Tag Archives: How we do

How We Do–Crossing the Street

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Going out has, believe it or not, gotten a bit easier.  As the older kids can help the youngers and “fend for themselves,” my main job is making sure we get from A to B without karate chopping any bystanders.

I typically will wear a baby up to about 9 months.  When grocery shopping, that means that the shopping cart is free for the youngest.  The other children know to stay near by.
When we are crossing a parking lot or street, children three and younger have a buddy.  Very early on, they learn to walk holding a buddy’s hand.  No protests allowed.  If they do arise, we go back to the car immediately and address the situation and try again.  As of now, Malachi is still learning, so his main teacher is me.  He’s gradually getting the idea and will hold his buddy’s hand for short periods of time.  The problem now is that he wants to hold two buddies hands.  Since Ceili Rain is older and sticks with us, she usually will grab the other hand.
Buddies are also in charge of buckling up their little buddies.
Crowds freak me out when I am out with my crew.  We have several ways we negotiate crowds or cramped spaces.
1.  Ducklings:  When there is a crowd and very little wiggle room and Mark is with me, we call, “Ducklings.”  The kids have learned to line up behind daddy “duck” and I bring up the rear counting about every two or three seconds. 
2.  T-shirts:  When we can prepare ahead of time (and I actually can remember) we wear matching t-shirts.  When we went to D.C. a couple of years ago, we wore red sibling shirts.  We now have matching “school” shirts.  Those were worn when we headed to the homeschool conference last year.  Yes, we get lots of compliments and shocked stares, but my main goal is to make sure I see seven to eight (if Mark is with us) little red or orange shirts bobbing along.
3.  Grab Your Buddy:  If it’s not too crowded but an unfamiliar place, we have the kids buddy up.  We still have one and half who don’t really have a buddy (Liam is still part time since Malachi can be stroller bound if needed to wrangle him).  They stick close to me (or Mark) when we are moving and grooving.

Check out how Vitafamiliae makes it through a parking lot without squashed kids.

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How We Do Laundry

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Time to talk about how we do things with our bunch.  This week Vitafamiliae is talking about laundry.  Sorry for the lack of pictures, having trouble getting

We currently do two big laundry days, Tuesdays and Fridays (or sometimes Saturdays).  Those are our clothes days.  We do towels, sheets, napkins, and diapers in between but those are usually only one or two loads at a time.  
So, we have one child who runs the washer, currently that’s Ceili Rain.  Josiah swaps the clothes from the washer to the dryer and from the dryer to the master bedroom floor.   Then three kids who fold clothes.  Zoe, Ace, and Liam usually will fold clothes when the littles go to bed that morning.  I confess. Clothes some times do not get folded until the next day (or day after).  But eventually, they get folded.

The kids clothes are sorted and put in their laundry bags.  I picked these babies up online and had some awesome friends embroider the kids names on them.  Love these bags!  
The kids from Josiah up can put their clothes up on their own.  Ceili Rain and Bryant are still learning and, honestly, I have not been consistent in teaching them how to do it.  I’m getting there.
As far as clothes storage, we hang up their church clothes.  The girls have one dresser they share.  Two boys share a dresser and three boys share a larger dresser.  So far, this has worked.  As the kids get bigger we’ll had to change our system (and when we add a third girl to the girls’ room).
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How We Do Mornings

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So, Vitafamiliae is starting a series on Tuesdays called, “How we do…”  I thought I would join in, if anything, to record what our life looks like now so we can laugh about it later.

I’m a week behind.  Nevertheless, I’m here.

Last week, she posted on how she does mornings.  And here is our take on mornings.

I am usually up around 6:30 or sooner.  The sooner being if Malachi is standing at his baby gate whispering for daddy.  Daddy, however, is out the door early in the morning before the crew gets up.  It’s not fun not having daddy home in the mornings, but he has a long commute and we decided early on in our parentage that we would much rather the kids see him in the evenings and get a longer uninterrupted time with him than for an hour or two in the mornings or an hour or two in the evenings (FYI, his job is flexible enough that he could go in later, come home later if that’s what he wanted…cool job.  I know).

So, I’m usually up and at ’em and well on my way to preparing breakfast as the kids get up around 7.  Breakfast is usually different every day of the week.  We changed our diet about seven years ago and with that change, we added a more substantial breakfast to it.  Usually, we have muffins (from scratch), biscuits, or something relatively healthy with a protein.  Since we are usually up late on Wednesdays (church), Thursdays are cereal day.  The day I took pictures however, was a Wednesday.  Wednesdays are Awana.  Not a big deal, except that Malachi woke up at 6.  That’s not good for a little one who has to take one nap and be up until much later.  So, I rocked him.  For almost two hours.  And he slept in my arms and was content.  And I snuggled close while Emmie kicked the fool out of him for invading her space.  It was nothing short of sweetness.  Because of all that, we got a late start which led to that day being a cereal day.  Flexibility is the key my friends.

Once breakfast is out on the table and kids are dressed (very important in our house…otherwise they spend two to three hours getting dressed after breakfast), we sit down and eat.  Then, we have a bit of school to start the morning off.

We always start with our Biblical worldview course (found this from Apologia and am thoroughly enjoying getting the basics of what we believe and why set up) and then either History or Science.  I read and we discus.  Sometimes it’s a lot of discussion and sometimes it’s a lot of correction on how to sit and listen.  The kids have Science journals, worldview journals, and History worksheets that they can work on while I read.

Zoe didn’t realized I was trying to get action shots of her working.

After breakfast and Table Time, we do our chores.  Chores are set up on our chore chart and I have dreams that one day the children will do them without having to be reminded a 100 times.  One can dream, can’t they?

Our morning chore chart.  Sometimes it’s just the basics (sweep, wash dishes) and others it’s this.

Anyway, after chores, and general grooming…teeth brushing, hair brushing, changing a diaper…the kids sit down for school.  It takes me a good two to three months to get in to a routine for the new school year (especially since we keep adding a kid a year or so), but what works this year is that I do math drills with those that need it (usually, Ace, Liam, and Josiah) and then work on or go over school with Zoe and Ace.  Ceili Rain and I can usually get in some flashcard practice or crtical thinking sheets in the morning too.  I work with Josiah and Liam in the afternoons.

Some days it’s easy peasy like this…others…well, it looks like this:
Just a note, this picture was taken Monday after a week of trying to heal from “the virus.”  It was a tough day all around.
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