A Day in The Life

7:00- Chris slips out of bed, grabs his surf shorts, his surf board, and is off. I make sure Baby Maria doesn't wake up. We've had 3 rough nights in a row with her having a fever, coming in to our bed, and waking up multiple times a night.


7:15- Enzo wakes up, goes to the living room to read, Maria is starting to wake up. I go and grab her a bottle.


7:30- It starts raining hard outside. Enzo comes in to my room. I can tell he's scared of the storm. He's finishing up Prince Caspian and wants to read it out loud to me and Maria. Yes! I love it when he agrees to read-out-loud because then I can help him with the words he normally skips over. 


8:00- Chris is back from surfing. He hops in the shower. Maria follows him. On average she takes 3 showers a day. She likes taking showers with everyone in the house. Enzo stays reading with me and now our kitty, Cacau, is cuddling with us too.

8:10- Chris drops off a baby bear on the bed and volunteers to make biscuits and eggs for breakfast. Maria is still pretty warm. I think she has a low fever. She complains that her ears hurt. Enzo goes off to do something else. I get my iPod quickly check my email and Facebook and  then spend a good 10 minutes on Instagram checking out all the pictures on #FEBPHOTOADAY. I also make sure to check in on my friend Rocio's, feed. Her grad school applications are due today. 


8:45- I quickly get myself ready and the kids ready.


8:48- We eat breakfast. Iris wakes up and joins us. I love it when Iris is home in the morning. She's so fun and so great with the kids. We have a long breakfast as a family.  


9:26- Iris starts on the dishes. Enzo starts homeschool. First up is math. He does his math drills, a series of addition, subtraction, multiplications, and division. Enzo looks at a math problem, does a couple of laps in the living room while screaming out numbers, and then comes back and writes his answers on his notebook.  He gets every single answer right.  He is able to think better when he's moving. How in the world will he adjust to sitting down next year when he goes to school?

9:56- We get a delivery. I recently purchased a bunch of books from The Book Depository because they have Free Shipping Worldwide. The books are all for homeschool. The first book arrives today, it's a sticker book about Knights. Enzo is in Heaven. I try to convince him to work on his Kumon multiplication workbook but he wants to see his new book. Fine. Meanwhile Maria grabs the iPod and starts playing Starfall. I come sit next to Christian and we check out the news together on his computer, we mostly look at current political news. I quickly get depressed.


10:12- Time to get Enzo back on track. We work on measuring his bean plant and logging the information down in his journal. Maria is still being entertained by the iPod. She plays a little bit more Starfall, then listens to music on her favorite App.


10: 35- Too much iPod for the Baby. I decide to involve her on Enzo's current Read It, Write, It, Draw It book. I tell her she can help with the stickers. I'm thinking the whole thing will take 10 minutes tops. It takes almost an hour. Enzo is super frustrated because Baby Maria is not putting the stickers Exactly. The. Right. Way. 


11:20- We figure out a sticker-putting-system where everyone is happy. It took us way to long. I'm over the whole activity. Enzo wants to looks at his new book. Maria is putting left over stickers on my phone. I check my email on my iPod. One new email from Christian. Mind you, he's been sitting next to me working on his computer while I work with the kids. His emails always make me smile. I think he could tell from our last homeschool activity that I needed a smile.


10:30 - I try to help Christian with some online Paypal issues. No luck.

10:36- Enzo starts on his Portuguese language workbook. Maria wants to do her "homeschool." Christian and I help her with her Kumon workbooks while the other person is talking to Paypal customer service over skype.  Maria loves her workbooks and always feels so proud of herself. We practice cutting, pasting, and folding. And yes, she got her nails done yesterday.

12:00- Maria starts playing with her toys. I start making lunch. Enzo works on writing then joins me in the kitchen while I give him a spelling test. Lunch is ready. We sit down to eat. The kids eat left over pasta and Chris and I eat left over rice and beans. 

1:00- My favorite hour of the day, Gil arrives. Gil comes over every day and does magic to our house. She cooks. She cleans. And my kids adore her. I adore her too. Today she brought her 8 year old son to play with Enzo. Huzzah!

