Hellobee

It has definitely been a while since I posted a blog here on Hellobee. It is kind of like saying hello to old friends who I haven’t seen in awhile. So I figured a quick day in the life post would help us catch up. Now we are a household with 2 full time working parents. My three boys are in 3rd grade. My oldest is 9 and the twins are 8. My daughter is in kindergarten and she is now 6. I don’t know what shocks me more; that my boys are headed into upper elementary or that my little baby really isn’t much of a baby any more.

It was windy on this hike but we made it to the top. Life with big kids is a wild and fun adventure.

So here is a glimpse into a typical day, with all the chaos and craziness that you might imagine in a household with four kiddos.

5:30 – The calm before the storm.

I wake up first. I have to get myself and all of my things ready before waking up the kids because once they wake up it is a crap shoot whether we will have a fabulous easy morning or an all out brawl kind of morning. I get up and shower, make coffee, change a load of laundry and then get myself dressed.

6:00 or 6:30 – I wake up the beasts.

Tuesdays and Thursdays they go to school early for running club so I get them up at 6. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we get the luxury of that extra 30 minutes. I get to drink a cup of coffee and work on this blog post before getting them up. I love that extra 30 minutes of uninterrupted, coffee drinking, work time. It is quiet bliss.

6:30- 7:30 – Will we make it to school on time?

Just kidding, we are always on time. I am that person, you know the kind that is always early and always worried about being late.

Mr. Train’s alarm goes off at 6:30. He is very slow moving in the morning so we don’t see him right away but in 10 to 15 minutes he will come out looking for coffee. I get the kids their breakfast and while they are eating I make their lunches. Sometimes if I don’t have it done yet Mr. Train will jump in and help.

After breakfast the kids have to clear their own plates. They have to get dressed, fill their water bottles and pack their back packs.  They have to brush their teeth and hair. I still have to brush my daughter’s hair and that can be an ordeal. Curly hair is fabulous and awful all at the same time. They also have to feed the dogs. They are supposed to be ready to go before Grandma and Papa walk into the house. My mom and dad are retired and do school drop off and pick up. Hallelujah! This is a life saver. Some mornings they are done and ready to go and other times I find myself yelling at them, “I swear I will put you in the car in your underwear if you don’t stop goofing around and get dressed.” Why they think it’s fun to wrestle in their underwear is one of those boy mysteries that I have come to accept. Thankfully I haven’t had to take them to school in various degrees of undress, but when Mama has to get to work there is no room for tardiness.

So my four crazies pile into the car and off they go.

7:30 – 3:30   – Time to work

I am an elementary school science teacher. I see a wide age range of of kids, starting with 2-year-olds and going all the way up through fifth grade.  This is my third year back in the classroom after taking an 8 year break while my kids were young.  Now that I have been doing it for a few years I can get most of my planning and grading done during the school day so I don’t have as much to do at home as I did the first year.

There are some days when I am so busy and I see so many kids that if feels like I am on the go constantly. I get to the end of the day and look at my poor full travel mug of coffee and realize I never stopped to eat or drink. A full cold cup of coffee is so sad to see. On those days I feel a bit like a zombie when I get off work. Other days my teaching schedule is a little more spread out and I am a little less busy. I might get some time to sit and drink that coffee while grading and planning. On those days I am a little less frazzled at the end. I try not to let my work schedule affect my life when I get home, but let’s face it, moms who are teachers are sometimes tired of children screaming at them all day only to come home and be screamed at some more.

They say I am like Ms. Frizzle! I don’t know where they would ever get that idea.

3:30 – The War Zone

After school can be a struggle. The kids are tired, Mama is tired and Dad is still working. He works from home so he is here in the house in case things get really rough, but he is still technically working. Third grade has been a rough year on my boys. There are a lot of changes from second to third grade and adjusting to that can be tricky. But that can be for another post. Here is the main thing — if they struggle all day to keep it together and be good at school, everything hits the fan when they get home.

