup to another.Make lunch. Eat lunch, while listening to Buster or Sweetums read the saint for the day.
7 a.m. After 45 minutes of nursing baby in bed, I get up with her – she’s too grunty and snorty to sleep with anymore.
Get up and bring Honeybee down. Change enormously yucky diaper and nurse her again.
Braid Fifi’s hair, make her lunch, yell at her for leaving parka at school. Kiss goodbye.
Sit down and nurse baby again, put her in car seat for morning nap.
Say morning offering.
Nuke leftover coffee and eat toast with peanut butter while reading current book.
Try to wake up children.
Get dressed and for once make bed. Feel good for a moment. Yell at children to get up.
Wash hair. Get Kewpie dressed.
Finally children are up, pour cereal and slice bananas, finish loading dishwasher. Take load of laundry down to the laundry room, fold a load, retumble damp stuff.
Noticing myself full of anxiety about the future and state of world for these children when adults, I go upstairs and pray earnestly. Feel better. Can only do so much.
9:05 a.m.
We begin homeschooling routine, starting with a morning offering before our messy family altar. Buster reads a prayer for priests, and Sweetums prays for Jesus to make our hearts like His.
Next, Buster practices the piano. Sweetums lingers over simple addition and subtraction, I give Truckster a reading lesson. Kewpie is wandering around talking.
The morning progresses, with a variety of lessons, phone calls, and requests for snacks, which I deny. Baby wakes up, requiring diaper change and nursing.
Then after reading, math, piano, and me nagging everyone to stay on track, it is almost lunch time. Buster disappears. He’s reading the Fellowship of the Ring, and steals every moment possible for it.
Kewpie follows me around, talking. Every time I go into the kitchen, she picks up the large plastic stepstool and sets it down right next to my feet, so that she can see what I am doing. This used to be charming when I had one child. Now it is maddening, since the bouncy seat for Honeybee is also in the kitchen and since when the dishwasher door is open there is exactly 3 square feet of space in which to walk. Remind myself that she is doing her job as toddler. Remember to kiss her and tell her she is a good helper. Turn on radio and ask her to go play. Sigh when she protests that she doesn’t want to go play. She is opening medicine bottles and pouring old milk from one dirty cup to another.Make lunch. Eat lunch, while listening to Buster or Sweetums read the saint for the day.
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