1:30- I take Maria to the doctor. She's acting fine but is still complaining about her ears.


1:40- I arrive at the public clinic. I don't have many options here for private doctors so we go to the public clinic, which is fine except that today is busy, there are tons of people and only 1 doctor. I sign us in and head out to run some errands - buy new undies for Maria, go to the ATM, and do a quick supermarket run.


2:15- I come back to the clinic, as expected they haven't called us yet. Luckily my friend is there with her newborn. We sit and talk. Maria is surprisignly mellow. She loves sitting next to baby Valentina.

4:30- We leave the clinic. Maria is exhausted. And they still haven't called our name. We leave without seeing the doctor. My friend leaves without seeing the doctor. I feel worse for my friend.

4:40- We're back home. Maria is happy to be back with the boys. Why didn't I just stay home with her?! Going to the clinic was such a bad call. I cut up some watermelon for the kids and help Gil make dinner - potato lasagna.

5:15- Gil leaves. Dinner is in the oven. Christian is home. I am ready to do something fun. We decide to go to the beach.

6:00- Dinner is done and we leave it in the oven. We walk to the beach. Christian hangs out with the kids while I go running.

7:00- We make our way back home.


7:30- After everyone is showered dinner is served. As soon as Maria looks at her plate  she says "I don't love this food. I want food that I love." Enzo also complains. The usual. I tell Enzo he needs to be grateful, blah, blah, blah and that he is going to eat his dinner, period. Enzo takes one bite and says "This is delicious." No comments. I turn to Maria and tell her the exact same things I told Enzo. She still protests and refuses to take a bite. I get a book and I start reading it to her to distract her. Christian spoon feeds her and she ends up eating everything on her plate.


8:00- We read scriptures, I hug the kids goodnight and tell them I have to work. I sit down on my bed with my laptop and make a mental to-do list.  Christian starts reading to Enzo and Maria comes and hangs out with me. Then Enzo comes and hangs out with me. As usual I don't get started on work until much later and as usual by the time I do get started on work I'm too tiered to get much done.


8:47- Christian has the kids in bed. After putting the kids to bed Christian goes and washes the dishes. I try to work on a post for Inhabitots but I end up chatting with my web Designer, Ana from Blog Milk. I love talking to Ana. She sends me a new Design for my Facebook Page profile picture.


9:30- I start watching the new Glee episode while editing pictures.


10:20- Christian and I watch the Volcom Pipe Pro together. I watch and blog at the same time, but mostly I just watch. John John Florence is amazing. His last wave... holy smokes!


11:10- Iris is home from work. We talk about her day and our day. My eyes are starting to shut. Christian is still working on his field notes. I'm ready for bed.

11:30- Christian is typing away. Iris and I hang out a bit. She tells me not to watch the new Rihanna video. I watch it anyway. I hate it. Totally should not have watched it. I love the song, why did she have to make such  junk video. O.K I am so ready for bed.

0:00- Lights out!

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One of the questions I get asked the most is, "how do you spend your time?" If you think I get to cook all day and blog you are wrong. I documented my day yesterday to show you today what my life is like. Yesterday I hardly cooked at all and didn't take a single picture with my camera. It's hard to say, what an average day looks like because there are no average days, every day is a little different. The truth is that every phase is a little different, or a lot different. Yesterday part of Christian's email read

...I appreciate the support that you're giving me during this year here in Brazil, putting some of your own goals and work on the side. I also love how much time our family has to spend together during this time and really appreciate all of us being able to be together all the time. I appreciate how much support you give me for school and work but also for surfing and the things I like to do...

I also love that right now our little family gets to be together so much. I love that I get to homeschool Enzo. I never thought I would like homeschooling but I love it. I love that our time is so flexible, that Christian works from home, that most things are a short walk from our house. I love that my sister is living with us. I love that we have a maid. I recognize that this is a phase, a good phase, but still just a phase. Come September I'm sure my Day in The Life will look completely different. The thing is that my writing and Christian's research and the kids' homeschool is a family affair. We're in it together. Christian and I are used to change, we're used to our schedules flipping on it's head every couple of months. We're so used to it we pretty much expect it. But we do it together, and that's all that matters.