A Day in my Life
12:00 am - I've been asleep for 1.5 hours, but I wake up when DH gets in bed. Go back to sleep quickly.
1:30 - DH must have touched me or something because I'm awake again. Back to sleep right away.
5:30 - This one's my fault - I'm up, I go to the bathroom, and get back in bed but have a hard time going back to sleep. I'm thinking about stupid things, I've had a lot of weird dreams and they bug me. I doze for a while but the real sleep is pretty much over.
6:30-7:25 - I hear random children getting up, banging around the house. The alarm goes off at 7:25 but pointlessly I hit the snooze button - haven't been snoozing for a while but see no need to get up for another nine minutes.
7:30 - Boy #3 comes into my room with a full gallon of milk - he speaks very well now but for some reason has figured out that if he appears with the item he wants me to prepare for him I am much more motivated to action than if he simply came into my room and said "I want a cup of milk." At least he didn't hit me with the gallon like he did yesterday.
7:34 - The alarm goes off again and I lay in bed, trying to calm myself down, because when I sleep badly I tend to be really grouchy. I say a prayer in my head, but realize halfway through that I've stopped actually praying and was reviewing the assignment for my photography class. Doesn't do much to improve my mood, due to guilt.
7:36 - I go downstairs to find all the kids camped out in front of the tv, which is just fine with me except that Boy #1 needs to leave in 14 minutes and hasn't had breakfast yet. When the tv is on, it takes priority over everything. I harass Boy #1 into getting ready for school. I realize that I have it pretty good because all of my friends have a huge ordeal every morning getting their kids ready for school, and mine pretty much do it themselves. Looking at these small blessings takes away some of my grouchies, and I apologize to Boy #1 for getting mad at him. He apologizes to me for watching tv before getting ready, and all is well.
7:38 - I open the silverware drawer to get a cup for Boy #3, and find two spoons covered in peanut butter, the remnants of Boy #3's pre-bedtime snack yesterday. He likes to eat peanut butter straight, on a spoon (or two). I had wondered where they went to, I was hoping he had put them in the sink, but this is still surprisingly responsible for a two year old.
7:40 - I ask Boy #2 if I can make him a bagel for breakfast and he says yes. No fights over breakfast mean it's going to be a good day. I look out the window and see that it's snowing a little. Which would be fine, except that Boy #1 has lost his coat ... again. And there are no sweatshirts or anything to be found either. I'm trying to decide how to handle this - be a good mom and buy him another coat (assuming there are any at the stores which are now full of swimsuits and easter candy) or let him suffer, as this is not the first time he has lost his coat, and maybe having to stay in at recess will teach him something.
7:50 - I say prayers with Boy #1 and he is off to school, coatless.
8:00 - Boy #2 polishes off his breakfast and Boy #3 comes up to eat, which means it's a very successful morning! They watch their favorite tv show, Curious George, on PBS - the same episode gets repeated 4 times during the day, and they (including Boy #1) would sit and watch it all 4 times.
8:27 - Curious George is over, so the fighting starts - Boy #2 and Boy #3 want the same lovesac to sit on so they start kicking and yelling at each other. I convince Boy #2 to go upstairs and get dressed for school.
8:38 - Boy #2 gets some of his valentines treats out from school and finds a bouncy ball on a string. I don't know if NASA has come up with a word to describe the infinitely short amount of time between when a kid gets a new cheap toy and when it breaks, but that's instantly what happened. Boy #2 throws himself onto the floor in frustration (loudly) and I say "before you freak out about this, why don't we see if we can fix it?" so he gives me the pieces, I tie the elastic string back onto the ring that it came off of, and hand it back, only to have him say, "I don't want to play with this anymore, I don't want to break it again." So cheap toy becomes item of value so high that it can't be touched, which means that one day we'll be cleaning out his closet and I'm just going to toss it. I hate cheap junky toys like that.
