As Kindergarten comes to a close I wanted to capture a day in our life right now. I wish I had done this pre-baby, since lots have changed in the past few weeks, but instead I will try to capture where we are now! My apologies for the length, feel free to skip this one there is no exciting news in this, just our daily life.
Today is Wednesday which means it's late start for Zane's school. This means school starts at 9:30 instead of 8:30. The teachers have their professional development meetings during that hour instead of a having random days off school. During most of the year I would work on Wednesdays because Mom could take Zane to school and Zach could go to work at his normal time. Mom has been volunteering at Zane's library every Wednesday morning this year. I know Zane has loved his Wednesday mornings with Grandma, I hope Grandma has enjoyed her time at the library. Since I've been on maternity leave Wednesday have been my favorite mornings because the boys get to play together for an extra hour before Zane leaves. Also I get an extra hour to pull everything together for our day.
6:20am: I'm woken up by two boys at the side of my bed asking me if I'd remembered to charge the iPad. Of course I had not. They go to the living room and start trying to figure out how to play the Lightening McQueen video game. My kids like video games in theory, but in practice they frustrate them and turn out not to be that fun.
6:30 a.m. I am up and out of bed after tears over where the remotes where and how to play the game (which I know neither of these things). The video game is quickly turned off and we've moved on to the old stand by, Mickey Mouse Club House! You can never go wrong with Mickey!!
See the sad faces and frustration. I HATE video game and I'm so glad we rarely have to play them. And yes my boys have given up on pajamas completely. One of the many battles I have chosen not to fight at this point in my life.
6:45 a.m. Zach is heading out to the door to work, everyone gives him hugs and kisses. Baby Thatcher is up and getting smothered with love before his breakfast.
Rowan usually has the job of picking out Thatcher's outfit for the day. Today he chose his fourth of July outfit from when he was five months old. It fit baby Thatcher like a charm. What in the world?? Loves like we have another Zane on our hands.
7:00 a.m. TV is off and baby Thatcher is eating a bottle. The boys eat eggs for breakfast. Another benefit of late start Wednesday, I have time to make a real breakfast and get lunch packed. I pack very boring lunches pretty much everyday. Zane doesn't seem to mind, ham sandwich, peanut butter and jelly, ham and cheese roll ups, with fruit or veggie of some type are my standards. Zane and Rowan help unload the dishwasher while I pack Zane's lunch.
The letter countdown to the end of the year continues and today was the letter S, so Zane got to wear sunglasses to school. I am confident they will be broken or lost by the time he gets home, but that's ok.
7:15 a.m. After his bottle Thatcher comes with me to get dressed. He loves the ceiling fan in my room.
The boys are outside to play on the pirate ship while I get dressed. My bedroom in the new house has a wall of windows so I can watch them from my room too. The view from all our South facing windows is by far my favorite part of this house.
7:35 a.m. Back inside to have a dance party. Thatcher and I are cuddling on the couch.
7:37 a.m. This is the part of the morning where Rowan comes screaming/crying to me about how he bonked his head on something. This face, this screaming, crying face, comes my way at least four or five times a day. Sometimes it's real, like when he took a shovel to the head the other day, but sometimes Thatcher "scratched" his face or Zane told him he wasn't invited to the baseball game, or any number of other random things that do NOT warrant this face! You never know, and it takes awhile to decipher what actually happened through the tears. The good news is that he recovers quickly.
8:30 a.m. Grandma shows up to chit chat and play for a little bit before she and Zane head off to school. They update her on the happening at our house while I start the first load of laundry. There is time for a little bike riding before they have to leave.
9:10 a.m. Grandma and Zane head off to school. Rowan, Thatcher, and I head off for our morning walk. It was quite the workout, what with the double stroller, and the forty mile an hour winds that nearly blew over the stroller a time or two. We walked to the park, that was a swamp after last night's rain. Rowan played for a little bit, but the wind kept blowing off his cape so we headed home soon. But first we talked to the adorable baby geese!!!!!
9:50 a.m. Back home! Shower time for me and cartoon time for the little boys. Rowan is a great babysitter. Thatcher was also fast asleep which helped.
10:00 a.m. Bottle number two for baby Thatcher, who has been much crabbier the past few days. He is convinced he is starving to death. He's the chubbiest baby in the world so, no HE IS NOT starving!
10:15 a.m. Cleaning time! Rowan picked up his room and I helped him put away his and Zane's clothes. I swept the floors while Thatcher played in his bed and Rowan talked to him. Thatcher was smiling and laughing at his little friends. So cute!!
