I love reading day-in-the-life posts, and I haven’t done one in awhile so yesterday, I made notes throughout the day and fleshed them out today during C’s nap. M has met all the first grade learning goals that I set so we’re taking it easy this week, focusing mainly on art and our tidepool study.
6:15 – I get up, make coffee, read email and blog posts
6:45 – I hear C saying, “M wake up”. C poked herself in the eye the day before, and it remained really red so I go to check it. It’s still red. Brent looks too, and we decide that I’ll call the doctor’s office once it’s open and talk to the nurse
7:15 – B leaves, and the girls start a game with each other. I make breakfast
7:30 – We eat breakfast, and I show girls how I rearranged with boxes of basic supplies for each of them. The girls decide to paint and draw with pencils
8:30 – I call the nurse, and she says I should bring C in. I dread having to go but I make an appt for 10:45.
8:35 – I help C get dressed. She plays with playdough while M keeps painting. I fold laundry and send some emails
9:00 – We clean up art and playdough, get everyone dressed and brush teeth, settle on the living room floor with my laptop to watch videos on You Tube.
9:20 – I give the girls a snack and leave them watching Blue Planet. I clean up and call the nurse again because the redness in C’s eye is almost gone now. The nurse says I can cancel the appt, but I second guess myself about 8 million times.
9:30 While I’m on the phone, the girls decide to stop watching videos and start a game. They play fine for awhile, then arguments about who is playing where. C throws the lid of a toy bin at M and gets a timeout. Each of them play alone for a little while. I reserve a hotel for a trip to Bryson City (a small town not far from us in the NC mountains) for a weekend getaway in July.
10:15 – Inspired, I think, by a Max and Ruby video she’s very into, C asks if she can have plastic eggs to set up an egg hunt. I get them and she proceeds to hide eggs. I do dishes and clean kitchen while she hides them, M joins us and we take turns hiding and finding, I do a bit more house work while that goes on
10:50 – We wrap up egg hunting, and the girls ask to watch a movie. We go back and forth on what, and then M asks if she can watch one of my Jeeves and Wooster videos. C looses interest and starts playing pretend bath which consists of making a bathtub out of blankets, dumping in lots of toys and asking me to pretend to wash her.
11::30 – C’s eye looks redder again. I flipflop once more, call the nurse again, and get an appt for 2:45. I call our friend that we were planning to hang out with in the afternoon and ask if I can drop M off so she and her friend will get some playtime.
11:45 – I make lunch, we eat, M changes clothes for her playdate, C changes clothes due to a milk spill, we head out to drop off M and come back for C to nap before her appt.
12:45 – C and I read together, and I tuck her in for nap. I clean up from lunch, do a bit of decluttering, check email, read more blog posts
1:15 – C comes out of her room asking if she can get up, I tell her she needs to sleep and send her back. I sit down to read for a few minutes.
1:45 – C comes out again. I decide she’s likely not going to sleep and tell her to play in her room until we’re ready to leave. I start gathering some animal magazines for us to read and coloring supplies for C. I realize we should leave a little early and get gas on our way.
2:10 – C and I leave for the appt. I wouldn’t have chosen to be sitting in a doctor’s office waiting, but I really enjoy the one on one reading time I have wtih C while we wait. The doctor says her eye is fine – no corneal abrasion, no infection, just a superficial bruise. Relieved, we head for my friend’s house.
3:45 – We drive up at my friend’s house and see M and her friend playing in a mud “swamp” they created by making a dam. They are covered in red mud and as happy as can be. I change C into her bathing suit and try to encourage her to play in the clean water in the baby pool, because I know if she gets going in the mud, she’ll have it in her hair and it will start flying everywhere. I’m just not the kind of carefree mom who wouldn’t mind a bit cleaning up to mud-covered girls, though I wish I was.
4:15 – C needs to go to the bathroom, and we discover that we’re all locked out of my friend’s house. Fortunately, our van contains a baby potty, toilet paper, bags, and clorox wipes so the need to poop with no bathroom available was easily handled. The kids are happy to keep playing so we hang out and chat and watch them play.
4:45 – My friend’s husband arrives to unlock her house, and I’m relieved. I didn’t want to leave her with three tired, muddy, hungry children and no way in.
5:10 – I head for home with two exhausted, wet girls. Realizing we’re all really thirsty and have no water bottles so I stop at a grocery store and get us bottled water go through the Bojangles drive through and get us a lemoade, a Sprite, and a tea, because that’s a good way to end a hot afternoon of playing outside.
5:40 – We’re finally home after I missed a turn and brought us a round about way. I feed the girls, bathe them and settle them in front of Cinderella. Despite the guilt it often brings on, we usually feed the girls between 5:30 and 6, let them play with their dad when he gets home around 6:30, and put them to bed before he and I eat dinner. In a different season of our life, we’ll have family dinners most nights but not now.
6:40 – Brent comes home, and I head to the video store in our neighborhood to get new movies for us. He talks to the girls and snuggles with them while they watch the movie.
7:00 – I’m back. We turn the movie off, Brent reads to C, and I read to M.
7:45 – The girls got to bed, and Brent and I eat and watch 2 episodes of Stargate.
9:30 – I do some chores, check email one last time, get in bed and read until I can’t keep my eyes open.
Ouch! That’s not a fun day!