Thursday, September 30, 2010

A Day in the Life

I often hear remarks from people about how well I manage my kids and how organized and put-together I seem. One friend of mine actually said to me, "I wish I could come to your house and just watch you all day, then I'd know what to do." So I figured, why not? I'll post about a normal day in my house and set everybody straight. Of course, I picked today, which turned out to be very, er, interesting.

See, I may have fooled most of you, but you'll soon see what REAL life is like for my family. In fact, once I got to the end of this day I reconsidered writing about it, but then I realized that would be cheating. So here goes; a day in the life of one family of 7...

6:00 am   My alarm goes off. In the kitchen. I use my phone as my alarm and I'd forgotten to bring it into the room with me last night. So I go sprinting through the house hoping it hasn't woken the kids. (Woken? Waken? Uh... Gee I'm glad I'm teaching my kids grammar.) Since the baby was up a lot in the night, I crawl back into bed for five more minutes...

6:30 am   Baby wakes up. Bring him in bed with me for five more minutes...

??? am    Kids start piling into the room. Alese gives me her usual morning greeting: "Can we eat?" Everybody snuggles and giggles for a little bit and then I reach for my phone and realize it's... 7:57!!!!

8:00 am   Rush around getting kids dressed and cereal on the table. Decide matching clothes are optional. Decide I can shower tomorrow. Decide to get a real bedside clock.

8:30 am  Realize that today we have 2 soccer practices and the first meeting of the small group we were coerced into volunteered to host. Use every ounce of pre-coffee brainpower I possess to try to figure out how we're going to manage that. Give up and go looking for coffee.

8:45 am   The Borrowed Children arrive. House dissolves into chaos and children are ordered OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!!

8:50 am   Coffee in hand, I check email and find out I can buy $25 restaurant gift cards for $1! Thank you Crowd Savings! Jump on that deal.

9:00 am   Still waiting for the page to load. Remember I forgot to call Amazing Computer Fixing Guy, again.

9:15 am   Give up waiting for page to load. Start school with memory work and Bible reading. Carefully edit the story of Jacob, in which he tells his father in law to "give me my wife so I can sleep with her." Thank you, NLT.

9:45 am   It's time for science. Baby is crying. 1 year old is crying. 8 year old girl doesn't want me to stop reading aloud. 5 year old girls want to keep coloring. Boys are using markers as machine guns. Mommy is out of coffee.

10:00 am   Manage to get everybody calmed down and start science. I don't notice 1 year old absent from the kitchen until he comes back in with something brown and wet all over his hands. "Honey, what's on your hands? Is that... POOP?! HOW DID YOU GET POOP ON YOUR HAND?!" Turns out SOMEONE didn't flush and 1 year old went all tide pool on me. Have not used so much sanitizing hand soap in many months. Give the children a lecture on the sanitary neccessity of flushing the toilet.

*Interesting side note. We all know, of course, who didn't flush. My mysterious sixth child, NotMe. NotMe is a sly and silent child who wanders the house making messes, leaving lights on and eating the last of the Golden Grahams. I have yet to catch NotMe, and it's a good thing for him because boy does he have some whippin's coming.

10:30 am   Science is done. Send all kids to play while I clean up. Spill oil and water from the science experiment all over the floor. Baby starts crying. One of the girls notifies me that the 1 year old has written all over the walls with pencil. Ask very calmly how on earth the baby got a pencil. This is a silly question, for of course no one knows.  Begin scouring walls with Magic Eraser.

10:40 am    Math with 8 year old. While nursing the baby. Math with 6 year old. End early to get lunch for 1 year old who is having a complete meltdown due to and empty stomach. After all, he hasn't put food in his mouth for at least 30 minutes.

11:00 am   Realize I forgot to pack lunches and violate the Homeschool Mother's Creed by heating up frozen chicken nuggets for lunch. Sorry, no organic peanut butter on homemade bread today, kids. Want some American cheese slices with that?

12:00 pm   Put 1 year old in bed and tell kids it's time for silent reading. After a few minutes remind kids that it's called SILENT reading. After ten minutes find myself yelling BOOKS! READING! FOCUS, PEOPLE!

12:10 pm   Give up on silent reading. Find out 8 year old doesn't have soccer practice and 5 year old doesn't want to go. Huzzah! Impossible evening schedule problem solved.

12:15 pm   Math, reading, spelling, handwriting, grammar. All rather uneventful. Huzzah!

1:30 pm   Latin. "What's Latin for 'I sail?'," says I  "Pico?" asks my son.  "No," answers his sister, "That's salsa." "Oh," he replies, "Can we have some chips?" Focus, people.

1:45 pm  The girls want to make a craft. They disappear into the kitchen. The boys and I try to do origami. Their commentary on my paper folding swings wildly from "You did it! This is SO easy!" to "It's SO hard! That looks like a turkey on crack!" Oh, wait, that was me.

2:00 pm   The Borrowed Children are picked up. Spend 5 minutes looking for matching shoes before realizing the Boy wore non-matching shoes today. 1 year old wakes up covered in snot. 8 year old girl goes all Rachel Ray and makes egg burritos for after school snack.

2:30 pm   Begin cleaning house for company. Realize the house could be more nicely decorated and decide to hang up all the pictures that have been in the closet for a year. Realize there aren't any framed pictures of the two little boys in the house. Decide to order some from Walgreens, pick them up, frame them and hang them all on the wall in a lovely display. What, you don't start minor redecorating projects 3 hours before company shows up? Amateurs.

3:30 pm  Photos selected and ordered, frames hung, baby fed, near catastrophe involving 6 year old boy and hammer averted. Commence cleaning.

My new wall display.

4:46 pm  Gently remind children that scooters are not for riding in the house. I don't care how cool the thump-thump-thump on the tile is.

5:30 pm   House is clean (mostly). Homemade french fries courtesy of 8 year old girl in oven. (I'm beginning to think she's the one who actually runs the house...) Homemade hamburger buns ready. Homemade hamburgers ready. Brownies ready to go in oven. Sodas cold. Newly printed pictures on their way home with the Amazing Husband.

6:00 pm   Begin final food prep. Give 1 year old boy (who is almost dying of hunger again) a hot dog.

6:15 pm   Have Amazing Husband start burgers on the grill.

6:30 pm   Realize nobody's coming. Get angry. Get sad. Get grumpy. Realize blood sugar is low. Eat hamburger.

7:00 pm  Mmmm. Unbelievably yummy hamburger and fries consumed. Remember that life is good and smile on children.

7:30 pm  Bathe 1 year old and 5 year old. Try to ignore the blare of Mario Brothers, the cartoon.

8:00 pm   Kids eat brownies and go to bed. Amazing Husband watches football. I shower, then clean the kitchen.

9:00 pm   Write blog post. Realize I'm very sleepy. And that I haven't set an appointment for our portraits tomorrow. And that I never called Amazing Computer Fixing Guy. And that my chance at $25 restaurant gift certificates for $1 is gone forever. Or until they run the special again.

Time for bed. Maybe I'll watch Iron Man 2 with the Amazing Husband.

And there you have it. One very messy, slightly insane and generally chaotic day in our life. So next time you see us all dolled up at church just remember, before we left the house, somebody probably had poop on their hands.

2 comments:

  1. Wow you are amazing. Just reading that made me tired. The pictures look great. And you can always call in the morning to make appointments. It shouldnt be super busy yet. Christmas business starts in like 2 weeks. Also I miss you guys :)

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  2. Thanks for the honesty! Makes all of us stay at home mom's take a deep breath and realize we are not the only ones! Hysterical!

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