11:00 a.m. Time for Rowan's lunch. Rowan doesn't eat much and usually either requests a peanut butter "rolly up" (like today) or a "little salad" (which is what I eat pretty much everyday). Rowan often asks if he has to take a nap, the answer to that is always yes and frequently he requests naps early. I don't know why he pretends like he doesn't need/want to take one. Silly boy, look at those tired eyes.
11:30 - 1pm: The boys took naps while I worked on this blog and continued with the mountains of laundry I do everyday. I finished the dishes, swept the kitchen floor, really exciting things like that until a little boy came out to cuddle me. I fought the urge to take a nap since they were both magically asleep at the same time, this NEVER happens.
Rowan's current obsession is Goldie and Bear on Netflix. There is only one season so there are only 12 episodes, but he loves it and has seen every episode a million times. It also has a very catchy theme song that I cannot stop singing.
1:30pm - Baby Thatcher got up and ate and then it was time to head to the grocery store.
1:45 p.m. We are out the door to Uptown Grocery. This is a picture of the laundry room in the new house. Due to my hand problems I can no longer unlock the front door (yes this is a saga for a different blog) so that combined with lots of rain I don't want to walk in with a baby, I've started parking my car in the garage. I have never in my life had a car that was actually parked in a garage. We didn't even have a garage growing up, so it's kind of weird, but helpful. I love our new laundry room but wish it was about three feet wider so I could easily walk through it with a car seat and all the laundry baskets, but it's working. The bags are my new diaper bag, which I love (thanks Emily!) and my gym bag that is finally back in rotation post baby. I forgot to grab my diaper bag after taking this picture so had to turn around at the end of the street to come back and get it. I miss my memory soooo much!
Here's my car in the garage. The garage is big enough that it can kind of be a mess and my car still fits in it which is amazing, but we definitely try to keep it more pulled together so my car can fit inside.
2pm: We had a quick trip to Uptown Grocery which usually we'd do in the morning after a trip to the gym, but with our AM walk this was the only time we could fit it in. Rowan always checks out the lobsters and I love my new view of a little boy checking everything out.
3pm: Back home and unpacking groceries. Thatcher is playing in his gym, where he is truly the most happy. He doesn't enjoy being held too much which usually works out wonderfully.
Rowan requested to do science with water after I told him we didn't have enough baking soda to make bubbles. So he legit poured water to and from various containers for about thirty minutes. He's soooo easy to entertain, I wish that would rub off on his big brother sometimes.
3:20pm: After doing his "Science" we cleaned out the science bin since food coloring had spilled everywhere. Rowan loved washing all his beakers and we ended with this very entertaining set up on the bottle drying grass. This pretty well sums up my day!
3:30pm- I convince little T to let me cuddle him for a little bit while we wait on Zane to arrive home. You can see how excited he was.
3:45pm - Remember earlier when I said I was confident that Zane's sunglasses would get broken or lost when he took them to school, here is Zane when he arrived home, holding a piece of his broken sunglasses. He was really worried he was in trouble when he showed them to me. I died laughing and told him I expected them to get broken at school. He was very relieved. Again, choose your battles, three dollar sunglasses are not one of them. His loss!
This is what arriving home usually looks like. Zane brings me his folder, we talk about what all the papers inside are, what they were working on in class, he reads me anything I can't read, and he tells me about his day. Then he gets to watch something, decompress for about twenty minutes, and then he's ready to go play with Rowan. I found out very quickly at the beginning of the year if he doesn't have a little bit of rest time when he gets home the boys will fight like cats and dogs.
4:10pm- The boys go outside to play/spray each other with a hose. This is their most recent favorite thing to do in the backyard. They water our new trees and our little garden then spray each other. They get the slides wet and sometimes even set up the spray so they can both swing through the water, lots of simple fun!
4:15pm - I tried to get Thatcher to eat, but he was too lazy to do that so he napped instead and cuddled me, which I was ok with.
4:20pm- Little man had to go sit in his chair so I can start dinner. Yes his chair sit up on the table. I know the risks of baby chairs on tables. I also know the risk of baby chairs on the floor with my two boys running around. I weighed them out and this seemed a much safer bet. The older boys have strict instructions that they may not touch this chair when it's on the table. So far it's worked well. Wednesday nights are baseball practice so dinner has to be eaten early so everyone can be ready to head out the door by five forty five. Tonight we had one of my go to meals, ground turkey stuffed peppers, which is easy, healthy, and everyone loves it. Any night with a baseball game this is also our routine. The boys are starving by four thirty and I'd rather feed them an actual meal early instead of them snacking for an hour then not eating dinner.
5:00pm - Everyone is inside for dinner and Thatcher finally decides he needs to eat, of course when everyone else is eating. How do babies time things so perfectly?
