A Day in My Life Part 1

My day starts with a cry in the baby monitor. There is usually one or two kids in the bed, so I just never know when I wake up how the day will start. I look over at the clock to see if it is time for the babies to nurse. If it's not 7am I usually don't get up unless they are really crying. They are such good babies, that they will play around in their bed until I get there. With two of them, they keep each other company. Although their cribs are on opposite sides of the room, they can still see each other. If it's 7am, I get out of bed, hoping it's just one of them so I can bring them to bed and nurse while I still close my eyes...if I go in the room and there are two faces smiling at me, I sit and nurse them both. I absolutely love to nurse them both, I feel like they have really bonded from that. Abigail usually pats Madison on the head as she nurses, and Madison tries to poke Abigail in the face...so I have to keep batting their arms from each other. Once they are done, I put them down on the floor and they play while I change diapers and clothes. By then the oldest, Mikayla who is 7 going on 17, usually comes in to help and ask her 5 million questions that I am just not ready to answer at 7:30am. She loves to help, and loves her sisters. Once they are dressed, she keeps them busy while I go get myself dressed and get the boys on their routine of clean-up and getting dressed. The boys share a room, and they have finally gotten to the point where they just quietly wake up and play together until we are ready to go downstairs. They are 5 and 3, but in February they will have a birthday. They don't dare go downstairs, because I don't turn off the alarm until I get ready to go downstairs. That lesson was learned the hard way with a few mornings of waking up to that!! They don't go now without checking to see if that is on or off! So, next is breakfast, usually something with eggs. It is hard to please all the kids, so they don't get a choice, but I try my best. The most liked is scrambled eggs with sausage and cheese. If I don't have the energy to do their green/apple juice they will get a piece of toast. But if I do the juice (has blue-green algae, vitamin C, azomite clay powder and fish oil with a little apple juice), then they get some fruit or a small piece of toast. I really try to balance out their breakfast to keep their blood sugar stable throughout the day. More on this in another post. I try to eat a little while it's hot, and then I feed the babies...just started feeding them scrambled eggs this past week, as egg whites are an allergen. Before that it was just the egg yolk, with an avocado, banana, grated raw (frozen for more than 14 days) liver, cottage cheese (made with raw milk), and the same powder in the green juice. They eat amazingly right now, and I have to take advantage of that. You won't believe some of the things I get in them...beef heart, chicken liver, broccoli...just to name a few...there is very little that they won't eat right now. Next, I clean up, get the babies upstairs and a diaper change, and back to bed. Right now they are going through a no sleep phase, and I am trying to adjust their schedule. I just hope they aren't trying to go to one nap a day...but it seems to be leaning that way. I usually do some upstairs clean-up, make beds, pick up, open curtains. Then it's back downstairs to start home schooling for the older three. Since they are in the office, I get them started and check email simultaneously. Check to see what orders need to go out and get other business started. I try to keep the older three busy doing writing, phonics, and math first thing in the morning. Mikayla(7) is the main focus, and Nathan (5) gets the benefit of what she is learning plus his own. I work with him on his writing and phonics while Mikayla is doing her writing. Once I get the boys done with their assignments I send them to the playroom and work with Mikayla one on one for an hour or so. I give her work to do on her own so I can take care of the babies once they wake up. They nurse again when they wake up, mostly for comfort, and to transition from their nap. Next, it's lunch time. I try to have a menu done for the week so that I don't have to wonder what in the world to do for meals. I have standard options for breakfast and lunch, so that makes it simple. To keep this from being to long I decided to do this in parts, so more to come in part 2.