By request: Our Day {straddle parenting in the trenches}

Oh, how reluctant I am to throw this into cyberspace. The truth is, there is no “normal” day any more than there is a “perfect” day. There are only days, and thank the Lord for that. I–like you– am a servant, on call at any moment to answer the needs of my husband, my children, and my friends and family. If you are blessed to be surrounded with people, then you are blessed to be interrupted. That’s just the way of it. So sitting down to transcribe anything that remotely claims to be “a typical day” is truly impossible. And yet …

And yet, people ask. All the time. 

Moms in tears after nursing a colicky baby through another child’s ortho appointment ask. Women just finding out that their newest addition is due the same week as their oldest’s SATs ask. Friends trying like anything to figure out how to get a teen and a toddler to share a room ask.

“What does your day look like?”

We ask because there are so few of us out there– the crazy ones graduating kids and taking pregnancy tests in the same season. What used to be a more common phenomenon has now almost entirely disappeared from the landscape of parenting. And yet we dinosaurs are here, making it work as best we can, with no field guides and no barometer.

We are doing it. But, we wonder, are we doing it well? Or is there someone out there with the answers, someone who can help us walk this road with more faith, or more courage, or heck, even a better sense of humor?

I am not an expert on anything but my own family (and some days, I fall pretty short in that department, too). But because people ask, I offer up a look at our days in an attempt to encourage others, to remind folks that they are not alone, and, quite likely, to make you sigh with relief at the fact that you are more organized and accomplished that I am.

(Please note: this is a school day routine. Right now, we’re in no school/packing/leaving the country mode. If you call my house right now at 6 a.m., you will discover that I am not awake, and I am not happy to hear from you. You have been warned.)

5:30-6 a.m. I wake up and head downstairs. This is valuable time for this extreme introvert, because (as you’ll see) I will not be alone again until … well, until I maybe manage to shower and escape small people long enough to close the door for thirty seconds. During this time, I make coffee, put on Christopher’s water for his morning tea, read from my YouVersion Bible (I love being able to read in KJV and NASB in parallel), throw in the day’s first load of laundry, check the weather, and maybe even pop in to facebook. I have a core group of friends who I can’t see in real life, and facebook is my place for finding out what’s going on with them that day. I especially like to jot down their needs for the day and add them to my list of things that I pray over as I go about my business. It’s not much of a prayer ministry, but it’s what God has given me in this season. I embrace it.

6:45(ish) John Mark is almost always the first one up. He loves to cuddle alongside me and ask a zillion questions about the day. By the time I’ve satisfied his curiosity, Phineas and Birdie are on their way down, and I can hear Christopher in the shower. It’s time to get breakfast going with the help of my younger kiddos. We like to be silly and make up rhymes and stories during this time.

7:20(ish) By now, everyone is up. Even Jack, who we have to rouse by means of a younger sibling. The rule is that older kids have a set list of chores to accomplish before they eat breakfast. The list isn’t long, but it’s imperative. Dishwasher emptied and ready for the breakfast dishes to be loaded in, trash cans and recycling to the curb if needed, dirty clothes from the upstairs hamper brought down to the laundry room, that sort of thing. Breakfast happens with everyone at the table before we break off into our own to-do lists.

8 a.m. Christopher is on his way to work, I am moving laundry and working one-on-one with Phineas, John Mark is doing his jobs (taking toilet paper to the bathrooms, making his bed, etc.), Birdie is shadowing Mary Hannah, Mathaus is vacuuming with Simon perpetually wanting to help, Jack is showering, and we’re all busy for the next hour. This is when the older people in the house rotate through showers, getting dressed, watching littles, and doing whatever needs to be done to ready the house for the day (hello, toilet scrubbing!). We strive to be ready by 9. Some days, we even make it. 

9 a.m. The older kids do their independent work at this time. We have a “2 people in front of a screen” rule, so while one works a math lesson (Teaching Textbooks) another is sitting beside him/her doing whatever work is on the day’s roster. Their personal Bible reading happens in this time slot. This is my time to work with the little ones. We start with singing and verses, then read for a good long time before sitting down to whatever else is planned. This is probably the single most predictable part of the day; because my time is centered on the small ones, they aren’t interrupting. Imagine that!

10:30(ish) This is when I try to oversee table stuff with Jack and John Mark. It’s a short window, because I keep these intense sessions to the point and as pain-free as possible. Jack will leave with assignments that he has to bring back to me later, but John Mark will be done for the day at the end of this session. Mary Hannah and Mathaus are continuing their independent work at this time. It’s not unusual for me to only hear from them in passing over the course of a morning. Phineas, Birdie, and Simon are also at the table at this time, working through three stations of manipulatives or activities that I have set out for them. Or Simon is comfort nursing. That’s always an option, too.

11:14 a.m. Lunch prep begins. We rotate who does it, but often it is Mathaus and me. This is a great time for us to discuss the questions that have come up in his Sonlight Core, touch base on other assignments, and otherwise have a student/teacher counseling session. I love talking with Mathaus, so this is a precious little window for me. The littles are often still playing with their activities at this time, or a big kid is overseeing an iPad game.

