Day in the Life: 11 and 8 Years Old

My favorite personal category on the blog is probably the section dedicated to day in the life posts. Yes, they highlight how quickly years go by but they also offer the sweetest snapshots of what normal life looks like in a given moment in time.

I often have wished I could go back in time and had a conversation with my parents from the perspective I have now but during the time I was a kid. Growing up your parents always seem like just your parents, but now you realize while they were raising you, they were still growing up themselves. They had struggles and worries and joys and routines and I wish I had a snapshot of them back then to see what a normal day was like. So part of me also hopes my girls will enjoy a peek into a moment in time with these posts one day. They are nothing extraordinary, and that’s what I love about them. Wonderfully, beautifully, ordinary goodness.

Thursday started at 6:15 AM. I got up, hit the go button on the coffee machine, let Finley out of her crate, grabbed my computer, and set up shop on the couch with a cup of hot coffee with heavy cream. David wasn’t the first case at the hospital today so he joined me soon after. I do computer and he reads the news. Around 7:15 AM, Finley was ready for our morning sniffari. She wasn’t thrilled with the misty rain but we all braved it and got in our typical 1.3 miles slow walk.

We got back and I fed Finley and made breakfast for both David and myself: scrambled eggs with pico on Siete almond flour wraps. The girls’ alarms went off at 8:15 and they came down sleepy-eyed, getting to hang with David for a few minutes before he took off to work.

We’ve been on a kick where the kids make their own breakfast, but I already had the eggs out so I threw together a breakfast with what we had around. Thursdays are our last day of my weekly meal plans generally before I plan and shop for the next week, so I’m always scrapping together whatever is left. Today is was scrambled eggs, frozen blueberries, and a yogurt smoothie.

While they ate I read a chapter aloud of our new book, Tangled in Time. We picked our start time for chemistry and we all split to get dressed, brush teeth, and meet in the playroom at 9:30.

We are loving Gather Round’s Chemistry unit. However, I’ve stopped having us do all the workbook pages that go with it. I’m going to keep using Gather Round as unit studies, but I’m going to use other programs for the girls to work on writing, grammar, geography, and history. The day’s lesson was all about chemistry in your mouth and we were all enthralled. I think I even scared Kaitlyn straight into remembering to floss a little more often.

The lesson inspired Kaitlyn to want to try an experiment to see how eggs reacted being immersed in different liquids. Hailey had been working on an origami craft and wanted to make a how-to video. I helped set them up then hung out with Finley on the couch finishing up next week’s meal plan.

They finished up their respective passion products and worked their way through the rest of their lists. I helped with math, they did cursive, practiced the piano, we got into a discussion about World War II, and then we had leftovers for a late lunch- spaghetti and veggies for them, a cabbage salad with buffalo chicken for me. We watched videos on Bar Harbor, Maine during lunch to start learning more about what we can expect to see this summer. It looks SO beautiful!

Afterwards the kids headed outside for their 30 minute daily minimum in the rain! Ha. It’s so nice that now that they know the outside time is non negotiable, they don’t fight it. They’ve actually gotten quite creative with it and usually will end up out there for a while longer. Yesterday was cold and wet though, so they came in promptly at the end of their timer.

The rain was still coming down so we worked on a craft together for my grandmother’s upcoming birthday. David got home by 3:00 and we changed for our workout. The kids turned in their tokens for an hour to Adventure Academy (I’m in a little bit of disbelief that this screentime token system still works for us, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).

David and I took our “tiger blood” (pre workout), went for our walk (1.5 miles) in the rain then did Madeline Moves’ conditioning workout of the week.

I started on dinner early, around 4:30, because I wanted to be done in the kitchen before taking Kaitlyn to Taekwondo. I pan-fried some cod, put out whatever fixings we had left in the fridge, and heated up a can of black beans. Dinner- done!

I enjoyed having my usual 45 minute chat catch up with Danielle at TKD while the kids sparred, then drove back home (still in the rain) to a clean kitchen and peaceful evening. Actually I walked into a tickle fight, a barking dog, and some chaos, but then we all got cleaned up and in pajamas and settled in the living room.

David and I cracked open some Spendrifts and looked up RV info (we rented one for a weekend in March and I’m so excited!). The kids played Wordl and some card games on the iPads for a bit.

The girls went to bed at 8:30. David and I watched an episode of Only Murders in the Building, and went to bed by 10:00.