A day in the life of

I've had a recent request for a "Day in the life of" post. It's quite long, I apologize. Also, I wrote this early this last summer and then never posted it, so some things seem a little skewed.

5:30am - Partner #2 gets up before the kids so she can get some quiet wake up time sans kids and their demands, and noise, and smells, and questionable eating habits. Plus she's a totally geek and studies Latin in the morning.

6:30am - Kids are allowed up. Commence chaos.

8:00am - Partner #1 and I are supposed to be up at this point... Neither of us are morning people. The fact that coffee is usually ready and waiting for us helps immensely. At this point the kids are kicked downstairs to the playroom or outside for Coffee Break! The first half is devoted to Facebook, emails, and other online activities, but 8:30 is when all devices are shut down and we have actual adult conversation.

9:00am - Work time.... supposedly. I go to my office and usually continue Facebooking where I left off for another half hour or so. Partner #2 answers children's demands that have built up over the last hour, or goes outside for some gardening, sometimes a combination of both. Partner #1 also reopens his ipad and watches youtube videos for another couple hours... I'm not even kidding. (Although to his credit, its most often work related)

11:00am - At this point in the school year, I would take the baby and entertain her until lunch time, however it's summer. I may come out for some breakfast. Partner #1 will come into the office to say bye for the day and maybe fill me in on all the youtube he watched.

12:00pm - 1:00pm - Baby usually goes down for a nap at some point in here. The kids are kicked outside threatened on pain of death! if they come in and wake the baby! Partner #2 and I sometimes get some r&r at this point. She is studying Don Quixote, so she may read that while I read one of the maybe 10 books I've got going on at one time. Or I walk my moronic (I love him so much!) dog, Jackson.

1:00pm - 4:00pm - Within this time a variety of things could take place. Often for me this is usually project, or fall asleep on the couch time. This is when I have time to work on a small project, like installing the hooks for those hanging baskets I bought several months ago.... Or chip away at the mountain of laundry that never ever goes down, or work on this blog! Partner #2 may do some summer school with the kids or she works on and researches plans for the upcoming year. Occasionally we'll go for a walk to the mailboxes, because snail mail around here is a big deal!

Also during this time, we have "quiet time". Being a home school family, our kids are around each other 24 freaking 7, and we are around the kids all the time. Especially Partner #2. So we have quiet time. This is when all members of the family, adults included, go to their own separate areas of the house and do our own thing. We have a special closet chock-full of toys specifically for quiet time, to keep things exciting. We also just want to encourage the ability to play by themselves. We want them to realize that they don't always have to be together, that they can have fun using their own imaginations. It's a magical time.

Partner #1 is usually in and out of the house in this time, eating, making phone calls, etc.

4:00pm - This is when I do dishes. When I first moved in, the everyday mess our family of 7 made was more than I could handle, so I was cleaning constantly and doing the dishes 3 - 4 times a day, just to keep myself sane. I finally had to say enough. I made the one side of the kitchen counter for dirty dishes only. No where else are dishes allowed. And the kids have to clear their own dishes off the table.

ALSO (parents take note!) we started packing lunches. Crazy, I know, to do this in the summer, but oh lord, it has been like a miracle. The kids typically get snack, lunch, and then another snack everyday. And before it was almost every hour "Mom, is it snack time? When is lunch time? Whats are we eating? Oh I don't like that". Plus the dishes! God and the mess and time preparing 5 bloody meals everyday! Now, we pack a couple of lunch containers for each kid the night before and that is their food for the day. They eat whenever they want, but that's it. No more dishes, SO much less mess, no more harassing! Its glorious!

5:00pm - This is magic time for the kids. It's screen time, the kids are allowed to watch T.V. We have so much around us outside, plus a giant playroom that we think the kids shouldn't be sitting in front of the T.V all day. So they get this hour or so to watch T.V while one of us makes dinner. The problem with this, is that we've totally put television up on a pedestal accidentally. Screens almost have this mystical quality now. But, it gives whoever is making dinner some measure of calm. While one parent is doing that, one of the others is bathing the baby. Its really quite nice.

