Each morning my alarm goes off at 5:45AM. I usually roll out of bed and jump in the shower. There are those days that I lay there and have to decide which day it actually is. After I shower I make my daily cup of coffee. It's my "good morning" to myself and I love my Keurig machine and my A cup. Brendan or one of the kids is usually stirring by 6:15AM and one of us gets Drew or Kate. Drew still doesn't come out of his room on his own most of the time. Once in a great while he'll come out on his own.
Drew always, always, always asks for milk right away in the morning. Then he likes to watch cartoons in our bed. Kate on the other hand wants to eat right away. Dry cereal is usually her "nack" in the morning or as we would all call it, a snack. She also eats her dry cereal in our bed, so most nights Brendan and I usually sleep on cereal crumbs.
Once the kids are up and settled Brendan hops in the shower and gets ready in about 1/4 of the time it takes me to finish my routine. I do my makeup and dry my hair. Then I get the kids dressed for day care or Drew for school. After Brendan's ready he takes the kids out to the kitchen and gets them Breakfast. I finish getting ready and am usually running late by this point. I run out to the kitchen and grab some dry cereal or fruit to take to work and say my goodbyes. I rush out the door and am at work by 7:30am. Brendan finishes up breakfast with the kids and gets them to daycare.
(I have no idea why Kate is sitting in a regular chair this morning, the kids both have Stokke Tripp Trapp chairs and they work great for both kids.)
I work for the morning and I won't bore you with my work mumbo jumbo. I love my job and the people I work with. The education field is my passion and finding a job that allows me to work part-time and be at home with my children in the afternoon is absolutely amazing!
My office is pretty large, it's actually the old principal's office. I've tried to warm it up as much as possible, but we are in a school.
After I'm done working I pick up the kiddos at daycare or school. Then it's home for afternoon nap time. Kate goes down first and naps from 12:30-3PM and Drew still naps most days from 12:45-3:30PM.
While the kids are napping I eat lunch, pick up the tornado that is our house and get the laundry done, clean the house, meal plan or make our grocery list. It just depends on the day. Some days I eat lunch at 1:15PM and other days I find myself not eating until 2:30PM and wondering where the heck the afternoon went. Kate usually wakes up first from her nap and she immediately wants to eat so we eat a snack together and then we go wake Drew up. If I let him sleep past 3:30 he won't go to bed until 10PM that night. Once both kiddos are up we either run errands or stay home and play. The kids love being in our basement and on the days I tell them we need to go to the grocery store I have to bribe them with graham crackers in the cart while we shop. Otherwise, it's meltdown city. Soccer in the basement is so much more fun then grocery shopping with mom.
Brendan gets home right around 5 o'clock and I usually start dinner shortly after he arrives. He plays with the kids while I cook. It's usually a little crazy around dinner time, Kate's hungry, Drew's ornery, Brendan's trying to talk to me about his day. We've got our very own three ring circus going on. Once dinner is ready things calm down for about 5 minutes. We all eat and the kids take about 5 bites and say "all done". Dinner is a constant battle right now. Drew is super picky and refuses to eat hardly anything. Kate is a bit better and eats more than Drew. We are always having to tell Drew take 3 more bites. One child always ends up in my lap or in tears over not liking dinner. It's life right now.
This evening we made Iowa Maid-Rites and they were AMAZING!!
After dinner it's bath time. Both kids love the bath, except when there's bubbles, then Kate won't touch the bath with a ten foot pole. After bath it's pj's and chill out time. Drew usually wants to play with his cars and Kate likes to read books. Kate then heads to bed around 7PM. She gets a sippy cup of milk, a bit of rocking, teething brushing and then lays down in her crib and snuggles with her blankie and about 6 paci's.
Drew usually stays pretty chill during the hour or so before bedtime. Sometimes he and Brendan will go in the basement and play soccer. This is Drew's new "thing", he's in love with soccer. If they go and play in the basement and he's all riled up then I hand over bedtime duty to Brendan. You rile him up, you settle him down. I'm half kidding. Drew heads to bed around 8PM, he also likes to drink a cup of milk while reading a couple of books. He then brushes his teeth, goes potty and feeds his fish. He's usually asleep by 8:30pm at the latest.
After both kids are in bed Brendan and I pick up the house, finish the laundry and get things ready for the next day. We try and sit down and spend some quality time chatting about our days and what the next day looks like. Having an adult conversation with a one and three year old around is nearly impossible without being interrupted every five seconds. So this is really our time to connect and enjoy each other.
By 9:30 or 10:00pm we are headed to bed to watch the news. We are super lame these days. Over night Drew might get up to go potty once and Kate might fuss but for the most part our kids have been sleeping through the night for the past few months.
Our next morning starts once again bright and early at 5:45AM. Our life isn't one that may seem outlandishly exciting but we've seem to have found our groove as a family of four. We have our days and nights where we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off but right now for the most part part we've been able to enjoy a decent amount of family time. I know at one point in our lives we won't have that luxury, so I'm trying to soak it all in right now as much as possible. Even though somedays I'm ready to pull my hair out by dinner time, these are the days we'll look back on and miss dearly. Even though life is crazy with a three and one year old, I count my blessings and thank God for the balance I've found with work and home life.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment