The Tale of a "Typical" Home School Day!

Here's a classic example of why I have a really hard time telling someone what a "typical" school day is like at our home:

The day started like a typical day: breakfast, chores, Scripture reading, a song or two, and prayer. I felt that it had been way too long since we had had an art lesson as a group. So, I pulled out the DVD lesson that had been previewed and thought out the night before. It took a few minutes to get all of the supplies pulled out of their storage places and gear myself up for the mental preparation it takes to allow the children to paint (we still have stains on the light beige sofa from the last adventure).

The lesson was adorable....painting tumbling clowns (Atelier Homeschool Art program that shows the project with the teacher demonstrating and the children on the DVD doing the lesson as well). The vinyl tablecloth was catching the drips, I was dumping rinse water and wiping up little splatters with a rag....it was going quite well until the aerator of the bathroom faucet fell off in my hand (plastic threads completely stripped from using faucet water filters) and water started squirting all over the bathroom taking on various colored splashes from the rinsing of the paint stuff). Okay....a quick call to Daddy at work to pick up a new faucet and back to the children (Weston was in his play yard wishing he was finger painting). Then, not long after Shaeanne posed for this individual picture, she somehow managed to spill the icecream bucket of rinse water that you see shown! It takes quite a bit of "not paying attention" to actually spill this kind of container (thus the reason I picked this size for rinsing water containers)! The tablecloth on the floor caught most of the deluge, but not all. Shaeanne promptly jumped up on the couch splashing more water around as she watched the water flow under the sofa onto the light beige carpeting under it! Garratt very dutifully got a bath towel while I barked out orders.

Needless to say, Shaeanne was put into an instant bad mood more by the fact that her clowns were swimming in what looked like Kool-aid than by my reaction to the mess. I really tried not to attack her verbally for her carelessness, but did comment quite a few times on the mess itself (not at this point realizing what was happening to the carpet). I mopped up the mess and we actually continued our painting (Shaeanne proceeding to believe that she may as well not even continue, thus mixing all of her paint together - making the rest of her project a mostly brown rendition of "tumbling clowns").

So, after they finished painting, all of the children went outside to play while I spent an hour trying to get the red paint out of the carpet! After realizing that the pink blotches were hopefully going to dry much lighter, I figured I may as well clean the high traffic area at the bottom of the stairs while the carpet cleaner was all soaped up and ready to go. Naptime and Quiet time (for the girls and Weston) was spent helping Garratt with his seatwork, getting mail sorted, computer stuff done, tackling the pile of papers on my desk, and changing my mind twice about how the entryway wall should be configured in the addition (thus causing Dad and Don to have to take apart part of the wall to change it back to plan A). At least the men didn't make me feel guilty about it and cheerfully took the wall back down (thanks, guys!). After supper, Don put the new faucet in the bathroom and after the children went to bed I sorted through the pile of stuff that had been spread out on the bathroom floor of what had been under the sink. There were some interesting discoveries in that little adventure! I have PLENTY of bathroom wipes....and 3 bottles of toilet cleaner!

The great news is that we built some funny memories and have some beautiful tumbling clowns gracing our wall! The sad news is that the children will be afraid to paint again! Maybe it'll be easier to paint on the new laminate flooring in the addition.....maybe next year. :)