Thursday, January 16, 2014

A Day in the Life: Wednesday

I promised an "A Day in the Life" post yesterday and spent the whole day thinking, "Take a picture of this. Take a picture of this." They're just snapshots and not great photos, but at least there are images instead of just words.

I picked Wednesday because it's our busiest day of the week, but I also realized after I started that it's my most hands-off day of the week. It's busy but we're pulled in fifteen different directions and lots of our time is spent apart. I'll probably focus on a different day in a few weeks just to show what a day looks like when we're all home together. {Hint: It isn't quite as pretty.}

The boys were both up and in my bed by 7:30 this morning. James is normally up first and comes to snuggle until Eddie leaves. Will has begun climbing out of his crib {even with the mattress almost on the floor} so he joins us each morning when he's ready to get up. {And once last week at 3:30 when he got in bed with me and said, "HEY!" and was ready to be up for the day. No, thank you.} I let the boys watch Mickey for a few minutes and we all got up at 7:55.

{Yes. Our bed is really that small. It feels like a twin when we're all four in it. I miss my king.}

We go straight to the playroom in our house when we get up. The boys sit at their table to eat in the mornings. Sometimes I allow TV, sometimes I don't. This morning I let them watch. If we start running late, we're fussing, or we aren't listening to directions it immediately goes off.

{They actually have self-designated chairs. James normally eats on the left and Will on the right but Will sat in the chair he's in in this picture and James doesn't want to sit next to him so he moved, too.}

I sit down for coffee and to check my favorite blogs while the boys eat. I have a handful that I read immediately in the mornings. I also looked at email, my own blog account, and Facebook.


At 8:25 the boys got dressed for school. This part of our morning is the most stressful. Will is in a stage where he enjoys running from me and James has become the most absent-minded kid. James gets himself dressed but has to be redirected a million times. The boys brush their teeth and I comb their hair and they're allowed to watch TV again until I'm ready to go. I showered last night so I just put on a teensy bit of makeup, run the straightener through my hair, and put on clothes to go drop them off.

I drop the boys off in their classrooms - I have to walk in on the days Will goes but if James goes by himself I drive through. Will cries when I leave him which is something that has started happening anytime I leave him these days. Hopefully just a stage. I walk James to his room and he goes in alone. I sneak around to the other door to watch him for a minute. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in their room.

I head back to our house and when I get to the train tracks there is a train traveling approximately 0.0002 miles per hour. Small town problems. I waited on it for 15-20 minutes today. I thought about turning around but I HAVE to cross the tracks to get home and it would've taken me just as long to drive and go around it. I played a little Candy Crush to pass the time.


I got home around 9:30 and put on running clothes. I didn't eat breakfast this morning so I peeled and ate an orange and got some water before I climbed on the treadmill. I HATE treadmill running - it hurts my whole body - but I love, love, love running/walking with my stroller because I have a place for all my "stuff" so when the boys aren't with me I get on the treadmill. Maybe I need a fanny pack. HA! This was my first treadmill run since we've moved though, because it's been in storage. My shins didn't hurt like they normally do but my quads were KILLING me. The treadmill is totally a mind game for me, too. I am constantly thinking about quitting, I'm constantly checking my time, I'm berating myself for my sloooooow pace, and because it hurts I'm even sloooooower. Mine tells me exactly what my pace is so to SEE it makes me angry. This was my first run/walk at all since bronchitis hit two weeks ago so I am also wheezy. Basically, it was a mess and I was mad about it when I finished. I did run/walk the total distance I'd scheduled for today, but it wasn't pretty.



I came in from the treadmill around 10:20 and sat down and wrote the blog you read yesterday. After I typed that out I sat on the floor to stretch and do abs. Planks are serious, y'all. I had no idea.


I had enough time to pick up and vacuum the den, foyer, hallway, and James' room so that's what I did next. I will never, ever, ever have carpet in the entry way of my real house. Ever. Oh, it's awful.


After vacuuming I showered and got ready again. I had a small window of time that I could run to the library and still pick up the boys on time so I hurried. I got in and out and got what I needed. I've said time and again that I prefer listening to a book in the car over music so I picked up the final Harry Potter to listen to for a bit.


