If nothing else, writing these Week in My Life post (an Adventuroo inventuroo) has taught me that I’m not, in fact, oversleeping every day. I’m beginning to accept that fact that I just don’t get up before 7:45. So instead of saying “I have to stop oversleeping!” it ought to be “I need to start waking up earlier.” That’s somewhat less negative. (And yes, I did sleep until 7:45 again yesterday. I’m aiming for 7:15 today.)
Yesterday was pretty much like the day before and most of our other days, for that matter: cereal, homeschool, computer time, some TV-watching, etc. These posts haven’t entirely represented our usual life in that I don’t watch all that much baseball, but the Tigers are playing in the ALCS and I’m fond of the Tigers. So there’s been a lot of baseball going on this week.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to decorate the mantel since we moved into our new house in August. So far I haven’t made much progress, but I did make some art today that I think I’m going to put up there. I took a couple of profile pictures of the kids, played around with them in Photoshop and then had them printed at WalMart. I’d like to get some matted frames to put them in, but if I just use frames I already have the project will have costed all of 41 cents.
Rockford had a work dinner to go to last night, so we stopped at Taco Bell on our way home from the store. With the help of a couple of coupons, we spent less than $5 on dinner. After dinner I set the kids up in their sleeping bags and let them watch “The Muppets Take Manhattan.” We usually have movie night on Fridays, but I needed a bit of a break and didn’t really want to put the kids in bed at 6:30pm.
I overslept yet again, which lead to trouble on down the road. The kids climbed into bed with me for some cuddling, though, so that was nice. And the “trouble” wasn’t really all that troubling. It just meant that I buckled when the kids asked to watch a show first thing in the morning, so we ended up eating breakfast, getting dressed and watching “My Little Pony” rather than eating, dressing and started the schoolwork. There are worse things, but I’d still like to start getting up earlier.
After the TV interlude, we got started on schoolwork. Pete usually does one or two worksheets from a preschool workbook and then he heads off to play in his room while Poppy finishes her work. Today he built a “tall, tall tower” and made his cars have a very involved conversation followed by a battle.
Yesterday was the first day she’s had to face a Spelling List, and it was a little tough for her. She doesn’t like to get the “wrong” answer, and today’s lesson asked her to try to spell the words on the list without any assistance. We talked about how the program works – that she’d have games and worksheets throughout the next several days that would teach her how to spell the words – and she finally stopped worrying about it.
We’re currently talking about the circulatory system in science, and yesterday was lab day. Poppy recorded her heart rate after doing several different activities, and then she filled out a chart to show her heart rate after each activity. It was fun, but I think she might be doing push-ups wrong. Her heart rate after push-ups was lower than it was after sitting still for a full minute. Curious.
The afternoon
The boy requested a bean and rice burrito again for lunch today, and it’s hard to say no to a kid asking for beans. Poppy’s been doing a better job trying vegetables at dinnertime, but I can’t imagine a day when she’d ask for beans. She had mac & cheese. Rockford came home for lunch, too, and read half of a chapter of our current chapter book, “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” to Poppy. He would’ve read to Pete, too, but Pete has issues with staying still.
The kids’ bedrooms were the focus areas on my cleaning list yesterday, so we all worked together to finish picking up toys and putting new sheets on the beds before I vacuumed. The kids had their regularly scheduled TV time after Rockford went back to work, and then they went to their rooms for Quiet Time. Pete opted not sleep today, but he did stay in his room, which meant that I got my Quiet Time, too. I took advantage of it by folding laundry, making 1 billion meatballs and Photoshopping someone’s head onto someone else’s body for one of my brother’s co-workers. Apropos of nothing: This is Marsha T. Cat staring down her nemesis, Boo Radley. He lives next door.
The evening
I know: Danger! But I was at a stop light. And the sweet glasses? Rockford bought them for me at a gas station.
The kids and I ran out to the store to pick up a few things, and I saw something there that I should not be seeing in the middle of October: Eggnog. The proprietors clearly aren’t adhering to Nichole’s Laws of Holiday Consumables, which state that the season’s first glass of eggnog can be consumed no earlier than the day after Thanksgiving. And eggnog shouldn’t last from mid-October until late November, so one could surmise that the eggnog they’re currently stocking is meant to be consumed before Thanksgiving. Inconceivable.
Anywho, we had meatball sandwiches for dinner. (The rest of the 1 billion meatballs are in the freezer.) Then it was baths, books and bed for the kids and more baseball and – insert your own enthusiastic vocal intonations here – the return of “Psych” for Rockford and me.