6:00pm - 7:00pm - Dinner, dinner, dinner!

7:00pm - The kids start getting ready for bed. We alternate bath nights, boys and girls. So the kids get a bath at least every second day. With the amount they play outside often they need a quick hose down on their off nights anyways. The whole getting-kids-to-bed process tends to take a long time. While Partner #2 puts the baby to sleep, the other 3 are left to take care of their teeth (floss THEN brush!), put on their jam-jams, and get into bed to await story time. With 3 kids packed into one bathroom, not a lot seems to get done.

7:30pm - Moms are off duty. That means if you arn't done and in bed, there is no story time. There is usually at least one kid straggling behind. Partner #1, if he is home from work yet, goes in after us to snuggle and catch up on everyone's day. Often he falls asleep with them.

8:00pm - Decompress. Breathe. Our life is just go, go, go. There is always something to do, always something pressing. Often there are activities that throw a wrench in all the best laid plans, typically ranch business. This 8pm time is our time to destress. More then often we all sit together on the couch and talk, talk about our day, talk about the future, talk about us. Often we multitask and use this time to pursue our hobbies, while we catch up with each other. I've taken to visiting the horses at night or hanging out with my dog. Sometimes we all go walk dogs together, which sometimes leads to a stroll through the sheep pen, or up to the ponds. Or if we get at it early enough we'll rent a movie or a show.

10:00pm - Bedtime usually. For Partner #2 and I, anyways. We've all come to terms with the fact that if I don't get 8 - 10 hours of sleep each night, I'm a terrible person. Partner #2 gets up at 5:30 so it makes sense that she goes to bed at this time. Partner #1 often stays up till midnight or later watching T.V or whatever. His responsibilities with the ranch and whatnot are weighty and he tends to need more time to decompress than we do.

Alternate Endings!
1. It's not the summer, it's the school year. Things look a lot different. This year they will look a lot different from last year as well. For starters, coffee break ends promptly at 9:00am, and school starts. Snack and lunch time are scheduled and have a loose time limit. Last year at 11:00, was my time to take the baby during that last hour before lunch. Once lunch was over, school was more or less over for the day, the kids get kicked outside, baby naps, and quiet time is daily, without fail. Often there is a little science or history in the afternoon.

2. Town days, this all goes to heck. On town days you can disregard everything from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Living so far out of town, you can't just whip in if you forgot coffee cream, or if the garbage needs emptying, so town days are a full-day, activity packed event. Usually the morning before we leave is spent loading up the van with recycling, garbage, library books, and whatever else we may need to get accomplished that day. Somewhere in the chaos, someone will pack snacks, water bottles, and the diaper bag. Loading up the kids is a gong-show. They are allowed 1 toy per hand. When they grow a 3rd hand, they can have a 3rd toy. I suppose this rule would have to be tweaked if one of our kids lost a hand....

If we don't get home by 5:00pm, there is usually some bemoaning about missing screen time. It's usually chaos by the time we get home, trying to get dinner started, while unloading a van full or groceries and treasures, cajoling kids into cleaning up their spaces in the van, as well as enlisting their help unloading while listening to them whine about missing screen time, all while trying to get the baby bathed and fed, so she can get to bed, and we can get the groceries put away.

3. Sundays! During the school year, Sunday is the day off. Very minimal school, if any, ended off with family movie night and a popcorn and veggie tray dinner. Its really quite nice.

4. Ranch business. If something comes up on the ranch that requires the efforts of more than just Partner #1, Partner #2 and I are automatically enlisted. Often it has to do with sorting cattle in a tight, sh** filled pen. (The first time I did this by the way, I unwittingly wore runners. I had to throw them out). Recently, I helped sheer sheep. That was an education. Or simply the whole family, kids and all, act as a human wall while directing cows or sheep from one field to another.

And that's it. Totally normal.... Right? Completely like everyone else's life.