I no longer remember precisely what it was that got me thinking about it, but:
It's really important that we create an environment where it is safe to not know something.
Not in a neglectful kind of way, where we're complacently not trying, but in a the sort of way where it's ok not to know yet, and it's so ok to ask questions, to try out incomplete ideas, to say the sentence half in your native language, half in the one you're studying, to take a stab at it, and try -even knowing that your effort is going to be half-baked and incomplete.
A pretty typical day in our life. The kids are 5th grade, 1st grade, and preschool.
4:00am - Wake up (I heard the Daddy's alarm) and send him off to work. It's really early.
4:20 - back to bed.
8:00am - Wake up again, still tired. I think that I'm anemic, so I'm thinking about what I can have for breakfast that will help with that. Look at my phone -- text helps my brain to focus.
8:10 - The kids attack me for snuggles. Hero asks if he can make mac n cheese for breakfast. Gross. I say yes, but there's no way I'm eating that. They laugh; they're used to me hating it. We snuggle a few minutes, then I get up and try to think. I hate being anemic; makes morning time really rough, no matter how much sleep I get. Hero shows me the dragon he drew this morning.
8:40 - Hero's got the mac n cheese almost done. I'm putting up today's list of things that need to happen. There's cool art on my markerboard again; I try to make the list around it, so that it doesn't get erased too soon. I also move last week's Brahms piece to the bottom of our playlist so that we can listen to a new one first this week. Dragon asks for his Legos down.
9:00 - I'm done messing with the computer, and inspect a transformer Dragon made on my way to turn on Brahms.
9:15 - I have the Duplos off the floor, and I'm enjoying the Brahms, about to do some yoga. Hero turns up with his violin, and I ask him to do that after we've had a few more minutes with Brahms. He decides he'd like to vacuum for his chore today instead, so I put off my yoga and ask him to do the computer room as well as the living room. And I remember that one of Dragon's books grew legs yesterday and walked away. Gotta find that book, soon, or something else that will work in its place.
9:30 - Hero's done with the vacuuming and moves on to reading; Dragon is working on some 100s chart games on the computer. I give him a couple patterns to color on his chart, he makes up a couple patterns, and then chooses some other educational games. I text the Daddy a couple times -it's his break time- and then go try again with the yoga.
10:05 - Yoga's done, and it went well. I started working on Crow Pose about a year ago because I read that it was a good beginner arm balance. I have no idea how long it usually takes people to learn to balance (though I've read the scoliosis makes it harder to do - and mine was bad, before I started yoga), but I'm super happy to finally hold it for a second or two today. This is the first time that I'd say that I was actually able to balance in the pose for a second or two; that feels good.
When I'm done with yoga I look at Dragon's game he wants to show me, then remind him that (although Christmas lights games are cool) he's supposed to be playing math games. He heads back to do some dot-to-dots when I tell him his math time is almost up. Peanut is sitting next to him, watching what he's up to, and commenting on the pictures he makes. "That's a purple dinosaur!"
I pick up a towel left on the floor last night, and straighten out the bookshelves, hoping that I'll find the missing book -- which I do. Hero starts practicing his violin. School ran late yesterday, almost till bedtime, and he is not looking for a repeat. We try to finish everything early, but it seems like every now and then the kids need a reminder of why that's a good idea.
I put my clothes in the bathroom, planning for a shower, then tell Dragon his math games are done, and help get Peanut some day clothes.
10:30 - Dragon and I finish reading about ancient Egyptian gods and mummies. He narrates beautifully. Hero is setting up our calendar and wants to do Morning Basket next. Works for me.
We start with our calendar, which we do in Japanese. Mostly. Except for the part where I tell Dragon to stop acting crazy. That's English.
