We're unschoolers so both kids are home with me during the day for the most part. We explore whatever they're into learning. Right now Foster's mostly into Minecraft, Lego, beatboxing and art but he's also working on learning to read and loves to look at comic books and listen to audiobooks for hours on end. Henrietta is into stuffies, puddle jumping, snuggles and breaking Foster's Lego creations. (Well actually she'll break almost anything but I think Lego creations are one of her top picks.)
Ok so one of the main things you need to know about me...I'm a photographer. Which means that if you ask me to document a day in my life I'm going to take WAY too many photos. I will try to limit myself but you should know I edited seventy five from this particular day. (And that's only a fraction of what I took.) Ok with that disclaimer out of the way here we go...
Given that I'm a stay at home mom (who sometimes has to do other kinds of work but mostly on my own schedule and never first thing in the morning) I get to have these lovely lazy mornings with my youngest. At night she goes to sleep in our bed and is then transferred to her own bed. When she wakes up in the morning she immediately rights this wrong by barreling into our room, flopping down and wrapping her arms around me. Davis, my partner, has usually already gone to work by this point as he starts at 7 and leaves sometime around 6. (I think. I've never been conscious enough at that hour to confirm such a time exists.) So it's just Miss Hattie and I alone in our big bed but she snuggles right in and puts her hands on my cheeks and tells me she loves me up to the moon. Sometimes we put on an audiobook and go back to sleep for an hour or two. Sometimes we just lay there and snuggle until her big brother Foster gets up. (He's 5 but you'd think he's a teenager by the hours he keeps sometimes. He's usually stayed up too late the night before listening to Harry Potter audiobooks.)
When the big kid's up the day gets rolling. I've never been a big breakfast person but for whatever reason my kids wake up starving in the morning and wanting food immediately. On weekends Davis usually makes them something but I am not a morning person and my brain barely functions before I have coffee so that task has fallen to the next oldest human in our home. Foster willingly makes himself and Henrietta a peanut butter and jam sandwich or bowl of cereal without even thinking about it. On this particular day Davis had made a beautiful loaf of bread the night before and left it out with pb & j so Foster and Hattie could get themselves breakfast while I made my coffee. (Absolute necessity for everyone's safety.) I make pourover coffee each morning which is basically the opposite of a keurig machine. There's timing and science involved and everything is manual. I love it. It makes the best coffee and is my little nerdy routine to start the day.
On evenings where I think ahead I try to come up with some kind of little project for the kids to do first thing in the morning to buy myself some time to wake up before I have to adult. So when the kids were done their breakfast there were snowman outlines on some Kraft paper and construction paper and art supplies so that the kids could be creative while I caffeinated and read a book in peace.
And no I don't usually take photos of myself reading and drinking coffee with no makeup and messy hair. That was a special treat for you guys to get to see me in all my gloriousness. (I should add that the book I'm reading- All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews...highly recommended! Very Canadian, very good. You will cry.)
Next- a friend in Alberta had offered to Periscope feeding his bearded dragon for Foster so the kids settled in to learn about reptiles. Yes Henrietta is chillin' in her undies with peanut butter all over her face. We're classy like that around these parts. She probably would be completely naked but I forced her to at least put on underwear especially for photos. We don't heat our condo and I'll be bundled up in blankets but Hattie is usually comfortable in her birthday suit.
After we did the Periscope Foster and his buddy felt the need for further conversation so we set them up to FaceTime for a little while. While the kids made faces at the iPhone I edited some pics on the computer and heated them up some leftover vegan mac & cheese for lunch. After we ate we decided to bike to the library. The library is our favourite!
(If you have questions about our weird bike it's called a Bullitt and it's basically our mini-van. We are a car-free family which means we're either biking, busing, walking or staying home!)
We spent a good long while at the library looking at books, play with...I mean using...the self check-out, getting stickers. Did I mention we love the library? It's a cold day so the kids decided to use the Starbucks gift cards they got for Christmas to grab a hot apple juice. And I can always go for more coffee so I was down for that plan!
We looked at books at Starbucks for a while but the kids didn't want to go home yet so we popped into the thrift store across the street.
The toys held no treasures but I totally scored! I bought a merino wool dress for $9. Looked up the label and it would have been hundreds at Nordstrom new so I was psyched with my find! Now it's almost time for Dad to get home from work so I wrestled the kids into the bike to take them home for dinner. If I haven't stressed this heavily enough at this point my life would pretty much fall apart without the amazing supportive partner I have. After he works all day at his boring office job he comes up and gets straight to work making dinner. On this particular day he made some amazing pad thai while Henrietta "helped". (And by helped I mean ate a red pepper like it was an apple. Naked of course.)
After dinner our night's pretty smooth sailing right into bedtime. Which is teeth brushing, all the stories, lay in bed listening to audiobooks and hope Henrietta falls asleep. On this particular evening for whatever reason she was too wired to relax so it also involved Dad doing some toddler wearing in a wrap.
Once the kids eventually go to bed Davis and I are ready to get it on...by which I mean get our TV watching on! When we say "Netflix and chill" we mean it literally with very few exceptions. So there are no more photos because you probably don't want to see me knitting and watching the Bachelorette and eating chocolate. But I promise it's pretty amazing.
Tomorrow we'll be ready to start the day all over again. Because I'm a work from home mom with unschooled kids our days don't all look the same. Sometimes we'll have an art class or go to the museum. Sometimes we sit around all day in our pyjamas and don't do much of anything. But I will always remember this time in our lives and I'm thankful to have been given a good reason to document a full day. Thanks for having me, Emily!
Thanks for being here, Kristy!
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Ello - @kristybikes
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