The Day I Ate Too Many Eggs

I should clarify that title....the day I ate too many eggs....in devils food cake batter. I won't tell you how much I ate, but let's just say it was enough that a cake was not made. Also, in case you didn't pick up on it, I am a stress eater. I am going to weigh fifty pounds more after the quarantine unless I unveil my inner yogi quick.

Our big kids came home for the week today and I keep hearing rumblings that a shelter in place order is coming, which would probably keep the husband home as well. If you are counting - that is me, my husband, my sister, our four kids, a dog, and a cat. In one house. And the weather is turning wintery for the next few days. All I can say is thank heaven that we have a good portion of the basement remodel done - everyone will have their own room to retreat to if they need to relax a bit. We have plenty of room to spread out.

We are relaxing into a sort of rhythm over here. Mornings are spent cleaning up rooms and house projects. We are down to about an hour of actual schoolwork - math facts, memory work, and sight words. Outside time before and after lunch if Mother Nature cooperates. Then everyone entertains themselves while Mama gets some stuff done. We meet back up around 3 in the reading nook and watch the day's episode of the Cincinnati Zoo and then journal. The rest of the day is for non-worksheet learning; art projects, tying shoes, cooking, whatever strikes our fancy pretty much that isn't a screen. We have dragged out boardgames and I may have bought more books. (It is a problem, but I don't see it stopping any time soon) The kids interact with friends and family as much as we can via screen time. I can hear our 7 yr old in his room facetimeing with Grandma and showing her his new room. He calls a family member every night to read to them. That Facebook messenger app for kids is really working out beautifully now that they aren't insane with it. We are still pretty close to normal bedtime, because I just can't imagine having to rein that back in if they do end up going back.

We did two new things today that both kids really enjoyed. So if you or your kids are giant dorks like us, you may like them too.

First, I created a teacher account on typing.com and signed up all four of my kids in my homeschool class. It was free and it is just a program that starts from step one and teaches kids how to type with the correct finger placement. Our 7 yr old has been asking me to teach him to type for a while now that he uses computers a bit in school, so he just ate this up like candy - loved it. Did an extra lesson. Our 5 yr old thought it was neat, too, and it actually seemed to be good letter recognition practice for her. She needed me to sit with her and do it, but our 7 yr old could do it independently.

The second cool thing we did is that I took three big pieces of posterboard and made 'town squares' with roads leading off in the middle. The little kids and I each named our town and drew in what we wanted in our town square. Every day we are going to add a new building or two to our cities and extend the roads, maybe add a railroad or a river....who knows where our creative juices will take us. I am finding that little parts of a bigger project every day are better than a big daily project. Our attention spans seem to work better that way.

We are ending our day with movie night in my bed. The kids just walked in with coffee mugs full of Sprite and one of my stoneware trays filled up with random snacks from the cupboard. We are going to watch Frozen II and eat popcorn balls, fruit snacks, and bunny grahams. Not the worst way to end week one.