I ran by and picked up the boys and got the run down from their teachers. James was the line leader today, so there was lots of excitement about that. And Will was Mr. Kissypants as usual. That boy is going to bring home the flu or the stomach virus any day now. Will's teacher also said that Will stood at their door as James' class went by and yelled, "Neeeee! Neeeee!" He calls James - just like James called himself - "Nee." Strangest thing ever that they both said James in the weirdest way.

The boys and I headed home. Eddie had a meeting today during lunch so he didn't join us. Will had a splinter in his hand when I picked him up and he was pitching a fit about it so I doctored that up when we got home and then fixed lunch. Will has been picky ticky about food lately so he had sandwich meat, leftovers from last night, cheese, and a squeezy fruit and only ate about two bites. James had two plates of leftovers. {We had Bowtie Pasta Fiesta.} I fixed myself quinoa with chickpeas. I love quinoa.



Naptime is around 1:00 every day, give or take. I put Will down and then James and I read a chapter from our latest book. His goal this year started as 10 chapter books but has become "Every book in my room," so we have a ways to go. I'm trying to get through a book every two weeks with him. We just finished a Boxcar Children book and we've started another. He says we'll read Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl next. That's one I haven't read before.



After I put James down I went to the kitchen and finished my lunch and then sat in the den and watched a movie while the boys slept. Wednesday afternoons are busy for us and this is the shortest nap day. I don't always sit while they're napping, but today I did. James woke up around 2:35 and Will woke up around 2:45. I always have to wake them up for church so this was a surprise.


I got the boys dressed and let them sit on the front porch and eat their snack while I finished gathering up what we needed and made myself a much-needed cup of coffee before we headed to church.



We're at church from 3:30-6:30-ish every week. Our church has an after-school program on Wednesday afternoons for 3 year olds to sixth graders and that's what I volunteer with. I dropped Will and James off in the nursery {Will stays there the whole time but James goes at the beginning and then goes to 3 year old activities a bit later and then he has choir at 4:45.} I almost always take the pre-K and Kindergarten group to the playground first and then we head up to our Bible lesson. We're doing a video series called Kidmo right now. It's not my favorite, but the kids seem to be engaged, so that's good. It's just sort of weird humor. I'm done at 4:45. Today I went down and sat in the nursery with Will for a bit and then I relieved the nursery worker {he's the only baby} and took Will outside to play on the playground until 5:30 when James was done with choir. We met Eddie at church supper - ham, macaroni and cheese, greens, and cornbread tonight - and ate with some of our friends. Grandmama and Kelly normally eat with us but they weren't there tonight.




Someone THOROUGHLY enjoyed his dessert.

We left church and came home. The boys ran like wild hooligans through the house for a bit. Their favorite game when Daddy is home is to jump off the sofa onto a pillow he's holding. It is the most ridiculous game and we're minutes away from a trip to the ER, but I guess daddies are more rough with babies than mamas.



The boys had a bath and got into jammies and then we watched about 45 minutes of The Incredibles which we started earlier this week. James is enjoying it and Eddie hadn't ever seen it before. James has never been into superheroes but he's learning about them at school so he's thought the movie is interesting and has asked lots of questions about their powers and suits, etc., etc. We took medicine and brushed our teeth during the commercials.


Once we got the boys to bed I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher and picked up a bit in our bedroom and read for a little while. I've been writing this blog post while Eddie irons and watches NCIS {his FAVORITE show}. It's almost 11 and I am about to head to bed and read some more! Whew! Long day!

4 comments:

berryman said...

Good gravy! I got tired just reading that! I can't believe you only had 2 cups of coffee….hahaha

I loved day in the life!! You should alternate days! It was fun reading wednesday but it would be fun to read different days different weeks. just a fan suggestion!

loves ya!

Unknown said...

I totally agree about KidMo...I don't care for it. I am not looking forward to such busy days, but I guess they will be here before we know it!

Terri Grothe said...

it was so fun to read this, I have wanted to do it for a while, but i always forget until my day is nearly over.

Amy said...

i LOVE this!!! and it makes me really miss the days when my girls napped - ha! ;-)
your life sounds VERY similar to mine....only change out the superheros for princesses and add in a little more pink. otherwise - parallel lives. ;)