Our Wednesday begins around five-thirty. Phita started the day off having seizures. I had to give her an extra medication to help them stop. Once she was settled, I did my morning routine and sat down to write.

Teeny joined me around seven and helped me make breakfast. She was very excited to crack eggs and whisk as we made an egg bake. She’s almost always the earliest to rise. Once in a while, Lou Bae beats her. Evie is sick if she wakes up first!

Everyone else woke up and we all got ready, Tom got Phita ready for the day. We met back at the table for breakfast. We’re doing a family Bible in a year, that I read so I slightly edit. Teeny is way too curious to let words like “prostitute” and “common whore” go without needing to know what they mean! So, I lightly edit for now until they’re old enough to understand those words.

After breakfast we pray our rosary and then dive into school. We always start with prayer and then move into listening to and practicing our songs. We moved into history next. We used to read all of our books every day, but it’s gotten to be way overwhelming, so we’re paring it way back.

We read one section of our Tuttle Twins history and one chapter of the Liberty Kids book we’re reading and discussed them. We moved into geography where we’re reading a book about the St. Lawrence Seaway and the history of Washington D.C. and looked at maps of both.

The kids went out to play for a little break while I worked with Phita on her sitting. We’re trying to stick to twenty minute blocks of each subject and then a break every hour or so to keep us focused. It’s working well so far.

When they came in we talked about the three types of verbs, read Kites Fly High again, watched a short video on them and then did a worksheet about them. They all really seem to get action verbs, but struggle with helping and linking, which I think is fair.

We moved into science next, we’re reading a Look Inside book about spiders and scorpions, which is a little gross, but also very cool. It breaks down the different types of arthropods and how to classify them. We had some great discussions on this.

We’re learning about St. Junipero Serra right now, so we started listening to the Merry Beggars audio drama about him while they worked on writing about things that they’re passionate about the way he was passionate about Jesus.

We took another break and I worked with Phita on her speech. Tom was in the background doing dishes and participating with us during all of this, by the way! I feel like he sort of faded in my writing! But it’s easy to do when I’m focused on what we were doing in school!

When they came in we rounded out our group school with music, sign language, and our finish basket. We listened to the first movement of Bach’s The Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 and comparing it to Toccata and Fugue in D minor, which we’ve listened to extensively. They had some really great observations about the instruments and tone differences in both pieces.

Then we practiced sign language with Signing Time. The girls are way, way better than me at it! After that, we finished up the little bit of the worksheets they didn’t have time for in our earlier blocks and glued them into their notebooks. Lou Bae is a perfectionist and can take hours on a simple coloring page. It was really dragging down our school day, so I started setting time limits on our time blocks and having all of the kids put any unfinished work in the center of the table with dedicated time to finish it while I make lunch.

I made tacos and we all ate lunch together and listened to the Merry Beggars Lent with the Saints podcast. I fed and changed Phita while Tom got our bikes ready and the girls got their helmets on. We went on a family bike ride. Phita rides in a trailer on the back of Tom’s bike.

She loved it, laughing and motioning for him to go faster the whole way. We raced and rode all over town. It was good exercise and such a lovely day. It’s been so weird here lately. We had a blizzard and like two days later it was almost eighty degrees. We were driving along with massive snow drifts in the ditches with the air on!

Tom went to bed when we got home. He had to go in later than normal, but still had to work an extra day. I rotated the girls through Mom Time. I sit at the table and do math and language arts with each kid while the others play. Teeny and Evie set up a Colonial homestead while I worked with Lou Bae. Phita did tummy time.

When we were all finished we tidied up and I made a sesame chicken salad for supper. We ate without Tom since he didn’t wake up until about bedtime for the kids. I got Phita settled down and her night feed set up. Tom woke up just as we were reading our bedtime books. He prayed with the girls and they went to bed.

I spent a little time with him before he went in to work. I sat down and wrote this to you! And that was Wednesday With Amanda! I hope you all had a great day, too!