a day in the life

A lot of people recently have been writing up “a day in the life” posts.  I thought it might be a fun exercise.  Be warned, this is not every.single.thing. that happens during the day.  I try to have a bit of rhythm to them anyways.

4am:  Wake up and nurse Jack.  Spend 15 minutes trying to get him to go back to sleep and then try really really hard to get out of bed without him waking up again.  9 times out of 10 this doesn’t work, and I repeat until I can get out the door.  Usually by 4:30, this morning he didn’t even wake up, so I went downstairs at 4:15, awesome!

Yes people, I really do wake up this early.  I decided to do the Hello Mornings Challenge again this winter.  I failed at it miserably in the fall.  The reason?  I realized it wasn’t feasible for me to try and get up at 6am and expect to have quiet time.  So while I am up before the world (except the guy across the street who is always leaving for work at this time), I am thankful I am actually getting the time alone to sit and read and journal.

Take dog out, feed dog, brush teeth, get coffee/Bible/journal, sit on my couch and try to have some quiet time. It has really helped my day go so much smoother, although my husband is now in charge of mornings and keeping the kids upstairs while I am downstairs, which is why at

5:30am:  The whole house is awake and is running around upstairs.  That goes on for about 10 minutes while Matt figures out how to move 🙂  And then everyone comes downstairs.  Now you know why I have to get up at 4am if I want to have my quiet time.  I have tried everything with these kids to make them sleep later, put them to bed later, try to not have naps, it doesn’t work.  And if they don’t nap…well…I end up being miserable most of the afternoon.

6am:  Breakfast.  Every morning everyone has oatmeal, or I make muffins, and occasionally egg sandwiches, but mostly, oatmeal.  It is something everyone will eat, and it is healthy and cheap.  Emma will get *special* oatmeal once in a while with a little brown sugar, but typically it is cinnamon/nutmeg and either blueberries or bananas.

During breakfast either Matt or myself reads their Bible reading for the day.  I tend to read out of the kids Bible, and then sometimes read a Psalm from my Bible.  Not sure if they pick up most of it, but they are quiet, and I figure it is the best time to read the Bible to them.

As soon as Emma is done, she immediately wants to play her favorite game, chase.  I explain that I have to get the dishes done but we are going to have music time.  First meltdown of the day.  Apparently she hates music, and never wants to have music time ever again.

We have a little talk about what our attitude should be like, and she calms down.  Then she requests “Fresh Beat Band” radio on Pandora.  Which apparently means that they take any current song (and actually some great 80’s tunes that I like), and re-record them with Alvin and the Chipmunks.  She loves it, and Jack and Emma play chase by themselves while I take care of the breakfast dishes.

I try to figure out what I am going to make for dinner today (since everyone is at home, I tend to have a large afternoon meal and then leftovers in the evening).  I realize that it is only 7:15, and I don’t need to start bread until 9.  So I start in on the game of chase for a little bit.

7:30am:  Music time is done, everyone needs a break.  We sit down and have circle time.  Jack thinks this means he can try to climb onto my shoulders while we are doing our stretches.  Emma tries to explain that he is doing it wrong and needs to watch her.  He doesn’t.  We sing a song, say our thank you prayer, and then check the weather.  Emma explains what is going on to Jack and he watches her to make sure he gets everything she is saying 🙂

8am:  Time for stories.  I take out the long books first.  We just started Little House in the Big Woods.  So I read a couple chapters from that.  Then I read whichever stories are in her curriculum planner for the day, usually not many, and they typically only take 20 minutes.  Then I open the school cupboard and Emma is free to pick whichever books she wants me to read.  It ends up being every Dr. Seuss book possible 🙂

10am:  Play time again.

11am:  Tv time.  They watch Sid the Science Kid and Word World while I am making dinner.

12pm:  Eat lunch.  Explain to Emma that unless she eats what I have made, she won’t be able to have afternoon snack.  She tries to get up from the table multiple times.  Jack eats all of his food, and then trades bowls with Emma and starts eating hers.  She thinks that she is all done eating because Jack’s bowl is empty.

I put the timer on for a few last minutes of play time before rest time.

1pm:  Rest time.  I left a comment about how my kids still have naps every day, and another commenter was slightly jealous.  What I had left out was the ungodly hour my house is awake in the morning 🙂  Even though Emma fights it, she eventually will fall asleep for a couple hours, and Jack will sleep about 3 hours.  During this time I mainly check e-mails and read and knit.  I always have these grand ideas about doing something around the house, but I never do anything.  I am too tired.  Remember, I was up at 4 🙂

3pm:  Emma is awake and tiptoes out of the living room (where they nap), and in order to keep her quiet she uses my iphone and I let her eat chocolate chip cookies we made the day before (each with 2 chocolate chips in them :-))

4pm:  Jack finally wakes up and I am convinced the kid could sleep later in the morning if I didn’t let him sleep so long in the afternoon.  But, I don’t bother waking him up earlier because waking babies up is never something you should do I have decided.

4:30pm:  Matt gets out of work, takes care of the dog and plays with the kids while I finish up dinner.

5:30pm:  Dinner is done and we are cleaning up.  Then we discuss all the things we *need* to do, but don’t end up doing any of them.

7pm:  Upstairs for kids bedtime.  Matt reads stories and brushes teeth, and then everyone gets to shut out a light.  I nurse Jack and he falls asleep.  I think about getting up and going downstairs to watch TV.  I realize that I am too warm and comfy in the bed, so instead I opt for my nook and watching a movie on netflix.  I then read a little bit after I am bored with the movie.

9pm:  Totally asleep at this point, and happy to be after a very long day 🙂

This is kind of how our day is every day, interspersed with many more meltdowns, someone takes a toy the other was playing with, someone sits on the book while it is being read so no pictures can be seen.  Food gets thrown all over the house.  Jack won’t eat in his highchair anymore.  Dishes get piled up on the counter (I run the dishwasher 3 times/day every day).  I wonder why I bother to clean the house at all, and look at piles of laundry that will never be folded before they are worn and dirty again.  A typical day with my 3 1/2 & 1 1/2 year old babies 🙂