A Day in the Life, Year 3

It's time for my annual post, "What I did all day." I started this tradition when the boys were first born and I'll keep going as long as I remember :)  On the first Friday of January (that is not January 1st), I record everything I do over the course of the day. Since my kids are generally with me, it's also a log of their activities.

The rule I have for myself is that I should try to have a normal day - not doing special things just because I want everyone on the internet to know how cool I am. And I don't have to publish every single happening, especially if it involves something like bodily functions that may embarrass the children in the future.

I can tell I have more time on my hands these days and/or more functional brain cells b/c my notes from today are rather long!

January 5, 2018
Location: Pasadena, CA

12:00a All quiet on the sleeping front

6:48a I wake up, just 2  minutes before DF's alarm. This is progress! I had been waking up at 6 but just hiding under my pillow to read Facebook on my phone. Sleeping is a better use of time. Today I read a couple parenting articles while DF takes a shower, even though I've told myself I need to stop reading so much and just be a parent...

I take a shower and get dressed. The kids are still sleeping so I address our last Christmas card to send out (returned due to old address) and make some coffee.

7:43a Hear a cough from the boys' room. They've been a bit congested lately. I wonder if anyone is sick. Put away dishes and eat some breakfast. We don't have a dining room table, so I sit on the couch to eat my cereal and don't slosh milk anywhere. Yay!

8:10a Hear more coughing, so I go into the kids' room to find they are both awake. Gus immediately reports that Gibson has been coughing. Is he worried about his brother? I get them both out of their cribs.

8:20a OH MY WORD I have already heard the word "me" at least 40 times, including "me-self," "me do it," "me first," "me chair," etc.... I was thinking about recording how many times they say "me" in a day but realize I would drive myself insane so give up on that idea. They are eating frozen microwave mini pancakes for breakfast, which the boys insist on helping make (so I have to lift them up and down to reach the microwave buttons). The pancakes are driving wheels and castles today, I am told.

8:40a Start getting boys dressed and changing diapers

8:55a They are both finally clothed. Interlude there where Gus wants yells "ah! ah!" at the trains from the balcony. They start fighting over their toy cash register and want to take out the batteries. I try to explain the concept of batteries to them. They don't care.

9:00a I realize we need to go to the grocery store b/c we're almost out of bread. Then I look at the Vons ad and see all these deals I can't pass up. Vons is the only store where I'll take the boys by myself because they have 2-seater driving wheel carts.

9:20a depart for store. We get the fire truck cart today. They sing "wee-ooh! wee-ooh!" with gusto up and down the aisles and only yank one item off a shelf. Not a bad shopping trip! But I buy way too much stuff.

10:20a back home. They help me carry the groceries up from the parking garage, sort of. At least they both walk the whole way. They eat a yogurt snack while I put the food away. Gibson refuses to eat the blueberries in his yogurt, which is unfortunate as the brand I bought is advertising "now with more fruit."

10:40a I turn on the TV so I can cook in peace. I bought a bunch of ground turkey, so I'm cooking it now and will freeze it in 1 pound packs for future meals.

11:10a We go down to the leasing office to pick up an Amazon package that arrived yesterday. Along the way, we visit the pool, outside fountain, mailbox, and the dry cleaning drop off with beeping buttons on their lockers.

11:30a Home, and time for lunch. They mainly eat cantaloupe and smash up their peanut butter sandwiches. They add an extra "w" sound and pronounce it "swan-wich," which I find adorable.

11:50a Done with lunch, so now they are using the momentum of rocking their bodies back and forth to roll their high chairs across the kitchen floor, and cracking themselves up. After they get down, they want me to play with them in their closet where they close the door and turn on two singing toys, but not to the same song. This is not my favorite game! They pretend to fix things, ask me to read the same book 3 times, and start fighting over a bus toy.

12:35p I'm tired of listening to fights, so I turn the TV on and give them a snack while I eat some lunch, clean the kitchen.

1:05p In bed for nap time. I eat some more, start a load of laundry, and hide the fruit cups I just bought in the back of a cupboard.

1:15p Gus is squealing. I give him some books to look at. Gibson is already asleep.

During their nap, I cut up some chicken to go in the freezer, take out a precariously full sack of garbage, throw my other neighbors' trash down the chute that they leave in the trash room b/c apparently I'm the floor mom, and wash dishes. I have a weekly chore chart for myself, which I do allow myself to slack on but not this week b/c we're just back from 2 weeks of vacation and I was slacking before that :) So today is cleaning the countertops and dusting, plus laundry. Then I sweep the kitchen because of course when I wipe off the counters, I make a mess. I go down to the garage to retrieve the last load of groceries. It takes 4 minutes. I hope no one is going to judge me too harshly for leaving my sleeping children unattended... Then I eat a snack while checking FB/IG. Send some emails and make a phone call for general life stuff.

2:50p Everyone is still asleep, so I sit down to read chapter 1 of my new library book, The Cross & the Lynching Tree. It seems like a good complement to another book I read recently, Just Mercy.

3:20p Hear a creature stirring in the bedroom. Both of them are awake, but Gibson doesn't want to get out of bed for awhile. We all play trucks.

3:55p Applesauce snack, then off to the park. There's a park across the street from our apartment complex, which is one of my favorite things about our location! I pull the kids in their wagon. A drunk guy greets us at the crosswalk and tries to get high 5s from the boys. They eye him warily, as do I. At the park, they go on their favorite things - swing, rolling slide, bouncy bridge. I help them on the monkey bars, and their grip strength is improving.

5:00p Finally back home. It takes us about 15 minutes from the entry door to our apartment b/c they have to admire everyone's decorations, run up and down the hallway, spin in circles by the elevator, try to reach out a window and grab a tree...

5:15p DF arrives home. Boys have been screaming a lot the last 15 minutes. He convinces them to eat some dinner. After they are done, they crawl and DF pretending he is a car while I eat dinner. Then we switch places, except I don't know how to be a car as well as Daddy does, according to the boys.

6:20p Gibson sounds a bit hoarse. I'm worried he's getting croup. His temperature is 99.0. WebMD says to keep him calm, but the boys are currently climbing on a cushion fort. He is coughing so I nix the cushion play and tell them they can pick a movie to watch instead.

6:30p They pick Caillou...siiiiiigh. Luckily it's a video with a bunch of short episodes and they agree to switch to Land Before Time after the first little show. I clean up dinner while they watch TV and eat snacks, then we all snuggle on the couch for awhile.

7:40p Bath time. Lots of roaring dinosaur splashing inspired by their recent viewing, I suspect.

8:10p Out of the bath, try to get them to play calmly with trucks and avoid cushion chaos. Gibson still sounds like his throat is scratchy.

8:30p Bedtime. The routine includes brush teeth, read a Bible story + 2 books, songs, prayer, hugs, goodnight. Gibson's temp is 99.3 but he's not coughing very much. While I'm finishing up with the boys, I send DF downstairs to our local tap house to fill up our growler because TGIF.

9:00p Boys in bed. This time schedule is pretty normal for us, lately. While we were traveling for the holidays they kept staying up late and sleeping in. It's working ok, I guess, but sometimes we do need to get moving earlier in the mornings. Hmm, we shall see how it goes.

DF returns with a beer called White Ghost. It's a Berliner Weisse, a sour. It's different than what I usually drink, but it's pretty good.

I move a second load of laundry to the dryer, start the dishwasher, and type of this novella of my day.

I hope I don't jinx myself by publishing tonight! If anything noteworthy happens in the next 90 minutes, I'll be sure to update the post. As it is, I'm about to head off to bed, after I fold the mountain of laundry currently covering my sleeping surface...