a continuation…

11:00 After switching the laundry yet again (how many clothes do six people wear?), I gather all the boys again.  Mike and Marshall resume writing and science.  I sit down with the twins for some formal preschool.  They negotiate a piece of candy for participating.  I give in because we have more candy than Carter has liver spots.  We start with Bible. We  sing, say the pledge of allegiance, sing some more.  We read a bible story. They recite some bible verses and we sing some more (who knew Abeka loved singing so much).

11:15  We move onto math.  I pass out worksheets and they color like crazy.  Recently we’ve moved from scribbling all over the color page to an intricate rainbow color scheme.  I put on some music and leave them to it while I get Marshall started on writing the rough draft of a persuasive essay (trying to convince me to buy him a dog) and Mike and I begin science.

11:16

Nate: I’m done.

Me:  You’re not.  Write your name on the top and write me four perfect fours.

Nate (melting):  it’s too hard.

Marshall:  I don’t know how to do this.

I reexplain.

11:18  Nate:  This is too hard.

11:19  Nate:  I’m hungry!  This is too hard

11:20-12:00 The whining persists and in between the whining and complaining, Mike and I read two books about Amphibians and Frogs.  Did you know that there was a frog who birthed it’s young through its mouth?  Sounds disgusting to me.

Nate:  Did I come out of your mouth?

Me:  Thankfully, you did not!  Did you finish those 4s?  (you love how I just distracted him from the whole “You came out of my vagina” conversation).

12:01 Marshall is still complaining about how hard this is.

12:01 Jacob finishes and earns a piece of candy.  Nate ups his complaining.

12:02 Mike helps Nate write his name.  Going so far as making him a dot-to-dot.

12:10 Nate finally earns a piece of candy.

12:15 Marshall is still complaining.

Me:  Dude, I thought you wanted a dog?  convince me without using propaganda. 

12:16 I sneak downstairs to escape and do laundry.

12:20 Marshall is still complaining.

12:21  Nate is starving.  I feed everyone another round of banana bread.  Call the nutrition police on me.  I spread it with peanut butter and call it lunch.

12:22 The balloon war resumes.  Marshall continues to complain.

12:25 I send the twins down for a nap, which really means being quite in another room.  We switch gears and start History. Marshall throws a mini tantrum.

Me: What is your problem?

Him:  History, english, chinese, reading, There’s too much!

Me:  You do know it’s only 12:30 right?

12:35 I take the ipad from the twins and send them to different rooms. We continue history.

12:50 We start map work.

1:00  We go back to English.  Mike joins in this time drafting a letter.

1:15 We’re still complaining writing.

1:20 We’re still moaning writing.

1:40 We’re finally writing!

1:41 I let the twins get up and we sing some geography songs and try to learn our address and then move on to phonics and reading some of those library books.

2:00 We’re still writing.

2:15 We are all finally done!

2:30 Mckayla walks in the door.  Thank goodness for the bus!

2:31 the phone rings and plans are being hashed for this evening.

2:35 I’ve spoken to parents to coordinate tonight’s event.

3:00 We break out the crayons and make stained glass leaves.

3:45 I say a little prayer of Thanksgiving that God is in charge of the real leaves not me.  I am a terrible leaf maker.

4:00 We straighten up the house.

4:30 We put away the Halloween decorations.  Somewhere in the last thirty days we’ve seem to have lost a box.

5:00 McKayla’s friend shows up.

Jake:  You’re late.  Our house was spooky.  Now it’s just normal.

5:30  I make dinner.  Bean burritos.  I’ll let you be awed at the fact that I made them from dry pinto beans.  We’ll be eating on paper plates because that’s all I have the energy for.

6:00 I serve dinner and hop in the shower.  Yes, the shower for the day at 6:00 pm!