A Day in the Life of

My daze are weird and oddball and funny looking.  A lot like my family in most cases, now that I think about it, so it's fitting.  Each one is a bit different due to my funky working schedule as a ballet teacher.  A typical day though, goes a little something like this:

6 a.m.  Hubby awakes and makes the coffee.  This is Reason #1 why I keep him.

Between 6:30 and 7:30 I roll out of bed, due to four year old tap dancing on my face, and drink the said coffee.  I have recently realized that the amount of coffee I pour into my mug and the amount of coffee that actually finds its way down my gullet are not one and the same.  I lose the same cup several times and though I always pour another, I rarely get time to drink it.  Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse comes on as I make His Royal Stinkiness his "nice and warm" (warmed almond milk) and oatmeal.  Unless we're out of oatmeal and then he may or may not eat last night's chocolate lava cake.  No comment.  I make myself eat something though I am not hungry in the morning.  If I don't, I'll forget, and then I'll be flying around the house on a broom by noon.

The girls are up by this time and jump into their school work in pajamas (because we all know that the Number One Reason for Home Education is the pajamas).  In the process of teaching them to be independent workers - something I pursued with feverish abandon in K-2nd grades - they now basically school themselves.  They write their own schedules, set their own alarm clocks, and are off like gang busters.  It's weird.  I love it.  Why?  Because I love homeschooling but I hate teaching school, that's why.  If you've homeschooled, you understand.  I never wanted to be a schoolmarm.  I am not good with a ruler or chalkboard and I wear my hair in buns for work already and I don't want the bobbypin headache.

NOT ME ^

ME  ^

I shower.  Not alone of course.  I have three kids.  And a dog.  Who is fiercely determined that he must protect me from shower or potty monsters and must accompany me always.  I haven't been alone in the little girl's room since 1999.

If I have a morning class, I sneak out quietly so Gianni doesn't have a melt down.

At ballet, one ballerina pees on the floor which causes another to...pee on the floor.  Nervous bladders are contagious.  A dance mom is irritated with me and I feel stressed out.  Also, Teddy Bear's Picnic is monstrously aerobic and I am sore from doing "super dooper side splits."

When I get home the house is a wreck because that's what happens when I leave for a couple hours:  a tornado of toast crumbs, toys, Legos, pencils, wrappers, and bandaids attack my house.  It is unexplained but it is predictable.  I clean the floors and load up the dishwasher.  I check on the girl's work, help Cora with prime numbers, inform Anna for the upteenth time that the state of her bedroom makes me want to toss my cookies (at this point Gianni shouts, "cookies?? I want cookies!") and get out the left overs for lunch.  The kids have been selling hot cocoa on the corner every day, so after lunch they whip up a bath, grab their trusty tip jar, and set up shop.  I use the free moments to grade papers, fold laundry, clip coupons check Facebook, answer emails, work on a magazine article that's on a deadline, pin things on Pinterest.  I've been helping a local teen with her writing, so I quickly proofread her latest essays.  Gianni is cold and comes back to help around the house try my patience.  And search for the ever elusive cookie he's sure is around somewhere.  We read Sandra Boynton books until I turn into a hippo myself and go berserk.

After the kiddos make a few bucks they netflix a documentary or watch a recorded episode of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman.  Snacks all around.  Gianni is learning to read (drat him!) so we do a chapter out of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I get ready to leave for work again.  Put something in the crockpot.  Cora gets dropped off at swim practice, Anna comes along as my assistant, Gianni hangs with grandpa.

No one pees in inappropriate places.  Success! I debate graduating a couple hard working bunheads to the next level and have a heart to heart with a fretful mom. Another mom is interested in homeschooling and asks how do I it all?  I laugh hysterically.  Dance moms are funny.  Weird, but funny.

Hubby will pick up Cora so I swing by some overdue library items and grab a couple things at the grocery store.  At home again I thank Grandpa McPhee and clean up the house yet again.  I put some Civil Wars on the cd player, which competes in a harmonious way with the sound of the Mario Cart in the living room, pour a glass of wine, and chop veggies for salad.  "But where are the cookies?" moans Gianni woefully.  I text my sister twenty five times or so and Anna sets the table.  Cora is ravenous from swim practice when she gets home and Hubby and I spend the next two hours trying to finish a sentence in the middle of lovely chaos.    We play some card games, do a Star Wars puzzle for the 123497.239587 time today, load up the dishwasher, and start the bedtime process.  This involves snuggles, books, teeth, water, potty, tucking ins, music, etc.  Repeat eleventy seven times.   On what kid planet does getting out of bed to ask to be tucked back in make sense?   Hubby and I netflix The Office and forget to talk about our days.  We'll remember tomorrow when the kids are up and we can't get a word in edgewise.

Sleep.  Repeat.