A Day in Our Life (Take Two)

I tried to write a “day in the life” post last Monday, but it ended up being far too depressing to share.

Mondays are hard. I know that’s true for everyone, but it seems especially true in my life this year. For me, Sunday as a day of rest went out the window years ago. The slide began the moment my oldest was born, descended further when we started attending a 9 a.m. church service 45 minutes from home—and then I volunteered to teach Sunday school and then to be a leader at an AWANA Club that now meets Sunday afternoons. By the time my husband and I get the last child settled in bed around 8 p.m. on Sunday, I’m shot. I’m not saying this to create a pity party. It’s just…Sundays are hard.

And that makes Mondays hard. Dirty dishes I didn’t have the time or energy to clean on Sunday. Low energy from this introvert being subjected to constant human interaction all day Sunday. Children cranky about having to get back into the weekday routine. Mommy cranky about having to get back into the weekday routine. It’s a perfect storm of crankiness.

This morning I overslept, of course. By the time I got us all dressed and through breakfast and morning hygiene, it was 9 a.m. Somewhere I have a school schedule that says we start at 8:00. Not today.

We did our read-alouds while the children colored. Today featured Arthur S. Maxwell’s The Bible Story, Vol. 3, Life of Fred: Dogs and Way Up High in a Tall Green Tree by Valeria Petrone. That’s a time I always enjoy, but despite my devotion to read-alouds, I still don’t quite consider them “real” school. So we didn’t start “real” school till almost 10 a.m. this morning. In our house, that’s almost lunch time!

My husband texts me that he can’t find his wallet. I search the house to no avail amid a flurry of texts back and forth. Two hours later, we still haven’t found the wallet. I fell a little stressed and wonder if I should call the bank.

Despite that, I manage to knock out math with my six-year-old pretty quickly. He’s math-minded and an eager learner, so the only challenge is reigning in his focus so it stays, well, on focus. Next I start math with my oldest, who’s still working her way through her third-grade book. I give her a number pattern to complete, and she successfully identifies it as counting by eights before she hits a mental wall. What are the numbers in that pesky eight skip-counting? 

“Would it help me to go to the stairs?” she asks, “Or are those all sevens?”

Yes, we have times tables taped in our stairwell. Don’t you?

“They’re sevens,” I reply. “Let’s figure this out.”

At some point I have to leave her to start lunch. I’m vaguely aware that my youngest has come and gotten a cup of water from the filter, but don’t pay too much attention until my oldest comes in and tells me to come see what the four-year-old is doing. 

“She’s a scientist!” she says.

I go into the dining room to find my youngest at the table with a toy coffee maker, which was filled with real water, and surrounded by cups of various sizes. Under the coffee maker was a dishcloth, already saturated with water. 

Science experiments are messy.

“I see,” I say slowly. “And what is the nature of this scientific experiment?”

The four-year-old—difficult to take seriously as a scientist, since she has a tissue sticking out of her pants like a tail—replies, “I have NO idea!”

I glance out a window and realize the bees are out. Yes! They’re alive! This is good news after the recent late-season snow. I take a break to give them some water and remove the mouse guard from the hive.

Lunch is finally ready. There’s a moment of bad temper on my part when the toy coffee maker tips over and spreads water across the dining room table. That experiment is officially over. After lunch, my oldest and I finish up her math. It’s not that bad, especially considering she has the sniffles and seems a little droopy. 

At one point the yelling from the littles becomes too distracting, and I send them upstairs. Silence descends. I’m about to settle my daughter down with some reading—she has decided it’s imperative she creates a bookmark first—and then I realize the upstairs has entered the realm of “too quiet.” I check on the youngers. They have my son’s screenless bedroom window open, but otherwise seem fine, so I tell them to shut the window and then descend the stairs again. 

A few minutes later, my son comes down and sheepishly informs me that he meant to throw his dragon over the roof, but it fell short….

“So you opened your window again after I told you to close it, and now your dragon is on the roof?” 

He nods.

“We’ll deal with it later. Close your window.”