5:15pm - The battle to get both big boys ready for baseball practice begins. Yes, Rowan wants to go to baseball practice because he's playing in the fall and is very dedicated to learning the game. Trying to get them both in clean clothes, with socks and shoes (cleats) is no small task while feeding a baby, and battling Zane's ADD, but I did it with just a few cleat scratches on my leg to show for it.
5:30pm- Back outside to play until Zach gets home. The swing set is my saving grace and I'm slightly concerned about it being too hot to play on this summer. My plan is to set up a sprinkler under it so it becomes a water feature.
5:45pm- Zach arrives home and everyone except Thatcher and I head to baseball practice. I hear practice went well. There were only six kids so Rowan got to help field balls with Zach. Rowan got two balls and even threw it to the correct base. He was very proud of himself when they arrived home.
6:00pm - This is what my day of laundry had left for me, piles of clothes to fold. Thatcher loves sitting in his little boppy pillow beside me, most often surrounded by clothes. I watch TV and tackle this mess while he stares down the ceiling fan.
6:30pm- Once I'm done I have quite the conversation with this little guy who has a lot to say. It is rare that it's just him and I, without his brothers trying to love on him/get in his face. So it was lovely to have a little baby chat this evening. His little face is so expressive and oh so familiar to me. I can't get over how much he looks like his brothers. It's crazy!
7:00pm - My happy baby boy quickly became a crab bucket. He was tired but not wanting to sleep, he needed to poop, he thought he was hungry again but his mean old mom wouldn't feed him. The life of a seven week old is really quite difficult. His angry face, when he says GOOOOO/GEEE is the funniest thing in the world. I really tried to capture it, but this picture just doesn't do it justice.
From there the evening sort of spiraled. I fought with a crabby baby until Zach and the boys arrived home around 7:40ish. The big boys were sent to take a shower and, per usual, didn't actually get in the shower until after they were both in trouble for playing/possibly peeing on each other. Somewhere in there I had to try to keep a straight face while explaining to Rowan that we DO NOT pee on our brothers. They had to clean the bathroom, take a shower, brush their teeth, then go straight to bed at eight. Eight is their normal bedtime, but had they not peed on each other and screamed at each other during the fall out from that we probably would have still gotten to read books and cuddle baby Thatcher before bed, which is the normal routine. I threatened them within an inch of their life about talking or playing in their room after I tucked them in, so surprisingly they were quiet after I left their room. Usually the evening ends with multiple trips into their room or multiple trips out from Rowan and Zane out to the living room to tell on each other for the stupidest things in the world. Needless to say the bunk beds are not my favorite part of the new house.
8:30pm- Little man finally gets to eat again and sucks down six ounces. He did not fall asleep after that but was wide awake staring at the ceiling fan and giggling from time to time. I work on this blog, Zach looks at drawings from work, and we try to wrap our brains around what the literal hell is happening in this country. SERIOUSLY WHAT IS HAPPENING???
9:15pm - Thatcher and I cuddle in his room. I sing him some songs and pat his little bottom. He's not buying it AT ALL. He gets swaddled, given a binki, and laid in his bed.
9:30pm - Little man could not be more awake in his bed, but he's super happy and hasn't made a peep. We can see him on the baby monitor so this is very entertaining to watch. Zach goes to check on him and his brothers have been into the Jack and Jill bathroom between their rooms, opened Thatcher's door (to check on him no doubt) then left the light on. This isn't helping Thatcher go to sleep. Zach and him talk it out, he's reswaddled, given his binki, and put back to sleep, in an actual dark room this time.
9:58pm- I try to finish this blog with the coyotes howling outside so I feel like I'm in the country, right until the police sirens start up then I remember I'm not in the country at all. I am not confident that Thatcher is asleep in his room, but he's quite and laying still so I'm headed to bed. My bedtime routine is quite crazy these days with hand splints, edema compression gloves, and medicated cream I put on my heads before bed in hopes of them not hurting during the night. They are moderately better so between all that and the medication I've been taking we might be making some headway.
So that's what my days are like currently. In documenting this today I thought "would I be able to do this full time as a stay at home mom?" The answer is an easy and quick absolutely. I've been off work for seven weeks and besides missing a few co-workers I haven't missed the job at all. I can grab lunch with friends or they can come see my baby, that's an easy fix. I don't miss the work even a little bit. I love being here for every moment of my kids lives. Being the first face they see every morning and here everyday when Zane gets home. I'd walk away from my job in a heart beat if I could. I dread going back to missing full days of their lives multiple times a week. For now I'll try to enjoy all this time I have with them.
