A Day in the Life: A Friday

Notes from a Friday a couple weeks ago when I decided to keep track of what I did all day:

6:30 a.m. Alarm goes off. I groan my way out of bed and into the shower.

7:00 I wake kindergarten gent and make his breakfast while he dresses.

7:45 We walk to the neighborhood school for a PE class. The school is welcoming to homeschoolers, allowing participation in classes like PE and music, and likely field trips and assemblies if we asked. Fine young gent wanted to take a PE class, which is free and doesn't interfere with our school schedule, so twice a week I drag my rear out of bed and take him to school. I can't believe I used to get up this early every single morning. This is the same elementary school that both lovely ladies attended, so I often see their old teachers in the hallway. They always smile and ask about the girls. While fine young gent plays tag and whatnot, I volunteer my time in the school library, covering books with contact paper.

8:45 or so, depending on how dawdly the gent is on the way home. Loving husband hands me coffee as soon as I walk through the door. He's a saint. Everyone else is finishing breakfast, except for lovely lady the younger. It's a hassle getting her out of bed in the morning so I declared Friday mornings "sleep-in day" for her. I wake sleeping lovely lady, help the gents finish up their breakfast and dress them, get everyone started on their morning chores, start the laundry, and write out a checklist for the lovely ladies to work on while I'm at kindergarten gent's piano lesson. Work on memory poems with each child. Some afternoons we have a recital party with tea, cookies, and poems, but we won't have one today so it's just review.

9:45 Rush out the door to piano after firing off last-minute instructions to the dawdler of the day, whoever has decided to take on that role for this particular morning.

10-10:30 Enjoy the peace and serenity of the piano studio while the piano teacher works with my squirrely but talented young gent. Aaaaah. I could live here. No crumbs, no mess, no little voices. Wait. How many times a day could I listen to versions of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"? Never mind.

10:45 Home again. Rotate between children for lessons. Because it's Friday, we all do a nature study of backyard twigs, inspired by 70 Nature-Oriented Things to Do During the Winter. Fourteen year-old lovely lady finishes up two week-long projects, a map of Europe for geography and a writing assignment. Kindergarten gent and I do math while eleven year-old lovely lady finishes a vocabulary page, then kindergarten gent plays a math game with preschool gent while younger lovely lady and I work on reading, writing and science. Today toddler gent wants to "Dit yap," while we work, so I give him a marker and piece of paper, and he sits on my yap, I mean lap, while lovely lady and I go over her lessons.

12:30 Lunch. The kids eat while I read aloud.

1:15 History. We've been studying Elizabethan England, Shakespeare, and The Globe Theater this week. Today lovely lady, 14, creates a stage battle with her younger brother. They work on lines ("Take that!" and "Hy-aaah!" and "Aaaaiieee!") and stage sword-fighting while I finish lessons with lovely lady, 11. The two youngest gents are absorbed in a project involving pulling the pillows and blankets off their beds but they're happy and not bugging us, so I'll delightedly pick up the mess later and feel grateful for children who know how to entertain themselves.

1:45 Show time! The gents go get loving husband from the office to watch the sword fight. Lovely lady, 11, decides she wants to get in on the action, assigning herself a part as the distraught princess. I move the laundry basket so that the fake blood, really corn syrup and red food color, doesn't get on the clean and (finally) folded clothes. The younger gents get in on the action by making swords out of K'Nex and waving them wildly. Kindergarten knight spontaneously whacks distraught princess on the rear as she weeps and wails over the body of the king, causing actors and audience to dissolve in fits of laughing. It's such a success that the entire thing is replayed twice more.

2:00 Put toddler gent down for a nap, send his brothers out to play, do a Shakespeare lesson with lovely lady, 14, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then the lovely lady finishes her math so all she's got to do is read for 30 minutes. She's reading The Hobbit.

3:00 Leave for an orthodontist appointment for lovely lady, 11, then to her cast party for The Mitten. Toddler gent is awake, so I take him with us. The gents golf in the backyard while loving husband watches them through the office window.

Sometime between 5:30-6 Home. Take-out for dinner tonight because I was gone, so no time to prepare dinner. After dinner we play Legos and chase-and-tickle until time for bed. I tuck in the gents then collapse on the couch with a book. All right. That's a lie. I collapsed on the couch with the remote and watched...Masterpiece Theater. Yeah, that's it. Masterpiece Theater, not something trashy. Actually, I have no idea what I watched, but if this was 2 weeks ago then it probably was Masterpiece Theater. We have Tivo, and I've been trying to watch Dracula. It's creeping me out. I can't finish watching because loving husband won't watch it with me and I get scared watching by myself. Maybe I should just read the book.

Far too late. I drag myself to bed. Thank goodness the next day is a Saturday.