A Day In the Life of Valerie at Home

A friend posted a link to a blog that's doing a fun little activity today. You write a post about your day. What does it look like? What do you do? So here's my contribution and you can click on the squirrel picture to go over to the original site to read more.

A Day In the Life of Valerie at Home

A day...a day...okay, how about a typical Wednesday? Why Wednesday? Why not? It's in the middle of the week and our most consistently scheduled day. The girls are also rather partial to Wednesday. It runs a close second to any Thursday we have Community Bible Study in the morning, especially if it's one of the two each month that we follow CBS with girl scouts.

So here goes.

It's dark 30 and Mr. at Home leaves for the bus stop and I wake up just long enough to kiss him goodbye then fall back asleep.

Sometime later, I hear the girls downstairs talking and the TV comes on. I drag myself outta bed and get ready for the day. I sit down and flip on the computer while issuing orders to the girls to get dressed and ready. Once the girls reappear (if L doesn't have an hour long meltdown over the dressing process), we sit down at the table to start school.

Only then do the girls announce that they haven't eaten breakfast. Sigh. So I send them to the kitchen to find something to eat and I get a little more reading time. 15-20 minutes later, we finally get started with our calendar time and Bible lesson.

We use the A Beka curriculum where I have the full school curriculum for K and a mixture of workbooks for L including A Beka and a few other things I've picked up from places like teacher stores and Target. We do calendar and Bible all together, then I get one child started on an individual assignment so I can work one-on-one with the other while we're all sitting together at the table, then we switch. It reminds me of when I was in elementary. I went to a very small school and for 1st and 2nd grade, I was in a split class. That meant that about 12 1st graders faced one chalkboard and about 12 3rd graders faced the other chalkboard. Mrs. Johnson would have to split her time and attention between us and we learned to tune out the other grade's lessons. For second grade, I moved to the other side of the room since that year, Mrs. Johnson had 1st and 2nd. I'm just thankful I only have 2 and not 20+.

We stay together at the table unless K has a test, at which point L has to go play in her room while we do that. Then, as you can imagine, the 3-year-old finishes her work first (K's goal is to one day finish her school before L) and I send her off to play. Some days she willing disappears into her room to play with her Barbies and some days she seems bent on sticking close and annoying K. Those are the fun days. Generally K and I finish up the class stuff fairly soon after L in done, that leaves K at the table to finish up her various worksheets assignments. In the middle of all this school fun, I'm generally switching out loads of laundry, fixing lunch if we happen to go long, handling phone calls and emails, and fitting in whatever little tasks I can during quiet moments.

But let's remember this is Wednesday and that throws a little kink into our well-oiled school machine. At 10:15, I pull L away from whatever she working on and get her dressed in her dance clothes. K gets her work sorted back into her folder and I grab a book/my knitting/curriculum guide/something to do for the 45 minute class, then we run out the door and drive over to the dance studio. K and I sit and work while K taps and twirls to the delight of her frilly pink heart.

We normally head back home for lunch right after class, but we sometimes run an errand or two since we're already out. Once we do get home, we finish up whatever's left of school and then we have the afternoon free for play and housework.

Around 5 we load back into the van and drive over to the bus stop to pick up Daddy, then it's off to church for the Wednesday night dinner and activities. We like to eat at church since the food's good, cheap, and plentiful and it makes our night a little less crazy. The girls love their Wednesday night classes and while they're happily singing, playing, and learning, Mr. at Home and I find a quiet little corner and we sit and talk grown-up talk. WIth no kids interrupting. And no housework to be done. And no computer calling "Come read more blogs!". Yep, we like Wednesdays, too.

By the time we get home, it's after L's bedtime and she goes straight to bed. K spends some time winding down, then she's off to bed, too. Mr. at Home and I usually waste away the rest of the evening lounging with our respective laptops, then it's off to bed for us, too.