24 Unschooled Hours

[Julie B]

Here's our family's contribution to the "Normal" Days Blog Carnival. I was inspired to start documenting a typical day at 9:29pm, so we're going to span two days. Welcome to August 1-2, 2008, in the lives of the Boerst-Italiano family with a special focus on 3yo Dmitri. That odd protrusion on me is Dmitri's sibling. He claims she's a girl named Susanna.


9:29pm Legos

Dmitri is building a tower. Intense concentration, doing it all himself. Usually he uses me as a kind of lego spotter to help him keep things stable as he tries impossibly tall and skinny configurations. Tonight it's all Dmitri, and he's not getting upset when they fall. Interesting development!

When are we going to sleep? We don't know. Bedtimes have ranged from 7:30pm to 1am this week. We're transitioning to a new "regular" bedtime, I guess.


10pm Looking at photos with Papa

10:20pm Walking the kitty home
The neighbor cat from up the street has been getting disoriented and meowing outside our door, so we walk her home. Earlier this evening, Mitri said for the first time ever that he was scared of the dark when we were out for a walk, but apparently a large, slow, senile, six-toed kitty is an effective talisman against monsters.


11pm Eating strawberries

Brushed our teeth--he did mine while I did his. Then, of course, it was time to eat.

He thought strawberries would cure his hiccups. Eating turned into building. Much triumph when he got every one piled into a tiny bowl.

Did I mention these were for the picnic tomorrow? Oops. Building turned into balancing, carrying, yelling "Whoa!" all the way into the living room, and spreading them out on the futon. I convinced him to put them on a towel so we wouldn't get red stuff all over.

We had an interesting conversation about reverse ripening: "And then they're gonna get green, and then we're gonna put them on the plants!" Still hiccupping...


12am Taking a bath

We played with markers, and the resulting smudges on arms and legs were deemed unacceptable (by Dmitri), so it was bathtime.

Hairwashing accomplished by dipping comb in bubbly bath and doing a comb-through. (We haven't had "real" hairwashing in six months, maybe even closer to a year? There is no way this kid is going to be dunked or let someone pour something on his head. He thinks we're nuts for taking showers.) Perpetual haircut at rate of one or two snips a day continues. I am entirely reponsible for any unfortunate hairstyles that result.

After the bath Dmitri says, "Let's do laundry!" So we do.

1am Transitioning into sleep
It's happening! The Guy is tired and ready to make a transition. First he wants tempeh.

Oh, and beans. COLD beans. He wants to know where the hiccups went.

Sleep at 1:35am. The three of us lie in bed for a while telling stories, and then Dmitri nurses down for the night. Ah, sweet repose.


7:50am Snuggling

I hear a sleepy, creaky "Mama!" from the bedroom. Joe is snoozing right next to Dmitri, but Dmitri wants me to snuggle or nurse him back to sleep. Joe staunchly refuses to nurse despite my claims that it's enirely possible. Will Dmitri nurse his kid someday?
One of my favorite Family Guy clips...
I sneak away for more me time, contemplating going out to get something decadent and nutritionally inadequate for breakfast. Another "Mama!" at 8:30 requires a nursedown.


9:45am Hello, world!

We often start the day by reading books because Dmitri takes a while to wake up.

They don't work too well for us as an evening wind-down, but they're great for a morning wind-up.


10:15am Pisser?

I had to probe a little to untangle the Pisser story. I came upon Dmitri and Joe calling "Pisser!" out the window.

"Pisser" is one of the names we call ants when we see them around here. I didn't start it--Joe did. Now Dmitri shouts out, "There's Pisser!" when we're out for walks. Thanks, Joe.

Anyhow, Dmitri was upset about a toy and saying he was going to break it. Joe claimed to see Pisser out the window by way of solution.

Next stop--cold beans for breakfast.


11am Papa fixes the motorcycle
Superglue holds our lives together.

While Dmitri is waiting for the glue on the motorcycle to dry, he practices jumping.

12pm Mama's naptime
Naps are a wonderful thing. While I snooze, the boys eat lunch.

Joe says that Dmitri put all the pretzels in the sour cream and announced that he had a birthday cake with pretzel candles. Then it was time for dinosaur play with very specific instructions for Papa along the lines of "Over here!" and "You hold this one!"

2pm Time to get up
Joe and Dmitri wake me up so I can get ready for our picnic.

Dmitri plays with legos for a while and then tries out a new hairstyle.

3pm Picnic with friends
At the park we eat, run, swim, and play--all the usual picnic stuff. It's a nice time to connect with our friends Scott, Claudia, and their three kids--Anna, Elizabeth, and Michael.

We enjoy some of Joe's homemade blueberry pie, and Dmitri tries to get crabapples down from a tree with a little help from a football.

8pm Asleep
Dmitri drifts off minutes after we leave the parking lot.

9:29pm Done!
Dmitri is still asleep, and our 24 hours is complete. I've been using naptime (or maybe this will last until morning?) to post the blog. Fun stuff! I think I'll try it again sometime.

[Sylvia Toyama]

I remember those days -- 3 is such a sweet age. I almost miss that age, until I look at the boys today and know I'm not missing a thing!

[Bekah]

Julie...such a lovely day...i love 3 year olds..
i can relate to so much in your post. Micah was sure that he was having a sister named baby Jesus and a friens who had a baby near the same time was told by her 3 year old that the baby should be named Brown Pizza...so you are not so bad off with Susanna. :)
the cat tale made me think of the book *goodbye monsters, lickity split*..a story about a little boy who can't sleep until his kitten chases the monsters off. :)

[Mary K.]

Claire and I enjoyed looking at pictures of Dmitri. He likes quite a few of the same things as her legos, dinosaurs, strawberries. Thanks for sharing.

[Tracy Liebmann]

lovely...just lovely :-) Small world, BIG life!

[laura b]

what a beautiful day. it makes me long for those sweet sweet times. all mine are a little older now and seem to need my attentions less and less. but that is a good thing too, seeing their independence grow. but gosh, i miss breastfeeding and constant snuggling.