Day In The Life - Winter 2015

Linking up with Navigating the Mothership to document A Day In The Life. I chose Monday, January 19 which turned out to be a very true representation of our life these days. (It was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, or "Mayor Day" as Tory kept calling it, but since I don't work outside the home and Tory doesn't have school on Mondays, it was a pretty average day for us).

Tory is 3 years, 4 months old

Aden is 14 months old 

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3:45am: Aden cries out from his crib, so I get up and make him a bottle in the kitchen. I bring Aden back into bed with me, feed him the bottle and return him back to his bedroom. He usually wakes up once at some point during the night and he's downright ticked if I don't feed him. I'm not sure if he's really hungry, or if a bottle helps soothe him ... but I don't really care. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes.

4:00am: Unfortunately, I've clocked enough hours of consecutive sleep for my body to think it's time to wake up for the day. So, I use the restroom and check Instagram / Facebook / Feedly on my phone which doesn't help convince my brain I should be sleeping. I set my phone back on the nightstand and snuggle up next to Andi in an attempt to lull myself back to dreamland. Listening to him breathe is quite comforting, but it doesn't help me fall back to sleep. 

4:45am: I decide to get up for the day and head to the kitchen with my computer, cell phone and water glass in hand. I make a cup of coffee and sit down at the dining room table to blog. I remember how lonely it felt to be awake in the middle of the night just after Tory was born, but now I kind of like it. Inside our house is calm and peaceful. I notice a few lights on in the neighborhood and wonder what those people are doing right now.     

5:30am: Andi sleepily stumbles down the hallway and looks surprised to see me awake. We greet each other, then he goes downstairs to shower and dress for the day. Meanwhile, I drink my coffee and leave comments on blog posts I'd read earlier in the week via iPhone.

6:00am: Andi comes back upstairs dressed in a heavy winter coat, snow pants, stocking hat and boots. He tells me good-bye before heading out the door for work. He won't be home until Sunday afternoon as he's producing a big outdoor event in St. Paul this week/weekend.

6:30am: Tory is awake so I help her to the restroom, then turn on Peppa Pig in my bedroom so she can wake up with a morning cartoon. This girl doesn't do mornings, so it's best to let her slowly gain her bearings, and to get some food into her belly stat. I grab two yogurt tubes as well as my laptop, and bring them to the bedroom where I snuggle next to Tory in bed. One quick glance at the video baby monitor tells me Aden is still sleeping soundly.

7:15am: Aden's awake, so I change his diaper and take him to the kitchen with me to start breakfast. Aden has a kid-sized bowl of Cheerios with rice milk, hot oatmeal mixed with applesauce and 1/2 can of diced mangoes. This boy can EAT! Tory has 1/2 of a waffle (in addition to those two yogurt tubes from earlier), but leaves her apple slices with peanut butter untouched. "My belly is so full, see?" she says, sticking out her stomach. I make some oatmeal for myself and mix in diced apple and peanut butter, snagging bites over the course of the next hour while I clean up the breakfast mess, load the dishwasher, wash baby bottles, etc. Meanwhile, Aden is creating even more mess by pulling out all the plastic kids' plates and cups from the cabinet.

8:30am: I attempt to take non-iPhone photos of our DITL today, but the settings on Andi's big camera are still programmed for outdoor use from the weekend. I'm in the very early stages of learning how to use this camera, so I text him to see what the camera should be set on but he doesn't respond. I look up video tutorials on YouTube, but I'm not very successful in finding an answer. I fall down a rabbit-hole of tinkering with the camera settings until the kids' demands for my attention force me to put the camera away.

9:00am: I get Aden dressed, change his diaper (again), make my bed, unpack my suitcase from the cabin this past weekend, fold and put away clean clothes and get Tory and I dressed for the day. I'm tempted to pull on leggings and a comfy t-shirt, but talk myself into wearing my new striped top and skinny jeans. While I'm orbiting around the bedroom doing other things, Aden takes the opportunity to mess with the television sound system and unroll extra toilet paper rolls in the bathroom. He is such a handful these days, and I'm constantly bouncing from one mess to another all. day. long. I attempt to re-direct him with a book, but it's probably obvious how long that holds his attention. Tory asks me to help her move the pieces on her daily calendar, so I do so and take the time to tell her a bit about MLK, Jr. Day.

10:00am: Aden's starting to fuss, so I make him a bottle and lay him down for his morning nap. Once he's in bed, I pick up toys in the living room and make another sweep through the kitchen and dining room to pick up clutter since breakfast. I'm hosting a mid-day neighborhood playdate for Aden in about an hour and even though I know the toddlers will get all the toys out again, I don't want it to look messy in my house when the mothers arrive.

