Cheri had a fun post on her blog the other day about a typical day in her life at home with her kids. I thought it was a really cute idea, so I decided to do it too. I know I always like getting a peek into other people’s lives, it’s like they are letting you read their diary or something. 🙂
This was our day on Thursday, May 31.
3:46 am- Penny wakes up and needs to be nursed. I prop up some pillows in our bed and feed her for a little while.
4:20am Eddie takes Penny from me, walks around with her for a while, and puts her back to sleep.
6:00 am Nick and Abby wake up (They almost always wake up at the same time) and come to snuggle in our bed for a few minutes. I haven’t been able to get much sleep since Penny woke up a few hours ago and I’m more grouchy than I should be.
6:30 am This is actually very late for Eddie to be home, he used to try to be at the office by now, but lately he has been staying home for a little while longer in the mornings to have breakfast with the kids. Everyone eats a different but easy breakfast together at the table. Today Eddie has cereal, Nick has a Poptart, Abby has oatmeal, I don’t eat yet, but I sit with them until Penny wakes up.
6:45 Penny wakes up and I nurse her again while Eddie gets ready to leave. Nick and Abby wave and make heart shapes with their hands (our family tradition) through the window as he drives away.
7:30 I put Penny in the exersauser and have my breakfast, a bagel thin, at the computer while Nick and Abby play with a soft frisbee in the hallway off the kitchen while I check my email/ Facebook/ blog.
8:00 Nick and Abby play in Nick’s room or the living room and make a gigantic mess. I get my thoughts together for the work meeting I have later, feed Penny some more, get the kids a snack (mini rice cakes), change diapers and do potty time, pack a bag for the gym later, and feed Penny some more. She is a fairly good sleeper, it’s pretty unusual for her to wake up like she did last night, but that means in the morning she is hungry.
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| See? I told you they made a big mess. |
10:00 I start making lunch because we are going to need to eat by 10:30 in order to make Nick’s occupational therapy appointment.
10:30 Nick and Abby have turkey, raisins and apples for lunch and frozen banana slices coated with Nutella for dessert. Penny has applesauce. I have leftovers from last night’s dinner: pasta w/chicken and fresh spinach and tomatoes and apple slices. I also stole a couple of banana pieces. shhh.
11:00 We get dressed/diapers/potty. I like to wait until we have to leave to get the kids dressed, so I know their clothes will still be clean when we go out.
11:30 We leave for Nick’s OT appointment.
12:00-12:30 Nick is in OT to work on pre-kindergarten fine motor skills every Thursday. Abby and I do puzzles in the waiting room.
1:00 We go back home. We check our strawberry plant. They found one berry today.
The kids have a snack (blueberries) and we do potty time and they go down for a nap. Abby sleeps but Nick just rests and plays in his room.
I try putting Penny in her high chair with a board book so I can unload the dishwasher. This turns out to be a very bad idea because she manages to bite off a piece of the book and starts to choke. Luckily, she coughs the piece back up, so I don’t have to do the Heimlich maneuver. (I have had to do that before on an infant, make sure you are trained in infant/child CPR, it’s different than what you would do for adults!)
Instead of doing the dishes, I comfort Penny and then she and I sit on the couch and I nurse her and watch The Chew.
2:45 Nick is getting antsy and wants another snack. (This kid is forever eating.) I eat blueberries Greek yogurt, and graham crackers with him. Then he is allowed to watch 30 minutes of tv.
3:15 I wake up Abby and change her and Penny and pack up our stuff so we can go to my meeting.
4:00-6:00 I am fortunate enough to have a great part time job teaching parenting classes and family workshops for a local non-profit. We have just finished a 7 week session of our Strengthening Families Program and we are having our debriefing meeting. My colleagues have graciously agreed to have the meeting in our empty childcare room so that I can bring my kids. Nick and Abby play nicely with each other (to my great surprise and relief) while my coworkers and I take turns holding Penny.
6:00 One of the local branches of our Y is just 2 doors down from my office. We head over there so I can squeeze in a brief workout. By the time I get the kids checked in to childcare and I change my clothes, I only have time to do a mile on the stair stepper today. I usually try to do at least 3 miles on one of the machines, but I figure one mile is better than zero and call it good enough.
6:30 Eddie has already been off work for a while and has been mowing the grass at the land where we will be building our house. We stop at McDonald’s (I know, okay. Just being honest over here.) which is the building in between my office and the YMCA, and pick up dinner so we can take a picnic dinner over to Eddie.
6:45 We have a picnic under our walnut trees. I tried to be sort of good and I got a grilled chicken sandwich and a berry smoothie. (Whatever. It’s better than a BigMac and fries. Probably. Maybe.)
7:45 We have stayed a while so the kids could play and Eddie cut some more grass. I nursed Penny again and now Nick is going into melt down mode because he’s exhausted. I drive the kids home and Eddie packs up the tractor and heads home behind us.
8:15 We put on pj’s and read a story and say prayers. We put the kids to bed without a bath. (We are mostly every-other-day bath givers around here.) Bedtime is a fairly long process at our house, but it is a pretty organized ritual.
9:00 I nurse Penny until she falls asleep for the night and Eddie sits with me on the couch. We watch That 70’s Show on Nick at Night and eat Weight Watchers popsicles.
10:00 We usually stay up much later than this, but today we are both exhausted so we get ready and go to bed.
I got absolutely zero housework done today, as per usual. I need to work on that.
Nothing terribly exciting, but I do love having picnics over on our land. We’ve been doing that fairly regularly lately now that it’s grass cutting season. I wish I could say that was an especially busy day but that’s pretty much par for the course around here. At least now that school and Mom n Me are over for the summer our mornings are free.
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