The Wise Man and the Foolish Man, in Japanese, with actions. We skip the new one, Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree. Up next: poems. Those are a fan favorite. All of the kids have their own set: Peanut gets Nursery Rhymes, and then as usual, insists on looking at the pictures in her book; Dragon is in A Child's Book of Poems; and Hero's meeting Emily Dickinson. They each get one:
I Saw Three Ships
I saw three ships come sailing by,
Come sailing by, come sailing by,
I saw three ships come sailing by,
On New Year's Day in the morning.
And what do you think was in them then,
Was in them then, was in them then,
And what do you think was in them then,
On New Year's Day in the morning?
Three pretty girls were in them then,
Where in them then, were in them then,
Three pretty girls were in them then,
On New Year's Day in the morning.
One could whistle, and one could sing,
And one could play the violin;
Such joy there was at my wedding,
On New Year's Day in the morning.
The Friendly Cow
The friendly cow, all red and white,
I love with all my heart;
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day,
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.
The Bee is Not Afraid of Me The bee is not afraid of me, I know the butterfly; The pretty people in the woods Receive me cordially. The brooks laugh louder when I come, The breezes madder play. Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists? Wherefore, O summer's day?
We also do our memory work - most of it fast and yelling, and do the scripture boxes. Dragon's attention is going fast today, and he ends up in a timeout near the end, but recovers quickly. We've had three days or so of rain, and he needs to be outside; it shows.
11:00 - I eat some peaches and to leftover deviled eggs, set Hero up with reading Age of Fable, then take his narration. And finally get my shower. There's voluntary reading going on; I like that, and don't interrupt it.
11:30 - When I get out, I announce that everybody needs to get shoes on and go outside for 20 minutes. In the middle of the happy scramble, there's a squirrel out front that needs to be watched, so they pause and do that. Hero goes out the door with a book in his hand; that must be my kid.
While they are outside, I work on this blog post, and start gathering up some easy crockpot recipes I promised a friend of mine. I've got a timer set so that I don't get too involved and sabotage the kids' efforts at doing school efficiently today.
11:55 -- There's tears outside; Peanut got too close to an active swing. Everybody comes back inside and has a cheese stick. I need to do some lunch. Probably with black beans, since they have iron. Hero grabs our Japanese text and we finish off the first unit; next time we'll be in chapter 2! We're moving slowly, but I think it's working pretty well. After that, he reads some stories to Peanut. Dragon is playing with his Legos again.
12:30 - Hero wants math. I'm trying to get lunch, but stop and get him started. I persuade Dragon to get out his violin. He does a nice job once he settles into it.
Peanut builds a cool circle track for the "train-train" -- all by herself!
Next I have Dragon work on his hiragana (Japanese alphabet) using flashcards today. He's doing a really nice job, and getting better at recognizing the exotic letters -- and reading them. I am pleased.
1:15 - Lunch is getting close. I have got to get better at doing it earlier. Our new schedule is still foreign-feeling, and hoping that the Daddy finds something better, soon, isn't helping me adjust. I put some biscuits in the oven to go with the chili, and check Hero's math. He needs more practice on multiplying; I send him back to correct his work. He's really ready to do something else. I tell him to finish. And warn Dragon and Peanut that fighting over trains will lose them the trains. Peanut gets sent to her room to finish whining.
1:30 - Lunch is on. It's tasty. Soup - the first soup of the fall - and biscuits. After the prayer, I read Lamb's Shakespeare to the kids; we're working on Comedy of Errors, and everyone is doing really well with it. I am surprised at how much I'm enjoying it; Shakespeare is a new experience for me, too. This is our second play, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how funny it is. The boys do a sort of tandem narration, with both of them contributing bits, and they're following it quite well.
1:45 - My best friend calls, and I invite her over to join us for lunch. She says she'll be here in 20 minutes, so we quit Shakespeare and I grab Secrets of the Woods. Officially, this is Dragon's book, so he's the only one that narrates, but we don't get far because I realize that he doesn't know what it means to "tap a tree", so we're off to YouTube to learn about that.
