Monday, August 29, 2011

Controlled Chaos - 6 kids...Easy Squeazy!

Awesome Hubby and our six...yes, SIX kids.
As a homeschool mom of six, my day starts off pretty mellow. The kids wake up at their own times, eat and start on their work.  It’s not until the mid-morning hour when all of them are bustling around that the fun really begins.  I sit at my laptop in the classroom and try to do research for my book while simultaneously mixing icing ‘glue’ for our Great Wall of China replica made out of sugar cubes.

Once I have that going, I get the crock pot going with tonight’s meal. Usually some hearty chicken stew…it’s easy and yummy.  Meanwhile the babies have started to feed the water turtle their playdoh, so I fish that out with the pen I was using to jot down some personality quirk ideas for a character in my new work in progress.

I get the babies busy on some coloring, give my high schooler a lecture on Skyping while doing math, and settle down to check my email and Twitter...for two minutes. Because my Jr. Higher needs me to help him look up the average rainfall for Papua New Guinea for his report.  I print out his information, pop on over to my blog, read and answer comments, and start on a new post, but…

I answer a call from my mother who wonders why I never bring her grandkids over anymore (we were there last week) and I flip through the calendar and find a time between my critique group meeting and date night with hubby. I write myself a note on the paper with my character quirks and put it on the fridge as a reminder.
School time over, I put the babies to their nap and sit down to read the last chapter I wrote so I can get ‘in the groove’ of writing. 

Until my third grader reminds me that we are supposed to be planting the potato he’s been growing with toothpicks and a glass…my GOOD crystal? Oh well we get it into the ground and I wash off, pop the bread in the oven and sit down to type…something. Where was I again?

Hubby comes home, dinner and homework are tackled, we put the kids down and I have some coffee on the couch with my sweetheart.  He goes off to grade papers and I settle down at my laptop. Nine-thirty and ready to write.  Now if I could only find my notes on character quirks…

(Post originally appeared on Purple Knot blog tour.)