I am participating in Homeschool Day in the Life at Simple Homeschool, with my 4 month old, 4-, 6- {almost 7}, and 8-year old.
There really is no “typical” day in our house, as our routine varies from day to day. I chose to highlight Thursday, as it is one of our more normal mornings, but this particular day was anything but normal! And as you can see, I’m quite detailed; it is both a blessing and a curse. Some might say it is also one of my more annoying qualities!
12:45 am My day begins. Cam is awake. He’s already eaten once since he went to sleep at 10. Oy.
2:19 am I realize that I fell asleep nursing. The good – I slept. The bad – I slept propped up. Ugh.
2:30 am Cam realizes that he’s laying down and protests.
2:41 am He’s asleep again.
2:46 am He’s up again. I ask him, as we settle in to nurse, why he won’t sleep in his bed. He smiles at me.
3 am Cam is in bed again. Abby Grace (8) gets in bed with us.
4 am Cam is up again. Shane feels sorry for me and takes Cam into the living room so I can rest. Meleah (4) gets in bed next to me.
7:30 am Shane wakes me up to feed Cam and so he can get ready for work. I change Cam, and then we settle into the rocking chair to nurse. I work on a post that was supposed to be ready last night. Shane informs me we may be out of coffee. He comes back in to tell me he found some. Thank goodness, because my subscribe-and save order won’t be here until Saturday.
8:30 am Shane has been gone for awhile, but made the girls breakfast before he left. {Hallelujah!} I’ve rinsed a few diapers, asked the girls to get dressed, and sat down to nurse again. Cam didn’t get enough to eat at 7:30, I guess.
8:54 am Cam isn’t happy. I sit him up in my lap to rock. He dozes off. Gosh I want to cuddle with the sweet little thing, but I need to start school with the girls. I rock him a little longer because I know this season won’t last forever.
9:08 am I get up to make a second cup of coffee because, well, I love coffee. Ask the girls to join me in the office/school room and work on their journals. As the Keurig brews my coffee, I tie myself up in the Moby and place Cam inside. He went from drowsy to wide awake in a matter of seconds. He doesn’t like to miss anything.
9:22 am We “officially” begin school. Most days, school begins between 9 and 9:15, so we are a little behind. We don’t have a set schedule, but I like to begin before 9:30 so that we can be completely finished by the time Shane comes home for lunch. We start on copy work, which is a favorite with the girls. We are following the one-room schoolhouse model, so we have lots of together time.
After copy work, the girls work on math. I make sure Abby Grace understands her math and leave her to it. Meleah works on math puzzles on her blanket in the floor while I work with Reese. On this particular day, Reese has a short test. She balks (as she always does!) when I tell her I will make sure she understands the directions, but that is the only help I will give her. I don’t even call it a “test,” but she immediately gets upset about not “getting any help.” After a little chat about learning to do things on our own and reminding her that she truly does know how to do everything on the test, she calms down enough to actually look at the paper in front of her. Then she smiles and flies through the test. She makes one error, and I return the paper to her to correct it for half credit.
10:55 am Abby Grace has finished her reading without my asking and is playing math games on the iPad with Meleah. Reese and I move onto her reading lesson. Reese is doing a fantastic job reading, and I am very impressed. Cam is hanging out in his Nap Nanny, which is used only as a seat since he has outgrown it for sleeping (also, it has been recalled, but we stopped using it for sleeping anyway, as he is trying to sit up and roll over). The doorbell rings and we go say hi to our mailman. He is delivering our new camcorder and the girls thank him and give him a hug for buying it for us. He is delighted to receive credit for everything he brings us.
11:11 am We move on to Language. I change Cam and then we review our Classical Conversations for the week while Cam nurses. I test Abby Grace on Memory Masters; she is doing SO well! We discuss presentations for CC; Reese is showing off her bow and arrows, and Abby Grace is talking about Jesus’ birth.
12:15 pm Shane comes home for lunch, and this is where our day goes from normal to insanely chaotic. We recently {read: last night} came across furniture that is new-to-us and it needed to be moved to our home ASAP. So we packed up the kiddos, quickly borrowed my mother’s truck, and moved the furniture into our garage. We are so blessed to live in the same town as both of our parents, and that we are able to borrow things at a moment’s notice.
2 pm It’s fifteen minutes until piano, Cam is napping in the car seat, so we wash our filthy car to kill some time.
2:15 pm I drop Reese and Abby Grace off at their piano teacher’s home and then head home with Meleah and Cam. Cam nurses while Meleah plays. Shane picks the girls up from piano so I don’t have to get the littles back out.
3:45 pm My mother-in-law picks up the girls to take them to art class. The art class is only once a week for four weeks, but it makes for a super-busy evening. Cam and I stay home while Shane goes to a basketball game. I start a load of laundry and pull the dirty diapers into the laundry room to await their turn to be washed.
4:15 pm Cam nurses while I try to type one-handed. I’m getting pretty good at typing that way!
4:40 pm Cam is sleepy so we cuddle and he nurses to sleep. I need to work on folding the growing pile of laundry sitting on our couch, but it will have to wait; my sweet boy needs to snuggle. I work on blog stuff for tomorrow while Cam snoozes away in my lap.
7 pm Cam wakes up about the time I finish up my work. He nurses and I catch up on Bones on Hulu.
7:30 pm The girls arrive home. I put them in the bath.
8:10 pm Shane comes home, we say prayers, and put the girls in bed. I am about to head to the bath myself, but I want to wrap up my work first. I discover that my beloved Macbook will not turn on {it was just on, y’all; I am baffled}. I may or may not have had a major panic attack and cried. Shane starts Googling to see if he can figure out why it won’t turn on.
9 pm I give up on my Mac and leave my husband sitting in front of my dead computer still Googling. I go to bed with Cam and a headache, hoping it’s only the cable or the battery and not some freak thing where it never works again. {I met with an Apple Genius Friday night, and thankfully, it just needed to be rebooted. Whew.}
Somewhere around 10 pm, Cam nods off and I place him in his crib that sits next to our bed. He really doesn’t like the crib, but right now it’s our only option because sleeping in my bed does not work.
And that was the end of a very busy day!
Also sharing at Kelly’s Korner.
Sharnee Torrents says
hello dear Amy! oh how i know what you’re going through lovely lady!!! right now i’m typing with one hand (so plse excuse the slight mistakes &lack of capitals!!) i too have a 4 month old Sapphire! when was Cam born?? my little girl 11.10.12
i have to say that by the grace of God i do get a little more sleep though broken into smaller snippets. My bubs feeds at 6.30pm then 10ish, 2ish and then anytime from 5.30am!
I hope and pray that the days get easier and that you get enough sleep to get you through each moment that our precious treasures bring! It’s certainly a roller coaster at times hey,the cloudy, grey lows (not much sleep, crying alot, older children arguing…) but the thrills of the highs (their amazing little smiles, giggles, chatters and seeing your older ones run up and tell you that they’ve just built a helicopter pad with lego or drawn their first person!!) What JOY 🙂
Thanks for sharing with us!!
Smiles Sharnee 🙂