2:00 - I get Dragon to take out the recycles for his family work - he's delighted with the job and does it in the noisiest way possible. It is very loud. My friend arrives, and I banish the kids to the yard. Dragon is still experimenting with how loud he can possibly be. Peanut joins him. I tell them no water; it's not warm enough. Go. Out. Side. My friend and I exchange stories of our days - mine with the kids, hers driving school bus. We laugh and shake our heads at Dragon's antics.
2:30 - The Daddy calls; he's done with work, and do I want anything from Walmart? I do - Hero wants an Optimus Prime cake for his birthday campfire party tomorrow, so I need sugar to make frosting. My friend and I continue chatting.
3:00 - Daddy's home! He joins the conversation, which is delightful. Tells about today's antics from the powers that be at work. It's amazing they stay in business. Dragon asks for some computer time; Hero is reading. Peanut finds her purple boa and is prancing around with it.
3:45 - My friend has to leave, and the Daddy heads out again to do some home teaching.
4:10 - Dragon and Peanut request play-doh. And all the play-doh tools. Hero is playing a video game; he asks me to set the time for 30 minutes, which is about half his screen time. I set up the play-doh, then go look for the cake pan Hero requested.
4:20 - More dishes. Only, I need to do some laundry. So I get that started first. {Can I just say how much I love me a labor-saving device!}Back to the dishes While I work, I set up some Japanese YouTube videos for passive listening; passive exposure makes a huge difference in our language study.
4:25 - My sister called. Yay!! We chat for a while, she wants to know about how the new job is going; I ask about her kids. And tell Dragon, "Go find a thing to do," about 4 times in the half-hour conversation. When it's done, I turn the Japanese back on. And try to get a few dishes done. And do a thing for a kid. And wash a dish.
Dishes are the job I used to throw tantrums over when I was a kid. They're still not my favorite. But that's not why they're not getting done very efficiently today. I have actually learned to enjoy a clean kitchen -- enough to put forth the effort necessary to get it there. But I have a hard time staying on task. {sigh} One of these years, I'll have a clean house.
5:10 - The Daddy calls. His home teaching people asked for a little help, so he's slower than he anticipated. I love when he calls; I know very well that he doesn't have to do it, but it's so nice. I work very hard at not dropping the phone into the water -- I'm holding it with my head while I attempt to get a few dishes clean.
5:20 - The Japanese is back on, now that I'm not on the phone. (Nobody's paying attention, including me, but it's amazing what the brain does in the background, as far as sorting patterns, when you're not really paying attention.) I just want a nap. Which reminds me: I still haven't looked to see if I've still got iron supplements, or if they're still good. I need to do that. And it's about time to move the laundry. And I've got to make that cake. Which means butter needs to be out warming up... I feel like I'm not getting any closer to the bottom of my to-do list... which just might be getting longer. All I want is a nap.
Hero is building Poke-balls from cardboard to play with his friends tomorrow.
6:00 - I found the iron. It, along with a good collection of other expired stuff is now in the trash. I flipped the laundry. And finally made some progress on the dishes. {When we finally fix or replace the dishwasher, it will be nice.} But the kitchen is looking almost reasonable, and it shouldn't be too bad to keep it that way while I make dinner. I hope.
After a while the Daddy came home again. Dragon enlisted his help cutting out a Poke-ball of his own.
I remembered that Peanut hadn't practiced her violin yet. She was delighted to do it, and she's making really good progress at fingering. After that she gets a shower.
7:30 - One pizza made; two warmed up, and a birthday cake in the oven. We settle in for some Avitar: Last Airbender.
8:30 - Show's over; ice cream is eaten. The cake is out and looks good. Hero is super excited about; totally worth the effort.
8:40 - Family scriptures and prayers.
8:55 - Kids head upstairs to brush teeth and stuff. Everybody is tired. There's tons of things still on my to-do list, but I feel pretty good about most of the day anyway. Somehow, there's always more tasks than time, but the important stuff gets done most of the time.
