Part II Q&A

Marianne said:
You must be organized! How do you plan and do everything else like grocery shopping, cleaning, etc.? I know I asked you before (but I'd like to hear your answer again lol): When do you sleep?? Also, how many hours do you spend a week doing RR related stuff?

I’m very organized at some things and very UNORGANIZED at others :)  But, the more people in the home needing care, the more organized I have been forced to become!

I do grocery shopping often times at night, or Mike will grab the essentials on his way home from work.  Right now I am shopping at Sam’s about once or twice a month and ordering diapers at Amazon! :)  I will take 4 or 5 kids grocery shopping, but in the last 6 or 8 weeks haven’t had the need to take them all, by myself, yet.  Mike and I frequently do some of those things together- like our trip to Sam’s the week before Patrick came- with all of our kids in tow :)

I don’t clean.

LOL, ok, maybe I do!  I clean either when the kids are asleep at night, when they’re napping, or, when I hire a sitter :)  For the summer I have a college-age friend that is coming over 3 hours 2 days a week.  Two hours each day I clean or work on RR stuff or do laundry or whatever.  The other hour she and I get all the kids fed, changed, and down for naps!  With all the kids home and there being no real ‘down time’ for me during the week, this has been a great thing for the summer!

Sleep is for old people ;)  And I’ll sleep when the kids are old!  Really, though, I go to bed most nights between 11 and 12 and I get up about 6 or 7, so I get 6-8 hours of sleep each night on most nights.  There are, of course, the nights with 3-4 hours and we just limp through those days and try to sleep better the next night.

And RR… hmm.  RR really differs on the time I spend on it.  Right now I had scaled back on my own responsibilities because I knew that having all 6 kids home from school and having just gotten custody of James that things would be pretty busy here.  I was probably working about 20 hours/week during the ‘slow time’.  Now, however, the SDA is being picky and we’ve also had more families in country needing additional communications, so it’s back up to closer to 30 or more.  I love the portability of a laptop and the ease of email to be able to start and stop when needed and take care of all of my kids’ needs and my family FIRST.   As soon as ministry overtakes family, it is no longer ministry!

Marianne asked:
Do you find it difficult juggling 6 young children, including a baby? How do your days typically look?

I guess it could be said as difficult, but I suppose it would depend on how you look at it :)  I don’t think it’s difficult, but it certainly is busy :).   Here’s a look into our typical day at home for the summer:

We get up, dressed, clean diapers and potty, and breakfast.  After breakfast, or during, I do medicines then brush teeth after.  I make all the boys’ bottles for the day in the morning when preparing breakfast.  The kids will get down and play for a little while, and we often all go into the guest room for ‘structured’ play time.  I have a cabinet in there with books about colors and days of the week, shapes, etc.  We’ll sing songs and look at stories and just spend some time together and playing and learning.  The kids will play in the rice/beans bin in there and sit in bean bag chairs while we play.

Around 11 I get lunch ready and do a round of diapers and pottying and then feed all the kids.  As they finish eating, they get washed up and go to their beds for nap time.  Usually this is around 12, and sometimes between taking a little time to fall asleep and then their actual nap, it will be between 2 and 3 when they get up.  Lynae generally nurses just before I get lunch going and she will go down for her nap while I feed everyone else.  She, too, gets up around 2pm.

After naps we do a round of diapers and have play time in the main house.  I’ll often turn on a tv show in the afternoon, let the kids get on the computer some, or turn the radio on.  If we don’t have anywhere to be, then they play and I play with them and also work on RR stuff during the afternoon.  Around 4 or so I will start thinking about dinner for the day and if it’s something that needs to be cooked/defrosted then I’ll start on that.  We eat between 5 and 6 most nights, and Mike gets home about 5:15 typically. 

After dinner, if it’s a night we need to do baths, we usually go straight to the tub.  I shared more about our dinner and bath routine already.  After baths the kids get clean overnight diapers and pajamas and then we’ll do medicines if we hadn’t at dinner and brush their teeth.  At 7 pm Brianna, Micah, Lynae, Emma, and James will say prayers and give hugs and kisses and then go to bed.  Right now Patrick is usually going to bed at that time too.  Kristopher goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 unless there’s a reason he needs to go down earlier.

The kids are all, generally, pretty good sleepers now and we have some quiet time in the evenings before going to bed ourselves :)