My oldest retreats to the couch to read a chapter in The Song of the Christmas Mouse, and I retreat to my computer to record a few events before they escape me. The four- and six-year-olds drag an army sleeping bag full of stuffed animals into the living room, upset because it’s leaking feathers. I’m a little upset about that, too. 

Vintage army sleeping bags make good animal transporters.

On a normal day, we’re nearly done with school by 2 p.m. Today it’s 2:15 and we’re just starting language arts. 

I look out the window again and realize the bees are really out, practically bearding the hive. I grab the camera to take a photo, bees darting around my head and getting tangled in my hair, and then have to remove a bee from the flash before I can come back in. It’s not until I’m back inside that I realize I have a hitchhiker on my earring. There’s some excitement as we urge the stowaway back out the door.

The bees were busy, taking advantage of the sunshine.

Time for cursive practice, and then spelling. I leave my oldest doing a worksheet while my youngest practices writing her name, then toss the kitchen trash and check out the bugs my son wants to show me—I intend to hand the trash to him to drop in the can but, of course, I find him by the trash can. Since I’ve walked all the way there, I might as well dump it myself. 

Then it’s back to my oldest for grammar. I feel like we’re finally on track until it takes my daughter for-ev-er to finish grammar. After grammar we take a break for tea and the last of the chocolate chip cookies. Then she gets a break while I work on phonics with my son. We snuggle up together next to the heater and open the book. I know he likes the one-on-one time, but it’s difficult to get him to focus.

“Sound this word out for me.”

“Aaaaargh! Just kidding! Mop.”

“Great job. Sound out this next word.”

“Bippityboppity! Just kidding! Give.”

Despite his antics, though, I’m amazed by how quickly he absorbs knowledge. One pass is all it takes to learn a new sound, and I bask in that success for a moment. 

Then it’s time for the last hurdle in our school day—writing. I sit down with my oldest and help her write another paragraph in her version of the lion and the mouse. She’s doing a good job, and I breathe a sigh of relief as we finish the rough draft and I send her to practice the piano. This would normally be time for science or history, but our helter-skelter schedule today means it’s already 4 p.m. They’re ready to be done, and so am I, so we call it quits on school for the day. 

I start to take a break before I begin on my own to-do list, then remember that there’s still a dragon on the carport roof. My six-year-old dragon-slayer and I retrieve it. The fewer details about that mission, the better. 

I go into ADD mode, as if I weren’t there already, splitting my time and attention between sweeping and mopping the kitchen and making sure the children are cleaning up the living room—crayons, stuffed animals, trucks, blankets, all the miscellaneous trappings of a day of play. They finally finish and are allowed their much-coveted screen time. A load of laundry goes in the washer, and then it’s time to start dinner. 

Dinner is frittata for my family but a protein shake for me, because I’ve been eating too much junk lately and my jeans can tell. After-dinner clean-up would be simple except for the pans I’m still trying to clear from the weekend. (My husband made eggs Saturday morning and, bless his heart, it takes a lot of elbow grease to clean those pans.)

The kids are back in the living room finishing up the screen time that got interrupted by dinner. My husband is still looking for his wallet. I have 45 minutes until the bedtime roundup begins. I check my email, jot down some more thoughts from the day, and then turn on an audio recording to listen to while I fold clothes. 

By the time I finish a basket of laundry, it’s bedtime. I read a story to each of the girls while my husband reads to our son. Tonight, Parents in the Pigpen, Pigs in the Tub for the youngest and a chapter from Segra in Diamond Castle for my oldest. Then my husband and I switch to say final good-nights to the children. My son begs an extra story, then a prayer…then a second prayer, and a song. It’s 8:15 before I make it back down the stairs.

I sit down with my husband to watch a DVD of a favorite TV program, and go to bed at 9:15 p.m. If only I could fall asleep—as soon as the light is off, my mind switches on. Even with the comfort of the cat curled next to me, purring, it’s more than an hour before I drift off.

It’s a normal day. Not a great day, not a terrible day. Just a day in our crazy lives, homeschooling, living with bees, being. Maybe it gives you a chuckle. Maybe it encourages another mama who feels caught in the daily grind. I hope it blessed you. As crazy as it is, I’m blessed to be living it.