9:00 - Personal scriptures and prayers with the boys; Peanut barely made it. Since she's not wearing diapers to sleep anymore, I send her potty one last time. She looks asleep by the time it's her turn for scriptures, but when I go to leave, she manages to mumble, "I not asleep..." So I kiss her and read her two verses.
9:25 - All the kids and the Daddy are asleep. I sit in the dark and do some Japanese flashcards and make a move in my chess.com games.
9:40 - Downstairs again. The house is delightfully quiet. I check on the baked goods, but some of them aren't cool yet, so I play Minecraft for a little bit, have a drink of water, and listen to some clawhammer banjo.
10:15 - I'm itching to play my own banjo, so I turn off the tunes, and get mine out, just for a couple minutes. Can't do long; it's getting late.
Tis the season: we've been given a bunch of zucchini. Which means zucchini bread - the kids want more. So, this time, Hero wanted to do the baking, and he's been doing really well with that. We're at the stage where I need to be available, but I'm not to hover; it's his project. So I set him up with the recipe, and I went and checked on some things, and when I came back things were ... interesting.
There was about an inch of oil in the bowl, along with the eggs and sourdough. When we measured, the eggs and oil combined came to just over 3 cups. I couldn't bring myself to just throw it out and start over -- and it would take several hours to get the sourdough ready. So we quadrupled the recipe. Mostly. I didn't have enough sourdough to actually do it, and the measurements were just a little bit, ah, fuzzy. We put it in the stock pot, because that was the only thing big enough to hold it all.
When all the mixing and measuring was done, we had enough batter to make 8 loaves. But we don't have 8 loaf pans; we have 2. So I started digging around.
Two loaf pans. Check.
Two mini loaf thingys that I always burn. Check.
This time, they didn't burn. Yay! but the dough is so soft - I think we should have had a little more flour - that when I tried to get it out, the tops came off. Very messy. We ended up eating them with spoons out of the dishes. But we ate them, and they were tasty. Win.
Casserole dish. Check. This is a lot of zucchini bread.
Still going. Let's try the square pan. Check.
Finally. We used up all the batter!
So. Maybe it was because his sister was "helping" which could have been a lot for a new baker to deal with, in addition to managing the recipe on his own. Or maybe it was just one of those things that happens; we think he added the 2/3c oil, then looked at the sugar measurement and added that, in oil, as well. Whatever happened, we now have a ton of bread. And he has experience which he just couldn't have had from things going the way they ought to go.
He shared some with his cub scout den and with our violin teacher, who just had a baby. And we froze some. And we ate a bunch.
Before I tried again, I checked the with a sourdough bakers group online that I like, to see if I could find some ideas for how to proceed. And I learned some more things:
1. Sourness is adjustable. I'm actually not a huge fan, and so I'll be messing around. Apparently, baking soda can help, since it's alkaline. I'm not sure if I can add it directly to my start, and adjust it right at the outset, or if I'd have to continually adjust the dough. I may make a test batch of start and try it out to see what happens.
2. Another suggestion was to try a springform or other pan with tighter sides nested inside my dutch oven. The dutch oven keeps in the steam - and with a nested pan you can add a couple ice cubes right before you put it in - and the steam helps slow down crust formation. That would help two of my problems with the last loaf.
3. Somebody stopped by the last post and clarified about bakers' percents in the comments, which was very nice of them - it's by weight, not volume. Which is tricky; I don't have a good way to measure weight, and going out to get new equipment is not in the cards right now. But it's good to keep in the back of my head, and they had a suggestion of how they deal with the differences, which should be very helpful. I just have to figure out what this new information is going to mean when I am standing in my kitchen doing stuff.
4. I think the last batch may have been too wet, which lead to it not holding its shape. I need to read some more about hydration. Which will mean diving into more percent stuff.
So I cooked a batch of white bread with a little oats in it because I like it that way. And it turned out lovely.