11:45(ish) Lunch is served. We all eat together. Sometimes we read aloud, sometimes we talk about what we’re learning, sometimes we play a quiz game or do flash cards for points to see who gets a handful of chocolate chips. It depends. I don’t follow a formula for this time like I used to when I just had littles, because I really want to be available as much as possible to hear everyone’s hearts when they’re ready to share.

12:15 p.m. Rest time has arrived! While I put Simon down for a nap, kitchen clean up takes place, and the younger kids get ready for a story. I move on to them next, prepping Birdie for a quiet time in her room (she plays with her dolls and dollhouse) and John Mark in his room (he listens to books on tape and plays Legos). Phineas heads back downstairs with me. I work with him for about 30 minutes, or until he is unable to concentrate any longer. At that point, I meet with Mary Hannah in a similar way to my earlier check-in with Mathaus. Unlike her brother, who likes his one-on-one time mid-activity flow, Mary Hannah prefers to sit on the couch with me and get all my eye contact. Sometimes, it even happens! From here on out, I am pulled in 7 different directions for most of the remainder of my day–usually at once.

1 p.m. Anything that I group teach the older kids happens now. Simon will wake up and join us, and Phin will float around with various toys, but I try to keep focused on just the older skills for this window. John Mark and Birdie will come down sometime in this time period, and I will set up Reading Eggs for them, or a similar learning game/app for about half an hour. After the timer goes off, I try to have something hands-on and creative ready for them– anything to extend the time I get with the older kids. If we have any errands to run, or appointments to attend, I try to scheduled them at the end of this block. I also try to make sure those are crockpot meal nights, to avoid chaos when we come back in.

3 p.m. Big kids head back off to their work, with regular check-ins. This is when I am handed essays, asked for permission to check out an iPad, etc. While that’s going on, I sneak in a game or some stories with the littles, or maybe an art project. I also try to do more laundry in this time slot, because I realize that the dinner hour is sneaking up and I am losing daylight fast. 

4 p.m. Jack is usually finished with schoolwork by now, and he finally gets to read or play with littles, which he has been dying to do all day.  I run around picking up all of those amazing “keep them busy” activities that didn’t get fully put away, and start looking ahead to dinner. If it’s a crockpot day, my life is easier and I can concentrate on listening to good stuff like Mathaus and Mary Hannah making music while we all wind down the day. If it’s a meal prep-intensive night, I grab one of my olders and usually John Mark to be runners and mixers and whatever else needs done. This is also when I make desserts on Bible Study nights. Birdie likes to help with those, and I try my best to fold her into the happenings. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not.

5:15 p.m. The final push to get dinner on the table starts. That means total clean up from the day, setting the table, making sure the last load of the laundry is being folded, that sort of thing. Just like our earlier morning chore time, I usually pop on a Pandora station and get everybody going with some singing and dancing around to keep it fun. Soooo much better than barking orders, and it keeps the little guys excited to be a part of what’s happening, too.

5:30 p.m. Dinner is usually more chaotic than peaceful, I’m sorry to say. Each little has an older “buddy” to help refill cups, plates, etc., but the up and down and noise, noise, noise, noise of it all is not the image of the perfect family meal. Unless your idea of the perfect family meal includes seven kids telling their dad what they did all day, a husband relating international soccer news, and a wife prodding people to use their ears at least as much as their mouths, all at once. In which case, it’s amazing. 

6:15 p.m. This has become one of my teenagers’ favorite times of the night, I swear. While Christopher and I run little bodies upstairs for baths, teeth brushing, pjs, bedroom clean-up, stories, and general daddy silliness, the bigs take over the downstairs. While they clear the table, put the food away, and do the dishes, they also take turns hooking their iPods up to the iHome speakers and letting loose a barrage of Not My Favorite Music. Which is totally o.k., because I am upstairs and barely have to hear Skillet feeling like a monster. Truthfully, it’s it’s not about me.

7 p.m. Bedtime for littles equals downtime for the rest of us. After the final prayer and kiss, Christopher and I go downstairs, finish any of the routine tidying that needs to get done, and we get ready for our bigs-only Bible study. Christopher does a specific Guys Only reading with Mathaus and Jack every Monday morning, but the pre-teen and up gather throughout the week for the more-intensive-than-the-littles-can-handle discussion. I love this time. While I adore my time spent reading and talking about God with the littles in the morning and throughout the day, this hour or so in the evening is my real fill-up, both spiritually and relationally. I always walk away feeling blessed that I get to live my life surrounded by such really cool, really thoughtful, really amazing people. It’s good stuff, that.

8:30(ish) If we’re going to play a game, or have some other random rabbit trail of an evening, we do it here. Other nights, this is the quiet time when the five of us (plus the dog) are splayed out in our tiny living room, reading, knitting, or writing. If I’m going to write a blog post, this is when it gets done. It’s also the time when, if Christopher or Mathaus has DVR’d a soccer match, or Mary Hannah has an F1 race waiting in the queue, they will watch it. The thing I love about this time is that no matter what’s happening, no one is off doing their own thing. We’re pretty tight, this crew. It’s a lovely thing.

Bedtime for all of us happens, ideally, before 10 p.m. If I had my druthers, I’d be out by 9:30 p.m., but in the course of the past year I’ve gotten more flexible. 

And that’s it. No magic, no perfection, just real life being lived, day after day: our family, our way.