Day in the Life: Winter 2013

Thursday, January 17, 2013

5:49 AM - Oliver is calling, "Mama! Mama!"

I have ignored Oliver's other "requests" for milk at midnight & 2 AM (he fell back asleep within a few minutes) but I give in to this one since I can usually eek out a little more sleep by nursing him now.

6:15 AM - The baby snooze button won't work again so I am resigned to getting up. I pick up my little pumpkin and I nurse him again to buy a couple minutes to rest quietly and then we read and hang out in his room for a little bit before heading downstairs.

6:30 AM - Husband comes down to get out an email report for work (he has to do it first thing in the morning) and Oliver greets him with a smooch. Oliver is at the cutest stage right now. So eager to learn new words and try to do things just like us. 18 months is when I start hitting my parenting stride, I think.

I give Oliver a banana to hold him over until Bella wakes up (easier to feed them at the same time) and I brew coffee for Husband & me.

I have finally adjusted to just having coffee without any creamer/milk since I manage to have an intolerance or mild allergy to ALL milk & milk alternatives. (Really. I don't tolerate dairy and then I have mild allergies to soy, coconut, nut milks and the carrageenan in rice milks. And I even tried making my own cashew milk but that was a royal gag-fest. So! Black & a little sugar it is.) During all this I am also getting the dishwasher unloaded as quickly as possible before Oliver notices the very fun task I'm doing.

7 AM - Bella is up!

I fix the kids some oatmeal with frozen blueberries for breakfast and once I sit down I do a quick check of the weather. Ooh, loverly. Cold enough to freeze your nose hairs together.

The kids eat SO MUCH at breakfast, double what I'm planning on/used to. Not sure what is up with that but they have ~ 1 cup+ of oatmeal each. Actually I do know what is up with that. I drizzle a little maple syrup in their oatmeal. Sugar is very exciting.

7:45 AM - Bella counts out 10 marbles for her "Good job" jar because she stayed in her room all night (versus climbing into our bed at 2 AM). It would have been an over-the-top 20 if she had also not come out of her room right away after we put her to bed the previous evening. When the jar is full she can pick out a small toy.

8 AM - Bye-bye, Husband!

8-9 AM - Then it's a flurry of activity to get us out the door and drop B off at pre-school. Bella is great about getting herself dressed and chooses one of her usual layered outfits with lots of pink. It is SO FREAKING COLD as we walk through the parking lot at her preschool as it's -10° F with the windchill. For the first time this winter my internal Cold Weather Tourette's voice starts shouting: Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! I take a self-portrait in the preschool bathroom mirror to show that I'm wearing my usual winter uniform of skinny jeans/leggings, an sweatshirt dress, and fake Uggs. Pretend like you can see that in the picture below - ha!

9:20 AM - Home from preschool drop-off and I put Oliver down for his nap that he is more than ready for. Then I tackle the to-do list. I have a surprising amount of energy lately, although maybe it's not really all that surprising since I am making sleep a priority. Whodathunkit? I get a load of cloth diapers going with plans to strip the whole lot later today (stripping cloth diapers is something you do when they start leaking due to detergent build up) and also take care of some insurance things, paperwork for a rebate, cable cancelling and other minor-but-somehow-time-consuming tasks.

It's snowing just a teeny bit outside my office window, but 25 photos later I'm not able to capture it. Do you see the full-fledged hockey rink my neighbor built on the lake? It even has lights at night. This is so charming to me.

10:20 AM - I decide to keep the momentum going by getting the dishes done and some food prep complete. Tonight's dinner will be noodles in a peanut sauce with veggies & tofu. The veggies are onions, carrots, zucchini, red peppers and broccoli.

11:15 AM - Oliver wakes up and a quick glance at the clock tells me I'm running late. Eek! I hand Oliver two cucumber sticks I just cut to snack on and hurry as much as is possible when dealing with shoes & coats and hats & mittens.

