Everything I did one Wednesday

A few months after I had a baby I was feeling better, but like I wasn't accomplishing anything. I mentioned it to my mom and she gave me an order/suggestion (isn't that the same thing when it comes from a mom?). "Write down one day everything you do, not what you want to do--and you'll see you are doing a lot."
So I did. It was such a validation of my efforts that I repeat the exercise whenever I need a pick me up. For example here's everything I did one

Wednesday:

• Night before: bed 10pm
• 5am alarm goes off.
• 5:10 get out of bed. Dress for the day.
• 5:20 My time-writing, and a chance to laugh at my own jokes.
• 7 grocery store before husband leaves for work because we need milk & eggs
• 7:15 back. Awake kids, start a load of diapers in the washer. change and dress Canary.
• 7:30 My husband leaves for work. Cold cereal breakfast for me, empty dishwasher awake kids again. Remind them to do their Top Row. Toy bin of cars out for Kingfisher & Canary.
• 8am Circle time on couch. I read the Aiken Drum story, we look at Scotland and Canada on the map & watch the YouTube version of this folksong. From our Gospel Picture Art Kit I pull out a picture and we talk about the 2000 stripling warriors from the Book of Mormon while someone cried about the cereal being gone, because they woke up late. We open our Memory Binders,  and practice our parts for the children's Primary Program in church coming up. I text a teacher and my sister.
• 8:30 Puzzles bin out for Canary. Bowery Bird is reading science experiment book...telling me her next plan. Mockingbird is doing her copywork & 4 spelling words at the kitchen table. I remind her, "No drawing our letters into faces and people." Kingfisher practices writing H's & does some gingerbread man tracing from a cookie cutter. Bowery Bird practices piano-have to help her with left hand. Easel and washable markers come out for Canary. Pass off Bowery Bird's Faith in God booklet goal for seeing a play last week.
• 9am Lego bin out for Canary. Mockingbird does independent reading for her Book It Pizza Hut chart. Bowery Bird does her cursive copywork (for dictation on Friday) & spells 5 words.
• 9:30 Bowery Bird starts a terrarium she found in the science book by getting dirt & rocks for our empty fishbowl. I switch laundry to start whites, check email, print Book It reading chart for the month, pick up toys, and we all go outside for our morning break.
• 10 In, H has a friend over to play. Star Wars bin out (reminders to be quiet in hallway). Print Connecticut  line map for Bowery Bird to do map work/notebooking of  This Country of Ours on. She uses the Kindle to review names.
• 10:30 Tried to read aloud with Mockingbird, but she's tired of reading. I read Literature to her: Uundertood Besty while she drew our Halloween costumes. Bowery Bird wants to listen in. Puppets bin out for Canary. Little friend's mom came to take him home. Tell children to stop drawing on the windows with the new white board markers--especially in front of Canary who might get ideas. Started garden tomatoes, scalding. Prepped- 
• 11 Lunch of sandwiches, mangoes, applesauce, and chocolate milk. (on an even better day they'd make their own after breakfast) Pulled out term board, with new Mary Cassatt picture, let them look at it. Did picture study, where I took it down and they each took turns remembering things in the pictures as I prompted. Mockingbird was surprisingly good.
• 11:30 Clean up chores: Mockingbird peeled tomatoes from ice water then did dishes while Kingfisher picked up toys & dusted. Bowery Bird did a science experiment with water, dish soap, and paper triangle she read about in the aforementioned science experiment book (that has been in our home at least 3 years and gone unnoticed till now), then showed us. Reminded Bowery Bird to sweep, clean up stuff, and clear the table. I filled in.
• 12 noon I changed baby, washed baby. Set up Little Duke audio book for Mockingbird in my bedroom, Starfall on the computer for Kingfisher in his top bunk, after ordering Bowery Bird to stop studying face painting on the computer for upcoming Entrepreneur Day. Had her read Poor Richard to herself in the living room as I  read stories to Canary, sang a song, and put her down for a nap
• 12:30 read with Bowery Bird from Age of Fable. 
•  Mockingbird does some reading on Starfall. I spend time with Kingfisher while Bowery Bird sets up art with him. (She initiated these little "art classes" with him once a week.) He and I read The Ladies Who Stopped the Wind, he retold it to me. We two went outside, talked about feeling and seeing the wind and how it moves. We played then I carried him home.
• 130 Bowery Bird and Kingfisher did art. They made houses out of crackers, frosting she made of water & sugar, beans, spaghetti, and trail mix (the last of it). She had directions written in pictographs on a white board. Math with Mockingbird. She feels left out. Canary won't sleep. (She wouldn't eat lunch). I feed her cereal facing away from the few M&Ms in the trail mix project. Put her back to bed. Mockingbird & I drink chocolate milk outside for love. We come up and do math (place value) she does a worksheet independently after. 
•  Canary won't sleep, is up. Bowery Bird and Kingfisher clean up. Kingfisher is bored. Doorbell from neighbor about lost item; not ours. But a package! Give Bowery Bird her math assignment & negotiate when it will be done; 5pm on graph paper.
• 2:30  We open package-home school phonics books from Usborne. This is a day they can watch 30 min of TV. Martha Speaks, all agree on and watch.
• 3 We tidy up house, load dishwasher, prep dinner pots, leave for a friend's house
• 4 The kids play with 8 kids ages 12-2y/o in their new play fort. I visit with a friend. She shares vegetables. I start home.
• 5 We are all home. We are all cleaning-vacuum, clean bedroom (sort of), lip sync to Rapunzel soundtrack, I'm getting snacks for baby and making dinner. Kids run out to play. Oh hi husband you surprised me home at 5:30! I know you've only been working this schedule for a year and a half... I read mail. I ask kids to set table
• 6:20 we sit down to a candlelight dinner. (The better to not see your food by.)
• 7 I leave for a home school meeting about my umbrella charter school.
• 9:10 home-- head spinning with changes. Exhausted.
• 10 bed.

This ended up being a typical "Good Day"; a day when we are progressing, our house is functional, the kids cooperative (relative term), I have patience to handle what comes, and we are learning even if its not exactly what I planned.

To some this may set heads spinning--and it does mine if I don't have that time to myself in the morning. But you get rhythms and habits and it starts to work. We've been at it for 4 years now and I see this being a turning point for us in terms of things actually coming together.
To others this may seem like not much is being accomplished--and yet it is. It's little bits here and there that add up over time.

FYI- Note, none of the laundry got folded for 2 days, and I slept in the next morning till 8am, which is kind of typical too.