  
10:15am: Aden's crying from his crib which ... never happens. "Mom! My brofer's cryyyyying!" Tory shouts at the top of her lungs. So much for silently hoping he'd lay back down in his crib. Tory darts into Aden's room before me and he is super UPSET to see her. I guess he's not interested in taking a nap this morning? This should make for a fun play date with friends ...

I pick Aden up from this crib and take him to the kitchen for a snack. He gets Gerber Puffs in his high chair. There's no way he'll last through a mid-day playdate if he's tired and hungry. Tory's whining she's hungry too, and grabs a yogurt tube out of the fridge. Then, she high-tails it my bedroom to watch a show until the babies arrive.

11:00am: Our play date friends arrive, and we all sit around the living room playing and talking. I recently learned through our neighborhood mom's group there are several babies in the area who are the same age as Aden. A few of us thought it'd be fun for the babies and the mothers to become more acquainted so we arranged an informal get together at my house. It's no surprise Tory steals the show when she emerges from her bedroom wearing head-to-toe princess garb. The other mothers (who both have boys) just gush over her. 

12:15pm: The neighbors leave and I quickly throw together some lunch for Tory and Aden. My kids morph into demons if they are not fed by Noon everyday. Tory has a hot dog and mandarin orange slices for lunch; Aden has green beans and oranges, too.

12:45pm: Aden is falling apart at the seams, so I make him a bottle, feed him and lay him down for a nap in his crib. He goes right to sleep, which I suppose is the one benefit of a morning nap-resisting child. I clean up lunch, then Tory and I curl up in my bed to read books before her nap. I'm making silly faces into my camera as I try to get a picture of us lying there together until Tory says, "Moooom! Just read!" Fine then. We read two Fancy Nancy books and My Pets (a ridiculous dumb lift-the-flap book which I despise and Tory loves).

1:25pm: I lay next to Tory and pretend to go to sleep so she will too. After a bit of fidgeting, she's asleep in 10 minutes. Double nap from the children! This never seems to happen anymore as Tory moves closer and closer to dropping her nap all together.

I use my quiet nap time to eat a bowl of re-heated lasagna soup and move/organize photos on our Time Capsule drive.

3:00pm: Still editing and organizing photos from the last few months -- seriously, such a tedious job -- and the kids are still asleep. I can't believe it.

3:30pm: Tory wakes up from her nap in a surprisingly good mood and says, "I was wondering if you wanted to make a craft with me?" How could I say no to an adorable request like that? She requests a "queen craft" so we decide to practice cutting circles, triangles and squares out of construction paper and glueing them together to make a queen.

4:00pm: Aden wakes up fussy from his nap, so we cuddle for a bit and then everyone play toys together on the living room floor. Tory's twirling around wearing her Cinderella ball gown, as per usual.

5:00pm: Wine & PJ time. I change into leggings and a t-shirt and start dinner. Tory requests chicken strips, and I serve her meal with sliced pears and a Laughing Cow cheese and crackers. Aden gets buttered noodles, pears and green beans. I usually make it to the grocery store on Mondays but due to the play date and long afternoon naps, I didn't get there today hence the sparse dinner selections.

5:30pm: I clean up the kids' dinner mess and herd everyone into the bathtub. Last week, I refreshed our supply of bathtub toys, so Tory and Aden are eager as ever to bathe in the evenings.

6:00pm: I call my parents on FaceTime to chat. The kids bounce around the living room entertaining Nana and Papa, and I fill my parents in on our lives over the past few days.

7:00pm: We say good-bye to my parents, then I make Aden a bottle for bedtime. I feed him, lay him down and he goes right to sleep. After Aden's in bed, I make one more run through the kitchen and living room to put away toys for the night. It makes me smile when I come across Tory's dollhouse people set up for dinnertime. Meanwhile, Tory's in her bedroom cleaning up and she proudly announces she's put away all of her toys by herself. I take a peek into her room and she's done a really nice job. Proud of her for helping!

7:30pm: Tory and I snuggle in my bed and read bedtime stories. She tells me she misses her dad, and I suggest we send him a video from my iPhone. I record the video and send it, then Andi calls a few minutes later on FaceTime to talk. Tory and I chat with him before finishing up her bedtime stories.

  

8:30pm: I take Tory to the restroom one last time, then tuck her into bed. She asks to look at a book that has a picture of her and Andi at the lake when she was about Aden's age. It's tugging on my heartstrings how much she's missing him tonight.

8:45pm: I pop some popcorn for my dinner, crawl into bed and watch a few DVR'd episodes of Mike & Molly before turning off the light and calling it a night.

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My day by the numbers:

Number of diapers changed: 6
Number of books read: 7
Number of bottles washed: 5
Number of times I picked up toys in the living room: 3
Number of yogurt tubes Tory consumed: 4