So back to sourdough. I decided that the last dough was too wet, and that's why it hadn't held its shape well enough to rise up. And I took a suggestion from the sourdough people to try nesting a springform pan inside my dutch oven. That shrinks the space just a little, and gives a bit of support for the sides, and I still get the lid hold in the steam. So I made the dough and set everything all up.
The dough felt good, and it rose nicely, I shaped it and put it in the pan, and let it rise again. I was making dinner, and looking at it, and it wasn't quite done. So I stared at it. It didn't make it go faster, but I did it anyway. My husband and sister laughed at me a little. But I kept peeking at the bread because it was acting right, and I was getting excited. Turns out there was good reason for that - it turned out great! So here's the final recipe:
Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
1c sourdough start
1c warm water
1T honey
1t salt
2-3T oil
about 4c whole wheat flour
Put start and water in the stand mixer with honey, salt, and oil. Begin mixing and add flour a little bit at a time. Dough should ball up around the dough hook, but still feel spongy and moist when touched (do that with your mixer turned off so you don't break your finger). Let rise 2-3 hours in the bowl, until doubled. Spray a springform pan that fits in your dutch oven with Pam, oil the dough to keep it soft, and set it in a warm place to rise till double, about 1 1/2 hours. Squeeze an ice cube between the springform and the dutch oven to provide steam, and put the lid on the dutch oven to keep it in. This helps the crust stay softer and thinner. Bake at 400 for about 30 minutes covered, then uncover and bake 5-10 more. Remove from pans carefully, and let cool 5-10 minutes before cutting.
Isn't that pretty? It's tall enough to use for sandwiches. The crust is
soft enough to please even Dragon - he devoured his piece and came back
for more.
In using baker’s percentage, each ingredient in a recipe is expressed
as a percentage of the flour weight, and the flour weight is always
expressed as 100%.
So if I have 4 cups of flour (100%) and 1 cup of water, then the water would be 25%. Huh. I learned about it by accident here, when I was reading about the role of oil in bread. They say that, on average, the oil in pizza dough will be between 2% and 5%. So in a 4c of flour recipe, 1/4 cup of oil would be 5%. I am making approximately a 4 cup recipe, but then there's more flour hiding in the start, and I'm not quite sure how to go about determining how much. But it would put the 1/4c oil that I'm thinking about putting in right about in the right range.
So I'm going with 1/4c oil for this variant. Here's today's recipe:
So I baked it, and it turned out the best of any of the loaves so far. Really, the only complaint I have is that it's so flat. It spread out, rather than puffing up, and I'm not sure how to troubleshoot that. I'm thinking I'll have to take my questions to the sourdough group. Once it's cut, it's shaped a lot like biscotti.
The crust is reasonable. It's crunchy, rather than almost not there like the white bread, but it's a pleasant kind of crunch. The texture is nice. The flavor is good. The kids are eating it, and describing it as "awesome, except more hard crust". I think Dragon, my fussy crust guy, would adapt.
I just wish it was a touch taller, so we could make better sandwiches.
"Mom, can I have another bread with jelly?"
"We can have bread, and jelly! Together!"
So there's baking going on. Because I want to learn a very specific type of bread:
Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread.
I can make a lovely white bread loaf, and if I treat it like white bread with regular commercial yeast, I can add sourdough and make it up to half-wheat: transitional bread. But I want to have the option of doing the whole thing in whole wheat. I like whole wheat; I like what it does to my body.
This is Part 2. Where we eat tasty zucchini bread.
Yes, that's relevant.
I haven't done much with my sourdough start lately. It's been in the fridge a couple days now, because if I keep it on the counter when I'm not using it nearly every day, then it gets a bit gross. I think it's the heat. It's been warm, downright hot for the area - got up into the 90s, with something like 83727495% humidity. The start doesn't like that. So I keep it in the fridge. Where it's not gross, but it doesn't do much, either.