Cold weather & little kids are not the easiest combo. Oh, but I am finding this winter SO MUCH EASIER  in general now that I'm not doing the winter suit-up routine on a tiny stair landing and I don't have to deal with the tiny garage that only allowed access to the driver's side of my car. And the fact we can step directly out the door into a yard (versus a not-safe roundabout driveway in the courtyard of our townhome complex) is fantastic. Whee! Still love the new house, in case it wasn't clear :)

11:30 AM - We collect Bella, who had a great time at school, per usual, and drive the quick 5 minutes home. I decide to treat myself to a diet coke from McD's en route and I get the kids one chocolate milk to share. I am not a McDonald's fan, but I am a HUGE fan of drive-throughs. We notice a package at the front door and it's the Shutterfly calendars I made for us, my parents, and my in-laws. The kids love looking at them and they turned out pretty good for a very quick 45-minute project.

12 PM - Lunch time. B had been excited all day for having "tunafish!" I also serve cucumber sticks, carrot sticks, frozen peas (they like them half-frozen) and a couple potato chips. Fruit is for dessert. I put the chocolate milk in tiny fancy glasses to distract the kids (well, B mostly) from the fact that I'm making them share one chocolate milk.

We sit at the table with all the dish cloths that need folding and myriad toys.

Beverages are very much the highlight of today's lunch.

I forgot to give the kids their vitamins this morning and since this is a beloved daily ritual so Bella makes sure she never misses a day. They get the kid versions of what Husband and I take.

 

12:30 PM - The kids are in good spirits (ah! so nice after all those weeks of illness or teething or heightened 3-year-old drama) and they play together while I tackle dishes, folding the dish cloths, sweeping and wiping down tables. The fact I can even do this on some days is always a surprise and a delight for me.

The big bin is filled with dried rice & beans & other grains. They scoop and dump and love it. Notice Oliver taking a rest on top of his sister :)

1:30 PM - We go upstairs for more playtime before Oliver's nap. Bella insists we play Old Maid. She loves Old Maid. I do not love Old Maid. I have to fake out to Oliver that he is playing, too, because he wants to be involved in all things (rightly so!).

Fun with phone camera.

2 PM - Oliver signs for milk (he usually also says milk, too) and I know naptime is very near.

This nursing multiple times a day thing really flared up in recent weeks. Not sure if it's from when he was sick or if it's related to him being at a separation anxiety peak. I have been taking the lazy route, which is going along with it and nursing him when he asks, but I need to figure out my plan. Ideally I want to go back to nursing 2-3 times a day with plans to wean in the next six months. This time last year I never would have thought we would make it this long!

2:30 PM - Put Oliver down for his nap easily and then I give Bella a little one-on-one time which means one more rousing game of Old Maid. Then I set Bella up with a show on my phone and collapse into bed for a nap.

4 PM - Oliver wakes up and we go downstairs for a snack: Banana Dippers (banana slices with peanut butter). I'm can't remember what happened to Oliver's clothes now, but it appears between his nap and snacktime they were lost.

I do more dishes (always) while they have their snack.

I also decide to transfer the "unusual" dessert Husband made to a smaller container so I can wash the baking dish. Husband made preacher cookies (which seems to bizarrely occur along with almost every DITL - so weird - but we didn't have enough oatmeal so he subbed Kashi Heart to Heart. Two points for ingenuity, but minus 6 for using KASHI in a dessert. Ha.

Bella requests a bath and I'm all for that because they are almost always dream kids during bathtime. I use this time to quickly try to answer some emails. All day long I've had that "I'm forgetting something..." feeling and I'm hoping this puts a stop to that.  (Doesn't work. I don't think I forgot anything, but there is just so much detail that gets lost to me lately. Miss my very functional brain of yore.)

 

I take a minute to document a lingering anti-sickness affirmation sign on the bathroom mirror.

I took the others down when the new babysitter came on Monday this week (except I forgot one in the main level bathroom...whoopsie...oh and Bella asked her to read the Shutterfly book I made back when I was weaning her which means new babysitter got to see pictures of me breastfeeding on her very first day...double whoopsie. Sorry new babysitter! Come again soon!)

