Your slice of life was so much more substantial than ours usually is...If we were different kinds of pie, I'd say you're a calorie dense, filling pecan pie and we're a pumpkin custard without whipped cream.
Here's a rough version of our day:
All the kids wake each other up because they're in the same room.
The younger two yell until I get out of bed. (Junior Mint is already up watching cartoons or infomercials--he likes those for some reason.)
I get dressed and get the babies up.
They watch PBS while I change diapers, get babies dressed, acclimate my brain to the new day.
Everybody has cereal.
They watch more tv.
I read stories to kids.
I do cleaning and bed-making.
I check computer stuff.
The babies get their diapers changed again.
If we're lucky, the babies go to bed around the same time and sleep for 2 hours.
Then my official homeschooler and I argue about starting school for the day.
Eventually, I win.
We sing the Articles of Faith 1-3 (right now) and often 13 because it's his favorite.
Usually we sing at least 1 Scripture Scouts song from the songbook I have. He likes 'Melvin the Monster' best.
We pray.
We read scripture stories and/or the most recent Friend. Often, we take turns reading every other sentence.
We read a chapter in 'The Black Cauldron'.
We read from a Zoobooks magazine about an animal--about 1/2 a magazine at a time. This week it was camels. We usually do at least one puzzle of some kind from the magazine.
We have a snack or lunch...you'll notice we forgot to eat it earlier.
We do English work, taking turns reading again.
Junior Mint usually takes over an hour to do one page of English grammar. (We use the 2nd grade Building Christian English Series from Rod and Staff, a Mennonite publisher.) He asks me why they're always talking about God all the time. Lately, he's liked English more and sets a timer and races against the clock.
If the babies aren't up and screaming, we'll read a history section from Story of the World, Vol. 1.
If it's a geography day, we've been doing a good U.S. Map puzzle over and over, talking about state capitals, political boundaries, and products from different states. This is not very focused, yet.
If we're still friends by then, we'll go onto BrainPop Jr. on another free trial. (We're getting a subscription soon.)
Then, the babies are certainly awake and it's hard to accomplish any other formal schooling.
Junior Mint plays and snacks most of the rest of the day. I like it when he spends hours building a Leggo fleet downstairs. (Not because I like him away but because the quiet time is good for him and I like him to play with building toys.)
If he hasn't been naughty, he gets 30 min. of recreational computer time.
Sometimes, usually earlier in the day, Junior Mint will just find an encyclopedia type of book and start copying from it. Sometimes it's a science book--he'll copy a diagram of the inner ear. This week, it was a history volume--he copied a section about the Onin Feudal Wars in 15th Century Japan. I figured that was good handwriting practice.
The day after that is usually a blur...diapers, baths, stories, more tv than I should allow or watch, blog stuff and now facebook, dishes, dinner (always late), stories, phone calls, cleaning up toys, kids going to the corner for hitting, there is always a lot of screaming, (not usually from me), brushing teeth--for the 2 year old, this is a 2 person job and can only be accomplished if my husband is home and there is definitely screaming involved--reading scriptures, individual and family prayer, another drink of water, etc.
I write in my notebook/journal and read from the Book of Mormon every day, though sometimes the result is pathetic...I'm maintaining a habit mostly.
Eventually, we stumble into bed because we've stayed up much later than we should have again.
We say night prayer as a couple and if it's my husband's turn, I often have to squeeze his hands several times to keep him awake long enough to reach amen.