So the first thing was to wake up my start and get it happy. You do that by feeding it, and I needed to make room in my jar before I could feed it. So I made zucchini bread. And that part of the starter that the recipes are always saying you should discard, I "discarded" -- right into the bowl for the zucchini bread. Which turned out yummy. I sort of used this recipe, but had to adapt it to cycle my start. Most quick breads are easy to just add start to; a sourdough start that's fed pretty close to a 1:1 ratio of flour and water has about the same consistency as most batters. Or, you can do what I did with this recipe, and try to reduce the liquid, which means that you can count the flour in the start as part of the flour in the recipe. You're supposed to be able to leave out the baking soda and baking powder, and let the sourdough make it rise, but I didn't try that this time. This is what I ended up with:
Sourdough Zucchini Bread
aprox 1c sourdough start (be generous)
2/3 c oil
1 3/4c sugar
2 eggs
2t vanilla
2c shredded zucchini (I eyeballed it)
1c whole wheat flour
1c white flour plus some extra
1t salt
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
Preheat to 325, spray 2 loaf pans with Pam. Mix up the wet ingredients, except the zucchini. Add salt, soda, and powder, mix. Add flours, and adjust to get the right consistency (It should just look like batter. Kind of thick batter. Eyeball it.). Stir in the zucchini just until incorporated. Bake for about 40-45 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes, then remove from the pan.
Snarf. My kids more or less inhaled this. I'm getting complaints because I'm out of zucchini, so there is no more. Pretty sure that I can find another zucchini somewhere; tis the season.
I've been looking for a whole wheat sourdough bread recipe.
My, but that's a mouthful to say. Sorry.
It should be a tasty mouthful when I'm done figuring it out.
But that's what I'm after: whole wheat sourdough bread. The kind that isn't hard like the rocks I'm making now, and that's pretty easy to make, and I won't be learning bakers' percents for this project. Ain't nobody got time for that!
I've discovered some things recently:
1. Mostly wheat bread (which is what I'm making now, because the texture is appalling when I make 100%) makes my cravings stop. So much for bread being evil! A while back, I discovered that I'm chronically short on magnesium. Hence the chocolate cravings. (Ahem. Pardon me while I grab some dark chocolate chips.) And the muscle twitches. And a couple of other annoying things. I've been messing around with my sourdough partly because it's fun, and partly because it's cheap and that matters right now, and after a while I realized that my chocolate is lasting longer - I no longer felt like I had to go grab a handful after the kids go to bed. Which is cool. I'm pretty sure that it's the wheat flour: that stuff's got a fair amount of magnesium in it, and fermenting it a bit before I cook it does some cool chemical stuff that makes a whole bunch of nutrients much more bio-available.
2. Lots of people cook with all sorts of flours. Apparently sourdough is fancy food. Whatever. I want egg salad sandwiches and toast with butter. I need something basic. I want no strange einkorn flour, rice flour, rye flour, nor anything like it. At least, not today. Just plain wheat.
3. You can substitute sourdough for baking powder. Which is mostly unrelated to anything here, but it's seriously cool. Takes a touch of planning, though.
4. Sourdough bread is not like white bread. Seriously. The finished product is similar, but the dough? It's a whole 'nuther critter. Practically needs its own word, it's so different from white dough. It's crazy stuff. And finding someplace that will give me a recipe for the proper care and feeding of the start (seriously, here! that stuff is alive!) so that it will magically make awesome bread... it's been a task.
So I'm trying this one. Perfect Sourdough Bread. She's suggesting a couple of changes from what I'm doing now: first, she feeds her start twice daily. I'd begun to suspect that mine wants that kind of treatment. I'm going to try it out. AND, she says that it ought to be thick. So I'm going to go a bit thicker than I have been. We'll see. I'm excited. I'll post pictures. And thus begins a Search For The Perfect Sourdough Saga. At least it'll be a tasty trip.
