Sometimes I think I may want to remember the craziness of my days so I can look back and appreciate the goodness and insanity of them.
This morning we woke up late to giggling in the living room. Mr. 1 and Mr. 3 were sitting on the couch together looking at books and Mr. 1 had quite a lot to say about it. It was so sweet to see them snuggled together on the couch - although this does mean Mr. 1 has free access to the house. He sleeps on the bottom bunk with a railing and, until now, that has kept him in bed until one of us comes in to get him. He can now climb right over and turn doorknobs. We'll have to figure out a solution - gating off his room doesn't work because then Mr. 3 can't get out to go to the bathroom. Hmmm...
David and I drank our morning coffee while the younger brothers played in the living room. Around 7am I tried to get Mr. 3 to come and eat breakfast. He wanted a "jammie breakfast" and I told him it was fine if he took off his pull-up and put on some underwear (he's dry more than 50% of the time these days but it's so much easier this way). I can't explain exactly what happened next but Mr. 3 decided he didn't want to put his pajamas back on - something was not right about how he had taken his pull-up off (I had helped?) and refused to do anything until he could put his pull-up back on, which was wet and already in the trash. I told him that he absolutely could not put back on his pull-up but he could put on underwear and his pajamas and come have breakfast. There was about 45 minutes of screaming that followed - during most of this he was naked, refusing to put on his pajamas or his clothes. Finally, with minutes to spare before we had to leave for school, he decided he actually would put on his clothes (I had taken away his right to a pajama breakfast at some point) and even asked very politely for a breakfast he could eat in the car. By the time he left with David, I was exhausted and I still had 3 kids to get organized.
The older boys helped me get the morning started, sorting laundry, making breakfast for themselves, entertaining Mr. 1. They were wonderful and had everything done to start their writing prompts at 8:45. Every morning we start school with a writing prompt, typically written by Daddy on the whiteboard. They are typically the beginning of a fictional story but today, in honor of It's a Wonderful Life which they watched the first half of on Saturday, I asked them to write what makes a life wonderful. They wrote about having a good family and serving others. Mr. 7 wrote "The things I think that make a wonderful life are being happy that you helped people, a good friend who reminds you good things you did, and having a fun family." Mr. 9 wrote "I think to have a good life you need things to "lean on"; people who can tell you the good things you do, things, that can distract ou from sadness, happiness that you did good things." I think they got it.
We then did our exercises with Mr. 1 toddling around and our memory verses. We haven't been starting our school day with this due to getting Mr. 3 to preschool and Mr. 1's general craziness and it was really nice. Then it was on to math. Mr. 7 just started Singapore 4A and he's finding it more challenging than 3B so he only makes it through one exercise typically. Today he was excited to do some geometry and asked if he could please do some geometry exercises after he finished his regular exercises which I happily agreed to. Mr. 9 just started Thinkwell Algebra and is really enjoying it. The one problem is getting him to stop and move on to other things. Today he did an hour of math before I asked him to finish up. At this rate he'll be on to geometry by the spring. After math they did writing - Mr. 7 is finishing Writing with Ease Level 2 and has actually gotten rather good at narration. Week 36 is the evaluation week and he summarized the passage from Peter Pan quite well (and then asked if I would request it from the library because it sounded really good). Mr. 9 is finishing Writing with Skill Level 1 (Level 2 has not been released yet so I'm not sure what we'll do next) and writing a research paper on Einstein and the theory of relativity (he chose the topic and checked out a bunch of books last week). He started working on an outline but I stopped him so we could get history done while Mr. 1 was asleep. Due to his early wake-up, Mr. 1 fell apart around 9:30am. This is pretty early given that he is down to one nap but after 20 minutes of complete crankiness I decided it was naptime. Once he was down for nap I tried to get a few things done (making lasagna, cleaning up the 1 year old chaos, etc) before we started history. We're discussing the Louisiana Purchase and I had forgotten exactly how it came about. James Monroe was sent to buy or rent just a small piece of land that would ensure Americans west of the Appalachians could transport things by the Mississippi and Napoleon said no but America could buy all of "Louisiana". Monroe wasn't authorized to do this by Congress and it was quite a bit of money for what many believed was worthless land. Very interesting. We never made it to Carry On, Mr. Bowditch which we are all really enjoying because Mr. 1 woke up and I decided we had to get outside for our walk before Mr. 3 came home from preschool. It worked out because everyone was so excited about the book on Friday that I read extra and now we're ahead so it all works out in the end.
We took our walk along the boardwalk and talked about all the signs of winter - bare trees, dead plants. Luckily the rain had stopped so it was at least dry. We managed to get home and lunch eaten before Mr. 3 arrived home. Given the morning, I thought Mr. 3 definitely needed a nap but he was not convinced. After quite a bit of negotiation, he agreed to lay down and close his eyes for 5 minutes and he didn't have to go to bed when Micah went to bed (shrewd terms). He fell fast asleep and slept for 2 hours. Mr. 9 watched Mr. 1 in the playroom while all this was going on and did an admirable job. Mr. 7 was downstairs reading and when I asked him to come up, he told me he only had 3 chapters left and please could he finish. I love it when he gets excited about a book and happily agreed. The book he finished was The Prairie Thief by Melissa Wiley which Mr. 9 and I have both finished and really enjoyed. Mr. 9 read The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs by Betty Birney and also gave it a good review. While the older boys practiced piano and did their computer work (spanish and typing), I got Mr. 1 down for nap. And then in the few blissful moments where both smaller boys were sleeping, I made coffee and actually sat down for a few minutes before starting the clean-up process. We had invited some friends over for dinner. The dad of the family is out of town and we thought they might enjoy the break from cooking (and the kids love having other kids to play with - you'd think we were such a small family). It was a great time together - Mr. 9 invented a spell casting game and they all played it together for quite a while (along with a little Mario Kart). All was well, until Mr. 3 decided to throw a tantrum about cleaning up (he did great until there were 4 cars left and then demanded that I put them away. I refused and he threw a fit - taking 20 minutes to scream when 1 minute of cleaning up would have ended it. Sigh.
He turned it around and even finished his dinner so we could have brownies with our friends before they left. Then it was bathtime for the younger brothers. I was sending a quick email on my phone while they played in the bath when Mr. 3 says "look, there's poop in here" and sure enough there was. So pull everyone out of the bath, stop the older brothers from taking showers so I can clean out the tub, and then put everyone back in to get clean. Finally in pajamas, I read and sing to Mr. 1 and put him in bed. Only now he can climb right out. Repeat over and over again until I finally just put up the gate on the room so at least he can't leave the room and I can hear his frustration and put him back in bed. In between putting Mr. 1 back to bed, I started reading A Christmas Carol to the older three boys. That Dickens - he's actually a really good writer. Everyone loved the first chapter and even Mr. 3 listened intently. I love reading together. David got home just as we were finishing up so he could join us for prayers.
So many wonderful memories in one day. You just never know what each day will hold with young kids - definitely an adventure.
