Another Day in the Life
location: Home
mood: 
accomplished
accomplishedMost weeks our schedule is pretty fixed. Mondays and Wednesdays are Caleb's days at preschool (8:30-4:30). Tuesday mornings we go to an open gym at our town's family network. Thursdays are unscheduled on purpose, and Aaron tends to be home on Thursdays. Fridays also are unscheduled, but we tend to run errands on end up on a playdate just to get out and about. Aaron volunteers at Habitat for Humanity on Saturdays, so I look for something to do like going to the Museum of Science or the Children's Museum if I feel like a longer drive. I teach most Sundays, so then it's Aaron's turn to find something to do with the kids. Where's Ellie in all this? She comes along for the ride for the time being.
I do put some effort into balancing time away from home and time just to chill at home. I try to think about whether the things we are doing away from home are fun and worth the effort/cost of getting out of the house. I said I would write a normal day post, but today wasn't entirely normal.
Today is Sunday, but I'm on February vacation, so there was no rushing out the door this morning to teach. Instead I lounged in bed until the luxuriously late hour of 7:15. Caleb already gave us a wake up call, used the toilet with typical dawdling ("Caleb, when you dawdle, you fall off the step stool" - a commonly heard utterance at 6:30am in our house), and argued against "daytime clothes." Aaron brought Ellie to me for nursing. Aaron took first shower, and I read to the kids. This meant I played defense against Ellie's attemps at taking the book for a snack and against Caleb's rougher defense against Ellie. Caleb just wanted to hear a story and snuggle. Ellie wanted to have all the books to eat. I guess board books are tastier than I would have thought. Eventually Aaron was showered and dressed, and he took the kids downstairs for round one of breakfast.
Before my shower, I made Caleb's bed, organized his books so that they actually will stay on the shelf instead of crashing to the floor just because I walk in the room, and I made our bed. Then I showered. I could smell pancakes and turkey sausage as I stepped out of the shower. Ahh... it's the little moments like those I treasure. I did some more decluttering while getting dressed, and so my getting dressed took entirely too long. By the time I made it downstairs, Caleb had eaten oatmeal, and Ellie had eaten Cheerios. Both kids were ready for round 2 of breakfast.
The four of us ate breakfast, and Aaron and I tried to have a coherent conversation about the day's events. By the end of breakfast, we managed to agree that Aaron and Caleb would go play during Ellie's morning nap, and I would straighten the house so that I could take nice pictures for potential house swappers. After the nap, we would tour the local YMCA. That was the extent of the coherent conversation. Other conversation included reminding Caleb that he should use his fork when dipping pancakes into syrup or cranberry apple butter and that food is not a toy. Caleb's end of the conversation was dominated by requests for more. More what? More. Sometimes he specified more syrup or more "that."
Aaron and Caleb went out after breakfast and after I set Ellie down for the blessed morning nap. I got to work. I decluttered every room of the house that I could while I had the time to myself. As I said, this was NOT a normal day. A normal day means the house is a disaster zone, at least in several rooms. I took the pictures for the house swappers. The office remained cluttered and I waited until the end of nap to do Ellie's room. I'm really pleased with the results. Aaron was amazed. Decluttering may have been the one productive thing I did all day.
When the boys returned and Ellie had nursed and been changed, we went to the YMCA for the tour. What fabulous facilities! Free childcare for up to 1.5 hours for members. Newly renovated workout spaces and new equipment. The whole place is bright and cheery. We are joining tomorrow, and I need to find out if I can get Caleb into ANY swim class for this session. This session of course starts tomorrow. I have such a hard time with deadlines, and it bugs me because I used to be so punctual and on top of things like that. One of many changes since having kids.
The YMCA tour was not all rainbows and unicorns. Caleb simply could not accept that we were not swimming right then and there. He had a very hard time with "just looking." Much whining but no meltdown on the tour. When I managed to convince him to leave by being a rocket ship, he felt tricked when we got to the door and just lost it. We got both kids safely to the car and listened to much crying and screaming on the thankfully short ride home. At least only one kid was screaming. Ellie was too busy trying to lose more socks.
Lunch time! I quickly got the kids set up with lunch. Ellie had broccoli, cucumbers and carrots. Caleb requested fish sticks. When I asked whether he wanted cucumbers or carrots, he screamed and eventually said he couldn't answer. I don't know where this "I can't answer" stuff is coming from, but it sucks. He has the wherewithal to say he can't answer but not the ability to answer with something more useful? *shrug* I put some cucumbers and carrots on his plate and figured he would reject both. I added some pears because he will eat nothing but pears if I let him.
Nap time - BIG DEEP BREATH! Amazingly, both kids went down with no major issues. They slept for a shockingly long time (3+ hours!!). Again, it was not a normal day. I continued my straightening efforts with things on and around my desk. I discovered that I completely forgot to send my mom a huge batch of photos that we picked out together. They aren't even labeled or in the right order. Ugh. I packed up things to be mailed to my mamaw and to my friend
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mandella0021 . Maybe I will manage to stay organized enough to get those to the post office tomorrow before settling in to work on my calendar curriculum.Near the end of nap time, I went out for an hour to have "noffee" with a friend. Neither of us drink coffee, so we have non-coffee drinks at a nearby Starbucks every so often. It has been way too long since we got together and we didn't have nearly enough time to chat. I also was stuck in the world of kids. Nothing to say about myself really. *sigh* Where did I go? Good thing my friend has kids, but still.
I came home in time for the three-ring circus: dinner, bath, bed. Aaron made turkey burgers, green beans, and cheesy mashed potatoes. It was delicious. I'll need to pay him back tomorrow with something yummy. I'm thinking of thawing some chicken and coming up with something. Maybe I'll make the chicken ricotta spinach pie thing... argh, would need to go shopping for the ricotta. *shrug* I'll figure something out. Dinner with Caleb was more challenging than usual. I think his snotty nose is getting in the way of eating. I also think it's time to take him off of the juice diet since the nose isn't THAT snotty. Too many juice calories means not enough other food. Ellie ate like a champ: potatoes, green beans, and kept asking for more even when she was rubbing her eyes with the potatoes. Her bath and bed was uneventful, and Aaron graciously took care of Caleb's bath. I got to do the fun stuff with him - stories, snuggles, talk about his "morning day" as he calls it. We review the whole day before he goes to sleep. Sometimes it takes a freaking long time (like this post!), but it really seems to help him settle.
After kids' bedtime, Aaron and I enjoyed dessert downstairs. No double entendre - just chocolaty goodness known as Cocoa Joel ice cream. Every chocolate ice cream ingredient plus hydrox cookies. Yum. Even though we expunged high fructose corn syrup from the house, I still allow Cocoa Joel. Locally homemade and oh so amazingly good.
And now I've come back up to the office. I transferred pictures of the house from the camera to the computer. I e-mailed those to Aaron to do with what he will. I caught up on my e-mail, wrote this too long blog entry, and avoided getting the pictures for my mom in order. I still haven't read up on Rosh HaShanah for my work tomorrow. So at 10:12PM, I'm off to bed to read (I hope). Maybe tomorrow I can post a "normal" day. :)