10:30am - The baby wakes me up. I wonder why she slept this late, but count my blessings, since Dragon did some sleep walking last night, and it took nearly 2 hours before I could get back to sleep. Hero hasn't been up long either, around a 1/2 hour. Slow start for us today, I guess. Not my favorite, but after last night, I'm not complaining. Morning is going to be short. He has helped himself to a bagel and peanut butter, and I am surprised to find he is reading a graphic novel version of the Iliad. I was guessing it would be Harry Potter #2.
11:00 - Jump in the shower, quick. I want to be done before the Daddy leaves for work. I grab some laundry and fold it up when I'm done, trying to find a shirt. I also need some socks for Hero; he's been wearing mine for the last two days. I don't start the washer yet, though, because the Daddy is using the water.
11:30 - I've stopped folding (which is not the same as being done with it), and change Tigress's clothes and diaper. I still need to do some yoga, and feed the two little kids. The Daddy leaves for work. Hero is reading Harry Potter now; The Weasly's flying car has just crashed into the Whomping Willow.
11:45 - Dragon wants a Minecraft coloring sheet. The printer is complaining because I'm out of yellow ink, and wants permission to print in black only. I also coax it into printing out my shopping menu: today is shopping day. We have a ton of errands to do, and I also want to get the basics of school done. I think the universe ate my print jobs, then I realize that I'd hit cancel, rather than OK. Oops. That won't work; try again. Tigress climbs up on my lap to draw. Dragon immidiately, very politely, asks for markers, which we keep up high. Put her down, give him the markers, clear enough of last night's cups from our drinks just before bedtime (midnight) that he has space for coloring.
11:55 - Pull up Pinterest to help me to think up stuff to put on my menu. Desperately try to stay focused, rather than being sucked into the wonder of Pinterest-land.
12:10 - Give the younger kids some bagels too. Wonder where my hairbrush got carried off to. Return to Pinterest and my menu.
12:35 - Release Tigress from the high chair. Ponder doing some math with Hero, but return to my menu instead; we really have to go shopping. Give him my phone to listen to The Secret Garden. We are "officially" having a literary morning, and this goes with our current history chapter, on colonial India. Still no hairbrush, and the baby has an... aroma. Guess it's time for another change. My menu is 1/2 done.
12:40 - My nose lied about the diaper. The boys migrate to the basement and listen to the story while they play with their new balls. My girl has figured out how to connect Duplos. Sort of. And is very involved in doing just that. My menu is almost done. Dragon's nose is gross. I must remember kleenex when we go shopping.
12:55 - The menu is done! Now to make the shopping list. And figure out how to get Dragon's cooperation on this shopping expedition. He is, shall we say, unenthusiastic.
1:05 - The shopping list part is relatively painless, and goes quickly. I give Dragon a timeout - and some tylenol and sudafed. Poor kid feels rough. The boogeyman has eaten my hairbrush; count my blessings that I can convince my hair to be presentable without one, in a pinch. I wonder if I can squeeze in some yoga before we go shopping.
1:40 - Found my hairbrush. It was put away. Yoga's done; feels good. I ask Hero to turn off The Secret Garden (can I just say how much I love the Librivox app on my phone, and how much I appreciate the volunteers that read?!), and we all start looking for sock and shoes. First stop: Kohls. Hero needs pants in the worst sort of way.
1:48 - Where is Tigress's other shoe? Everyone go potty!
1:55 - We're off! The boys both bring stuff to play with in the car. It's so much fun to see old toys become new again after yesterday's Big Toy Toss (in which we lost 3 garbage backs of toys and things -- miraculously, without tears), and the toys that come with us are ones that have all their pieces again after all the sorting.
2:40 - We've been to the music store. Dropped off the banjo to get a minor repair done. Now we're at Kohls, looking for those pants for Hero. He has none that are nice. It's embarrassing. This is our second attempt at remedying the situation, but the first store, last week, didn't have anything.
3:15 - Success! On to Sam's Club.
3:35 - Lunch at Sam's.