5:30 PM - Husband is home! He greets the kiddos as they play in the bathtub and changes into his pj pants and omnipresent William & Mary sweatshirt, making me feel very validated about wearing my own fugly pj pants :) Back downstairs for dinner. Husband is shocked I hadn't fed them yet - but late naps, late snack, yadda, yadda - today is on a later schedule. The kids are being super sweet and cute and he makes his daily comment about having a third baby. Dude has baby fever, for sure.

5:45 PM - Dinner! Everyone enjoys dinner tonight, which is nice, though Bella takes some prompting. Thankfully no tantrums, which has definitely been a dinner time problem as of late. She is exerting her independence in every area so we are dealing with the typical "I don't like this" stuff even when it's something she has liked for the past 1000 days and/or refusing to eat.

Bella requests honey milk after dinner and I am down with that since she ate dinner well, but when I heat milk in the glass bottle since its the first thing I grab, she then asks for the bottle top. Eh, why not? Of course, Oliver wants a bottle, too. I think I gave them bottles during the last DITL, but I swear not in between. Children! You are causing me to look creepy!

Ollie just learned about doing "cheers" and he was so happy to do it with B. She was less delighted.


In fact, grump cat has come out.

7 PM - Once their (ridiculous) bottles are finished, we head upstairs. Oliver realizes that Husband will be putting him to bed and does his flailing and sobbing thing, calling out "Mamaaaa!" as I walk up the stairs in front of him.

Oh, Bubby. I feel that maternal "make it stop immediately" feeling, but I override it as he is always fine a couple minutes later. I just have to get out of sight right away.
Since Husband is putting Oliver to bed, it's my turn to do Bella's routine. I will not lie: Bella's bedtime routine just about does me in every time lately. I'm very mentally tapped out from 3-year-old stuff by the end of the day (the talking! the ceaseless and incessant talking!) and the way she draws out a relatively simple bedtime routine drives me freaking batty. Here she is taking twenty years to do a random activity in a book she picked out to read. I wait patiently beside her with a beatific smile on my lips.

7:25 PM - Done! But the second I get downstairs I can hear her little feet thumping down the hall upstairs so I run to the living room and hide in the dark. As long as she doesn't see me, she goes back to her room. Yeah. I'm hiding from my 3-year-old. But luckily she doesn't come downstairs. Whew!

7:30 PM - Chat briefly with Husband, oh-so-sweetly remind him about his promise to do the dishes (fun for all!) and, at his request, look over a Powerpoint slide that he was working on for a big presentation and offer some suggestions on layout.

7:45 PM - I start the cloth diapers up for one final rinse (I've been doing that stripping thing all day - so sexy!) and realize I only stripped half of the collection of cloth diapers. The other half is in the dryer from when I last washed them earlier in the week. LE SIGH. That was dumb and a big waste of water and time. Eh. I'll do the other half in a few months or when/if leaking problems start up.

While I wait on the final short rinse, I enjoy some cat time and 3-oz-white-wine time and looking-at-stuff-online-on-my-phone time. The cats are desperate for me when the kids aren't around.

8 PM - Husband tells me he will meet me upstairs in the bedroom (ooh la la!) by 8:15 pm to watch the last half of a French movie we started on Netflix. (Well-Digger's Daughter and it was wonderful.) I read The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan while I wait for him. Another recommend from the Mothership.

8:15 PM - No Husband. And I'm really getting into my book.

8:30 PM - Husband joins me in the bedroom. I ask if we can save the movie for Friday night because I know I'll sleep better if I don't spend the next hour watching a movie. He grumbles a little but agrees. More reading.

9:30 - I check on my girl and discover the light still on in her room. Falling asleep with the light on has happened a lot lately. Crazy girl. We are being lazy about getting her a proper big-girl bed so she's on the air mattress.

Hip, hip hooray, it's bedtime and I'm pleasantly exhausted from my day versus the more common plain old exhausted.

And fin!