Our week

I get a lot of questions about how we function from week to week. The Bolanders are insanely busy from the moment we wake up until our insomnia finally gives in and we fall asleep.

Thankfully since we home school we do not have to wake up early. The kids typically wake up around 7 and play and find some snacks. I roll out of bed at 7:30/8 (sometimes later, I'm not going to lie). Before I get out of bed Willy Jr or Tilly bring me a Diet Dr Pepper in bed. I would call this being spoiled, but I think it's more of a defense mechanism for the kids; When mommy's not caffeinated things go bad quickly. As soon as my feet hit the floor I'm up with 5 kids begging for food... you know, like they didn't just eat bananas, 3lbs of cashews, rice cakes and 1lb or raisins already. Breakfast is usually eggs or oatmeal. Since were gluten and dairy free cereal isn't really possible. My kids are not picky eaters in any sense but they will not touch rice/almond/soy milk. Eitan has horrible acid reflux from being so premature so when I remember, I give him his medication, most days though, he goes without. Responsibility is obviously something I take very seriously....

After breakfast I shout the same thing every single day, and every day after breakfast my kids wander around like they don't know what to do with themselves."Get dressed, make your beds and brush your teeth". They can quote it, yet get complete amnesia every morning after they eat. After they are ready they have chores while I get ready. Lisa gets all the dirty laundry into the laundry room, Willy Jr does the dishes, Tilly gets all of the house trash into the kitchen trash and Eitan feeds the cats. I battle Sawyer and get him dressed. He takes his diaper to the kitchen trash, and then proceeds to pull out all of the trash his sister just put in. Ever.Single.Day

After all of that mess we start school. Some days at this point I'm dressed, ready and even managed to brush my teeth. Most days though I'm still in whatever I fell asleep in. At some point before noon I do manage to get dressed. We recently switched to a subject a day. Math Monday, Social studies/History Tuesday, Science Wednesday,  Language arts Thursday and whatever we didn't finish on Friday. This has been fantastic. Except for Mondays, nobody likes math Monday. We have a school room/office but we never use it. Were set up at the kitchen table. Each kid has 5 drawers with 1 workbook pencil and eraser in each. On math Monday they go to their drawer labeled math, pull out their book and start working. Willy and Tilly are in the same grade math wise so they sit next to eachother and I work with them for about 10 minutes explaining whatever it is that is in their workbook that day. Then they start. Lisa is supposed to open her book and read the instructions and see what she can figure out before I come help. Every Monday this equates to her sitting and doing nothing for 10 minutes. Eitan has a workbook too. He likes to do "REAL" school. His is mostly tracing shapes and doing mazes. Everyone knows that I walk in a clockwise circle at the table. When I'm standing behind you, its your turn to ask questions. If I am not behind you, you sit and wait, or skip the question your stuck on until I get to you. I'm constantly hovering and walking in circles. I like to consider this my daily exercise. Once you have completed your pages for the day, your done. Go play, go destroy, just stay out of the kitchen. On days where I am doing most of the reading we sit on the sofa and the kids rotate who sits next to me.

Each week we participate in Gymnastics, BMX, Flag football practice, flag football games, drama, Speech therapy, play therapy and homeschool co-op. Once a month we have a foster/adoptive support group meeting and marine biology club meeting. This keeps our afternoons very busy. We spend a lot of time in the car driving from one place to another. If the kids were feeling ... less than motivated to finish the schoolwork then these extra curricular activities don't happen. I have been known to make them get dressed up for whatever were going to and make them sit and watch their friends while they finish their school work. It's amazing how quickly work gets done when all of your friends are playing and your not.

My kids are very active. Even though they only drink water I'm pretty sure someone is sneaking them caffeine when I'm not looking. Earlier this week I found Lisa "napping" on the roof. Eitan jumped over our 6ft privacy fence AND over our 4ft "impenetrable" pool fence. One of their favorite things to do in the back yard is climb our fence, and jump from our fence to the neighbors tree, climb down, play with their dogs and then climb back over, it's a funny sight to watch. I believe as I type this they are on top of our fence eating kumquats off of the neighbors tree.

Anyways, once we get home from all of these things everyone is STARVING. Like they didn't eat 50 snacks each in between each meal. I don't know how, but every single day meal time sneaks up on me. I AM NEVER PREPARED! I used to crock pot a lot but I lost my crock pot mojo and now I scramble to get a meal together. I should really get better at this sort of stuff. But here I am, 1:30 in the afternoon not prepping for dinner, but instead wasting my time (and yours) on the internet.

After dinner we shove as many kids in baths as we have energy for. Lisa and Willy can bathe themselves which is nice. Tillys hair is so long and thick she needs help and probably will for the rest of her life. Eitan and Sawyer get shoved into a bath together and by the time they are done it's murky enough to make an alligator happy.

Bedtime stories are a chapter book. Right now we are reading "The never ending story". It has been a great, but very challenging book, I feel like we may never finish it because we spend so much time talking about what each and every sentence means.

I try to make it to the gym 3x's a week and Willy and I try and have a date once a week. This time is really important to my mental health. I love my kids and I miss them when I'm gone even for two hours but I don't realizing how taxing their constant barrage of questions really are until I'm away from their tyranny. Grocery shopping is usually done late at night either after the kids 8pm bed time or after I'm done at the gym. I try to meal plan as much as possible but lately I just go and wing it. This is a terrible, expensive idea and I really need to stop. I did manage to meal plan last night but haven't actually made it to the store. When I do take all the kids to the store everyone has an assigned corner on the cart. One hand must be on YOUR corner of the cart. Sawyer is in the baby seat. This makes shopping easy. I hand the kids food and they load the cart. If Eitan is being wild (always) he has to sit in the cart and be the organizer. My kids are very quiet and well behaved at the store (minus Eitan) so we actually tend to get compliments a lot on shopping trips. It's small validation that I'm doing something semi decent in my job.