A day in February

***this post was started on Wednesday of last week. I never got to finish it and then I decided I'd better just post what I have.***

Wednesday evening, Feb. 9th...

Tess is cranky in John's lap and it's already very late (for me), so I'm going to throw this out in the same slightly manic stream of consciousness style as the last post. :)

Here was our day today,,,a pretty typical day at home.

5:30- I'm awake, kind of. Tess wants to nurse. I reach over into her crib which is still bumpered up co-sleeping style and pull her to me. Jack is curled up at my back..he starts out in his own bed but always winds up in mine by morning, and I can hear sounds of John getting ready for work. It's really windy and blustery sounding...rain is forcasted this morning.

5:50- I'm up, making coffee, saying my Angelus in the kitchen. John is at the computer eating breakfast. We don't speak much, each just kind of doing our own morning thing. Kain is asleep on the couch. He very often travels in his sleep as well. I sit with my coffee and my prayer journal and my Bible and pray everyone stays asleep. John leaves for work about 20 minutes later. Muchas smooches.

6:50- I go outside to pull the laundry hanging on the line from yesterday. It is supposed to rain this morning, so today's loads, washed and waiting, will have to wait until later.

7:00- Everyone is still asleep. Often Kain is up by now, and sometimes Jack too, but not today. I start hot cocoa and prod the older two out of bed. We have breakfast- English muffins, bagels, cereal. We have morning prayers..morning offering, prayer intentions, spiritual communion, and I read a chapter out of the Faith and Life second grade book. We read the first half in preparation for Kain's first confession, and now we are reading the second half for his first communion coming up this spring. The review is good for Maria. We pull out a saint card of the day...the Blessed Mother!, and we read the consecration to the Immaculate Heart on the back. Jack wanders down during this and eats a bit, and then Tess wakes up. Maria goes to get her and she turns her nose up at rice cereal (why do I buy baby food? this is my third baby to reject it and now I feel like I have to try and use up what I've bought) and eats some Cheerios instead.

8:00- I unload the dishwasher and head upstairs with Tess, leaving the kids to do their meal chores and morning lists. Maria clears the table, starts a bath for Jack, and gets herself ready. Then she is supposed to start her list of school work that she can do on her own...spelling, math sheets, reading a chapter of the gospel of Mark, filling in a map of ancient Egypt, practicing her Latin flashcards, a grammar worksheet, practicing calligraphy for art, doing an assignment of Editor in Chief. Kain is supposed to make some attempt at loading the dishwasher and get himself ready for the day. Upstairs, I change, dress, and nurse Tess and get myself ready. Jack, finished with his bath and dressed by Maria, comes upstairs and joins me on the bed while I'm nursing Tess. He has a couple of books in hand. We read Going on a Bear Hunt and Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear. He starts giggling at the animal sounds, and Tess starts giggling at him, and it is a cute moment, snuggled up with the two little ones.

Sometime around nine- I come downstairs and Kain is dragging his feet through his morning list. I check the dishwasher and he has done his typical passing gesture at his chores, leaving the sink a mess and most of the dishes still unloaded. I call him in, lecture him, and tell him since I'm doing his chore he will be unloading the dishwasher for me later, and then I have him help/observe as I finish loading. He still hasn't done anything towards getting himself dressed, so I send him off to do that.

9:45- Tess falls asleep on me and I lay her in the crib. We head outside. I want to work on cleaning up fallen branches from the storm. We do that for a bit but most of them are too heavy and it's clear we will have to borrow my parent's chainsaw. I work on clearing some overgrown scrub around the fence instead. It's slow and tedious. Jack and Kain jump on the trampoline and Maria prowls around our huge yard searching for materials to build fairy houses. Kain gets in trouble for being too rough, repeatedly, with Jack on the trampoline, so I have him get off and haul a few branches to the curb for me. Jack decides he wants to "help", so I give him a rake to pull around and have him stomp up and down in the yard waste can to smoosh the leaves down. Eventually we hear Tess on the monitor and go inside. It's still bright and sunny and I'm wishing I had gone ahead and hung out the laundry. Obviously the rain is coming later than forcasted.

noonish- We have "quesadillas" for lunch...just some tortillas with beans and cheese toasted in a skillet. After lunch, Kain unloads the dishwasher amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth because it's "NOT FAIR". Maria clears the table, and I get Jack pottied and ready for rest time. Maria goes to her room to read "Mara, Daughter of the Nile" for history and Kain goes to the playroom with "Magic Treehouse- Night of the Ninjas". I put Tess on the floor to play for a bit, then nurse her and lay her down.

around 2pm- I sit with Kain and slowly, tediously, with much forced patience, work through a Saxon math lesson with him. I have to redirect him every 2 minutes and it's enough to make me insane. Jack plays with his trains, Maria watches The Cosby Show. When I'm done with Kain's math, he takes a break and has a snack and Maria and I work together. She recites her current poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" for me, and then her catechism questions. We work on her Latin lesson together and then on a lesson from the Balances unit in TOPS science. I go over some grammar corrections and then work on a new lesson in Easy Grammar...predicate nominatives...working with Maria is quick and easy. She just wants to get done and she works fast. Her poetry is the best part. She pulls out playsilks and puts on a show for now-awake Tess while she recites it. Jack imitates her with his own silks. Very cool, to see your 4 years old reciting Yeats to your baby. :) Then I call Kain back, much to his irritation. His mood has been really lousy today. We read a bible story, work on his memory work including his poem, "The Children's Hour", and catechism questions, and a page from his map workbook. I then leave him to copy some sentences out of his grammar book and do a music worksheet. Enter more wailing and gnashing of teeth. Grrr.

During all of this, we float around a bit. Tess starts out on the laid out futon with some toys, then moves to my lap, then we all move into the dining room and I put her in her high chair with some banana and a couple of animal crackers, then back to my lap again. After Kain is done, I sit with Jack and we do a fun little Valentine-y lesson, sorting different colors of foam hearts into cups. He reads a Bob book to me too. And I'm done. Phew.

***I lost my computer time and then rest of my day here. I tried to do it from memory, but it's really just not the same. So, I'll stop here and try again next month. Basically at this point I got dinner on, tried to do some housework, etc., and then we ate dinner, I dropped Maria off at church for PSR and then came home and got the boys ready for bed, read to Kain out of his current history book, "Squanto, Friend of Pilgrims", read something to Jack for bedtime, went to pick up Maria from church, put the boys in bed, then watched American Idol with Maria. But the little details and moments are gone now that it's a week later. John came home sometime soon after the boys were in bed. He works 12 hour shifts, so his days are long.