November 21

One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog was to capture a "day in the life" every once in a while. Although today doesn't seem typical, I'm sick for example, there were still memories I wanted to capture.

1am Susan and Becca (1yo twins) wake up-Susan is snuffly and struggles to breath and nurse so I sit up in teh rocking chair with her. Both babies fall asleep in our bed-I don't. I drift in and out of sleep until...

4:30 In comes Benjamin (3yo) saying "I wanna watch a show" and "I'm too tired". I choose the second option and convince him to come in bed. This is why we have a king sized bed and this is also what makes this a non-typical day...

7:30 The older children have woken up and the girls are waiting for the babies to wake up. I get up and start breakfast.

8am family devotional in which the older children read scriptures about Moroni building walls around cities and digging moats...we discuss how that would NOT be a good thing to do around our house.

9am I am not the only one with a cold...this isn't technically a homeschool day. Both Kalani and Natalie have colds and stay in their pajamas all day. I mention this because this is one of those quiet learning days in which it is blatantly obvous to me that texbooks and desks aren't necessarily the best facilitators of knowledge. The children listen to Peter Pan on tape. I feel gipped that I have never read this book before and amazed at the story. Raymond (7) is reading an illustrated dictionary of mathematics and decides to use the tangrams to make some of the shapes. Much of the morning Natalie (8) and he work with tangrams while listening to the story. Other children join in for various amounts of time. We discuss geometry, names for polygons (not pronounce pol-ya-gons as originally thought by Raymond), various traingles, and quilting.

Meanwhile Lydia (4) has jsut started her phonics workbooks. We use Explode the Code ( http://www.epsbooks.com/dynamic/catalog/program.asp?seriesonly=1460M ). She started yesterday and is on page 20. I end up bribing her to stop when I know she is tired and isn't being careful.

Somewhere in here I do two loads of laundry and make bread-bread and honeybutter is lunch...now that part is completely normal!

The babies nap in the afternoon (simultaneous napping is considered bliss!), I play trains with Ben (3), during which my older daughters answers the phone and I miss an important message because she says I am busy! I read The Return of the King until Pippin and Merry unite and decide the Lord of the Rings is too long of a series to e all in one HUGE book...and much too tempting to read.

5pm dinner is begun, chores are begun, whining has begun, two loads of laudry are folde and put away. Unfortunately they are not the same two that were washed...but atleast we are no more behind then we were at the beginning of the day.

The children evidiently have a strange condition. When i mentioned chores they were all far too sick to pitch in, but are now playing a loud gme of tag through the house...i feel better about enforcing the chores.

6:30 an extravagant meal of spaghetti and meatballs begins...we discuss the differences between Disney and the real Peter Pan-the main difference they all brought up is that in the disney version Wendy is the first one of the plank...in the book it is the boys. We are split on which way we like it...(wendy or boys first)...but all prefer the book to the show. We also discuss planets and the sun (this was Raymonds doing) I ask him the difference between planets adn the sun and he immediately replies that the sun produces its own light...i think to myself that i better start reading what he is reading before he thinks I am really stupid. We also discuss the tragedy of the evening: once again we are denied books at the dinner table. Natalie (8) says this is worse than being grounded for a week. Poor child.

After dinner the girls dressed up and danced...Raymond asked if he could dance too with a prop (a sword). The girls swirl and Raymond and Ben end up collapsing on the bean bag in what can only be wrestling.

7:30 YIPPEE the dinner dishes are done before bedtime...this is not normal adn should in no way be construed as such...what is normal is baby bird and bedtime. I dose the children up with echinachia-which they all love. They stand around with their mouths open, which is why I call it baby bird. Bedtime was relatively easy, except in the shuffle susan fell down five steps.

Ben and Raymond's bedtime story was about volcanoes. Lydia wanted me to sing songs she made up herself-always a challenge.

8pm Kalani's night-we are reading "Growing Up" by Brad Wilcox. although she has already had "the talk", I want to make sure I didn't miss anything and that she understands it a little better. As we read the first page, she interupts and says, ya but how does the sperm get in there...thats what I want to know" I am reminded of why we are usng a book, relieved she doesn't know more, and happy she is interested...we skip ahead and read together. After a bit on birth we turn to Susan and Kalani says "Is that the way it was Susan?" To which Susan shakes her head no and laughs.

8:45 Chris comes home!!! We finish up Kalani's night, Lydia interupts for the third time, natalie comes up to defend herself from whatever Lydia is going to say.

9:15 I go to the bathroom by myself!!! I am quickly discovered and there is much crying at the door..then silence. I would have been happier with the crying, Chris hears splashing and discovers two babies playing in the other bathroom.

9:30 bedtime for newly washed babies!