Day 5

8:00am My 3yr. old comes to my room. I hurry and get her on the toilet. She did pretty well but her underwear is a tiny bit damp. She decides she wants to wear a diaper. I put one on her because she's in charge of this. I get her a bowl of cereal and put on "Barbie Spy Squad," then crash on the couch.

9:00 I wake up surrounded by several more kids and my husband on his way out the door for work.
I get everyone who is awake breakfast and get myself breakfast.

10:00 My 10yr. old wakes up the baby and we read a chapter of "Charolotte's Web" while I nurse her. Then I read with my 7yr. old while the baby plays. The 5yr. old and 3yr. old make forts around us.

11:00 I wake up the last two sleepers, the 11yr. old and the 15yr. old. They get breakfast while I do math with the 10yr. old and 7yr. old. My 13yr. old has resumed his Raspberry pi case project. I interrupt him and send him to read the second chapter of "Charlotte's Web." My 11yr. old practices piano.

12:00pm People start getting lunch (those who had breakfast more two hours earlier). I help my 10yr. old do some grammar. The 7yr. old never finished his math. I got out our Math-U-See cubes to help him with two-digit subtraction but he wanted to build with them instead. The 5yr. old joined him and they are still working on their table-top forts. Now the 11yr. old has joined them. I remember why I never get those things out and why we stopped using Math-U-See as a curriculum in the first place.

1:00 I bully the 15yr. old into working on her geometry some more. I get out the geometry text book I checked out for her as a reference book but she refuses to look in it. I get some laundry started in the washer. I can just barely open the washer door but if I don't fold the clean laundry (which covers the laundry room floor) I won't be able to open it for the next wash so I'd better make time for that sometime today.

1:30 The 11yr. old reluctantly works on his math, ratios, and finishes all but the last problem before he claims he is done. I help him make himself lunch, then make myself lunch because I am starting to get cranky. I see that he hasn't finished but I want to have our "Charlotte's Web" lesson before it gets too much later. The 15yr. old has finished her math and is claiming she can't do her seminary (an online religious course she is supposed to be doing and hasn't done for at least a week). I look at the course web-page and figure out she needs to do the lessons consecutively to gain access to them. She's not happy I'm making her do this.

2:30 I research pork and protein to help with the discussion I am planning to have with the boys and check my email. The 15 yr. old has done 3 lessons in seminary.

3:00 The three older boys and I sit down to work on "Charlotte's Web" vocabulary from Novel Thinking and then discuss the first two chapters. The baby falls asleep.

4:00 I help the 11yr. old finish his math, then the 7yr. old finish his, without the use of the Math-U-See cubes. The 7yr. old reminds me I owe him some prizes for reading so we get the prize box. He picks out two plastic frogs that he gets to color with permanent markers. The 5yr. old sees that and wants one too. I let him pick one and then we sit down to do some of his work (that he hasn't touched in weeks). He does a few pages from Sing, Spell, Read and Write's All Aboard book, Handwriting without Tears, and his Singapore math Kindergarten Activity Book A.

5:00 I get out the permanent markers and lay newspaper on the table for the 7 and 5yr. olds to color their frogs. I check phone messages from yesterday (I have to page the phone because it's buried under some papers on the side table) and check my email. The baby wakes up. She's not happy with me but I peel and cut potatoes for dinner. The 11yr. old finishes his grammar and handwriting and gets on the computer to work on Scratch.

6:00 The potatoes are frying and I've rolled out butcher paper in the hallway while the 5yr. old and 7yr. old take turns playing Minecraft. The 10yr. old and I draw a semi-proportionate diagram of the solar system. The baby keeps scooting over the inner planets, krinkling our paper. The 13yr. old is checking out his new Raspberry pi that came by Fed Ex this morning. The 15yr. old comes down with a collection of origami cranes she just folded.

7:00 We've got the planets all drawn and colored, except Pluto. We ran out of room. The 15yr. old and I spend almost an hour taping the long roll of paper up in the hallway, cutting holes for doors and light switches. I decide we should have moved it down so we re-position it and now we have room for Pluto!

8:00 My husband comes home from work. The potatoes are half eaten and have been heated up again so he and I eat some. I make alternative dinners for all those who don't like fried potatoes.

8:30 The 15, 11, and 10yr. old go upstairs to watch the second half of "Lord of the Rings". The 13yr. old didn't like the idea of watching it in parts so he's going to watch it all tomorrow morning. The 5yr. old makes more planet drawings. There is now Bobland Planet just past Pluto. The baby and 3yr. old sprinkle the floor with markers.

9:00 We clean up the markers and shoo the little kids upstairs to get ready for bed. I help the 7yr. old brush his teeth, forget to help the 5yr. old, and leave my husband to finish bedtime while I work on the 3yr. old. She's wearing underwear again. She wears it more at night than during the day. We count all the days on her calendar then read "Happy Easter, Biscuit," her current favorite, which consists of me reading only as fast as she points to the words. This is all her idea. She's finally in bed.

9:30 I console the 7yr. old who is quite distraught that he doesn't get to watch "Lord of the Rings". I try to explain to him that he'll get to do many other fun things that his older siblings didn't get to do because we had little kids when they were teenagers and that he'll eventually get to watch the movie too. He isn't convinces and I leave to his moaning loudly.

10:00 I try to convince the 13yr. old to go read his WWII novel now so he isn't up so late.

10:30 "Lord of the Rings" is over and the three watching it come down for second dinner. I would think they were Hobbits but they're much more noticeable.

11:00 They have all gone to bed. The 13yr. old is reading now, upstairs. My husband and I start to watch "Spiderman," (2002 version) because I promised my 7yr. old we'd preview it and decide if it was OK for him to watch.

1:30 "Spiderman" is finally over. We've decided it's actually pretty tame with only one intense fight scene at the end. Bedtime. Yeah!