Small Wonders: So what do you do all day?

There are a lot of assumptions about what women (and ) men (?) do when they are stay-at-home parents/providers. How do we organize ourselves, and what exactly do we do with all the "free-time" we get when the kids are off napping lol.

I can't think of how many times people ask me what I do all day.
Honestly, I don't get much down-time - not during the day anyway, and as for the kids all napping peacefully...*sigh*

Aside from changing at least 1 diaper every hour, cleaning up kids, feeding them, teaching/encouraging them, playing with and amusing them, soothing cries and tantrums, there's not much time for anything else...sometimes I even forget to eat.

When I do get some free time, I try to make good use of my time by doing a few things around the house...

Cleaning up - I have had people comment that I am "lucky' to be able to be at home, so I can clean and "stuff". In reality, my house is almost never clean. I sweep my floors at least 5 times in a period of 10 hours. Sometimes I have to mop 2 times a day, not to mention sanitizing. Sometimes my floors are sticky and grimy and just gross. This is rare, but it happens. I have had yogurt or pudding on walls, and pasta sauce smeared onto anything and everything.

Planning ahead/Keeping up - Keeping myself in check is also a lot of work. Keeping track of receipts, remembering what each child needs and who is coming/going at anytime is another job on its own.
We have so many activities that without my calendar I could never keep up. Books on hold at the library, sending/responding to email/inquiries, blog posts/updates, supplies to buy...things to do. Downtime is not always the best time to try to tackle all of these, but sometimes it works.

Organizing them- organizing our play area(s) is not the same as cleaning up :)
I don't get too fussy if the kids don't put the right toys in the right bins, although I try to assist them in doing so. So if I find they are just dumping things wherever, then I will help to direct them, but otherwise, I chalk it up to choosing my battles, lol.
So when it comes down to it, I do have to put things where they belong, and try to keep their stuff in order.

beautiful chalk drawing on my floor

Organizing me - A part of organizing myself lately, is getting Big boy ready for school, my oldest ready for uni, and I will be homeschooling (weekend schooling) my littlest in the Fall.
I have been good at separating dayhome from homeschool so far, and I do set aside some time for curriculum review/research, although it needs a lot more dedication. I'm working on that.

homeschool planning

Home - I am able to get a couple loads of laundry done in the day - if I start early. Things like vacuuming, cooking and meal-prep, dusting and folding laundry are touch and go, as expected.