3:50 - Shopping! We head away from the deli and into the store. It never matters that we just had lunch, the kids are always on a sharp look out for the "Sample Feast" and they are not disappointed.
4:50 - We're back to the music store to grab my banjo. It's all fixed up now, so when I play it next, I'll be able to tune it. Yay!!
5:15 - groceries in. Hero starts making wands (think Harry Potter), but gets side tracked by finding the missing balloon pump. Tigress actually makes the transfer, so she'll have a good nap. Hurray! Now to put away groceries & round up some Math.
6:00 - After a delightful few minutes messing with the balloons, I coral the kids into doing some chores. Hero is unloading the dishwasher, which he can do (almost) independently, and Dragon is picking up the toys in the living room, which overwhelms him easily, so he has to be coached through it bit by bit. I have the table nearly cleared off, though, the math is out and ready to go, and as soon as the dishwasher is emptied, I can start working on catching up on those icky dishes while the kids do some math.
6:30- The boys' jobs are done, but not the math. Tigress woke up, and she thinks it's tragic that I won't let her chew on balloons. Sometimes, she is still very much the baby. Waking up poorly from a nap brings that out, so we sit down and snuggle a bit. She's coughing, but not as bad as yesterday.
7:00 - Dishes are coming along. Tigress spent some time playing with patter blocks while the boys used rods on their math. Now she's "helping" with the dishes. My kitchen isn't nearly so appalling as it was a couple hours ago, since I've been sneaking things into the dishwasher between helping the boys with their work. Sometime soon, I need to figure out what's for dinner, since we cut the shopping short before we got everything I'd planned to use for tonight. Oops.
7:15 - Math's finally done. Piano practice is underway.
7:35 - Dinner. I'm making this up. We have various snacky things: bread with Happy Cow Cheese, and hummus on bread and bell peppers. Sauerkraut. I get the bumps on a log almost completely to myself: the boys won't touch them.
7:35 - Clean up dinner. Hero does violin. Tigress is still eating, and Dragon is wilting. He just wants to snuggle. And play Minecraft. I'm hoping to get some violin out of him too, but I'm not really holding my breath on it.
8:10 - Dinner's done; table's cleared and wiped. The dishwasher is still running, so I stack our plates and ignore the rest. It's worlds better than it was, and I'm tired.
8:30 - Tigress comes for a cuddle. We read a stack of books, then she reads her giggle book with the button that giggles, and I try to read Transforming the Difficult Child while we snuggle. It doesn't work very well, but I got a few paragraphs.
8:45 - Tigress is in the bath. I sneak a few minutes with my banjo.
11:00 - Family scriptures & prayers done. Now for potty and teeth. We had a good night call with Daddy because he's getting home too late even for our late bedtime tonight. Hero is hoping to make it long enough to get a hug, but in my heart of hearts, I'd like him to sleep sooner than that.
11:15 - Everyone is in bed. Oops. Tigress escapes while I'm telling a story, and goes to play the piano. She's very happy with herself and comes running and giggling when I go catch her again. I do a "snot chase" (AKA lymphatic massage) on all the kids and tell them a story.
11:40 - Both boys are asleep, and Tigress is about 75%, but fighting hard. I realize that both of them passed out without doing either personal prayers, or having scriptures read. Which is why we do stories last most of the time. Guess I messed that up.
11:50 - The Daddy gets home and gives the kids their "snoozy snuzzles," as promised. I reclaim my arm from the now sleeping Tigress, and debate: more banjo, scrapbooking, or working on my book. There's not tons of time left before I need to sleep too, since we're meeting friends for Nature Study bright and early tomorrow (10:30), so we'll have to have an alarm to make sure there's no repeat of today's late start.
1:00am - I ended up playing around with Family Search, figuring out how to tag people in photos, and adding a bunch of my Aunts and Uncles to my file while I waited for the Daddy to finish up his paper work and stuff. They're all still living, but it's good practice, and I think that the picture will go public after they are deceased. I hope. Think I'll head to bed now.