I get home a little bit after my parents come home with the kids. Sometimes I walk in and the house is quiet and some are at the table with my dad doing homework and other times it’s like walking into a Wrestlemania show. Our goal is try to get homework done first thing to get it out of the way. It does not always work. To be honest this is the hardest part of our day. We have tried all different ways of handling homework. We have tried all different times of day. We have tried breaking it up into smaller sessions. I am not kidding we have tried everything, and no matter when or how I am always battling someone. In fact as I am proofreading this, one is writhing around on the floor in his bedroom complaining about how unfair it is that he should have to read.

They also have a daily chore. It might be taking out a trash barrel, or cleaning the sink in their bathroom, or vacuuming the living room. Each kid does one thing to be helpful to the family each day. They often ask if they get anything for the chores like money or a treat. My response is always the same. You get a roof over your head, clothes on your body and food in your tummy. This is just part of being in this family.

4:30 – Someone has to cook

It is usually me or my mom. If the kids  sat nicely and did their homework they will be done by now and go run around outside. Most of the time I am still fighting the good fight and trying to get everyone done with everything, all while trying to figure out what the heck to feed these crazy monsters. Mr. Train is usually done with work and he can tag in with whoever is struggling, and in turn saves what is left of my sanity. I love cooking. If I can be in the kitchen with some music playing, I love it. If there is a constant barrage of: Mom do you know where this is, Mom he hit me, Mom can you do this, mom mom mom mom mom, then I go a little nuts. I swear we taught them the word dad but it doesn’t seem to stick in their vocabulary.

5 or 5:30ish – Meal Time

Depending on when I get my act together we sit down and have dinner. Most of the time we have family dinner with the six of us and my parents. So every night we are cooking for 8. Mr. Train even built us a brand new big table so we can all fit around it. I look forward to this time with my family. Even when they have been fussy about homework, or bugged me relentlessly since walking in the door, or thrown a huge fit and yelled I hate you (yep that happens), they tend to relax and sit down. Everyone shares things about their day.  My boys have even started asking me about my day. Yesterday after throwing a particularly ridiculous fit about something one of my boys said, “Mom I know I made your day rough after school but how was work?”

As a mom of big kids this is impressive and interesting to see. They are becoming their own person with their own personalities and around our table I get to see it unfolding. We are not making them do homework or chores; we are just sitting around enjoying food and each other. It is a nice time of day. I am not going to lie, it’s not all perfect; there are some days when the shenanigans carry over into meal time, but for the most part it is an enjoyable part of my day.

6-8 – Home stretch before bed time

After dinner they clear their plates and head to the showers. They have two bathrooms so we have to do shifts. Either my mom or Mr. Train usually do the dishes while I tend to showers, laundry and some of the other chores around the house. When they are all showered and ready for bed we read together. We usually read some harder chapter books that they might not want to read on their own. We just finished Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and have moved on to A Series of Unfortunate Events. We have a lot of books on our list to read like Percy Jackson and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, but it does take some time to get through all these books. So we will see what we read next. They tend to pick books that have movies so that we can have a movie night when we are done. At around 8 it is off to bed. I do my rounds and say good night to each of them all while praying that they just go to bed easily. My oldest and youngest have their own rooms and fall asleep pretty quickly. The twins share a room. They chat and like to come out for about 100 different things every night until I lose my cool and yell. I’m not proud of that, it just happens.

8-11 – Time without children

In the evenings I usually try to get a few chores done like cleaning or laundry (seriously there is always laundry). I am currently taking a class for writing picture books so I often have my own homework or videos to watch. There are some nights where I just sit down and watch TV until I go to bed. Everyone is allowed to have some relaxation time right? Even moms? It is nice when Mr. Train and I have an evening where we both have nothing to do. Then we can sit down and catch up on some of the shows we watch together.

I try to make sure I am asleep by 11.  If not, I am exhausted in the morning. Of course there are also nights I find myself in bed at 9 after I get everyone to fall asleep.

There are days that are different. For example, Tuesday nights we have cub scouts. Mr. Train and I are the leaders so we spend a great deal of time during the week planning for our meetings and managing all the behind the scenes stuff. Wednesday is girl scouts so one of us has to drive our daughter while someone else stays with the boys. Fridays we try to have family movie night and the weekends are always packed with activities. We seem to be on the go a lot but it keeps life interesting. Besides being a bit tired I wouldn’t change it for the world. The chaos and craziness is all mine and I love it.