8:48 - time to shower before kindergarten starts
9:02 - I come downstairs to find Boy #2 and DH arguing about whether Boy #2 can wear a sweatshirt or has to wear his winter coat, because it's snowing out. I keep my mouth shut about the fact the DH's older child left the house in just a t-shirt today. No need to bring that up, right?
9:04 - 9:20 - A sulky Boy #2, wearing the winter coat, gets dropped off at kindergarten and a non-sulky DH gets dropped off at work. I come home and have a bowl of cereal while watching the Price is Right. I totally kick butt on that show. Most days Boy #3 watches it with me, and we both cheer when people win, it's very cute! But today Boy #3 requests Curious George (the movie) which we just bought a second copy of, due to the fact that he stepped on the first one and broke it in half.
9:20 - 10:10 - Respond to some work emails while TPIR is on. Get this - during the showcases, the first guy obviously has no clue what he's doing -he tries to bid 250,000 and when Bob questions him, he reduces it to 60,000, firm. So the second person wins with a bid of $1 . I love that show.
10:20-11:20 - Read the newspaper, answer a few more emails as they come.
11:20 - Finally go back and finish reading dad's latest novella (ha ha) - I get to the part about making bread and boy that sounds good. It's gray outside today which let me tell you does nothing for the mood. It does everything for the sit-on-my-butt-with-the-laptop tendencies I have! I grabbed a pile of cookbooks to look through and maybe I'll cook something just for fun. Last week I made pumpkin bread and the kids thought I was the most wonderful person in the world. I haven't done a lot of cooking-for-fun in a long time, partly because I was doing the weight watchers thing until sometime before I got pregnant, partly because I got pregnant and miserably sick and couldn't function let alone cook for fun, and partly because most of what I make could aptly be compared to "casting pearls before swine" in which the pearls refers to my cooking and the swine refers to my children. I actually came to a decision a couple of weeks ago that I would stock the pantry with kid-friendly food and then just make 2 servings of something delicious for dinner and let the kids fend for themselves. About two days after that resolution, however, we found ourselves eating fish sticks for dinner and the kids were so happy that I abandoned my resolution. DH says that one day my boys will be on their missions and telling their companions about the wonderful cooking their mom did, but frankly I'm worried that they will have so burned me out by the time they can appreciate my food that we will be eating fish sticks right up until they leave for college.
12:15 - Boy #2 comes home from kindergarten with his friend, Ammon, who he carpools with. They eat lunch at each other's houses a couple times a week, and apparently it's our turn. It's great, though, because that makes the second conflict-free meal today. Ammon is such a good boy, the 8th kid in the bishop's family and just a great influence. He doesn't have a lot of friends, because there aren't many boys his age (he's older than Boy #2, but in the same grade) so his family is happy that Boy #2 plays with him. I'm waiting for the day that they decide Boy #2 isn't a good influence on him after all. I've got my bread rising, so this is more productive than I've been in a while. I go downstairs and find that Boy #3 has dumped a basket of dirty laundry on the family room floor and is jumping in it like a pile of leaves, which leaves me no alternative but to do some laundry.
12:15-1:45 - Wasted time, watched an episode of Alias, switched the laundry, watched the kids. 12:45 - Boy #3 brought me a football and his blanket and told me to "Come on!" and took me upstairs so he could take a nap. Boy, I love that kid. He played in his room for probably an hour, but when I checked on him later he was asleep on the floor. Boy #2's friend Josh came to play, and Anna and Ben from across the street came over for me to babysit. And Boy #3 fell asleep with all of that.
1:45 - 2:45 - Nice chat with mom on the phone. It's cool when family members are as much fun to talk to on the phone as your friends. Finally the bread looks like it has risen enough, I must have done something wrong because I used rapid rise yeast, which must mean "takes three times as long."
3:15-4:00 - What looks like a potentially good Judge Judy gets interrupted by first a phone call from DH and then Anna and Ben's mom coming to get them. Then my friend Susanne brings over the tape of American Idol that I forgot to tape from Tuesday night and we talked at the door for 15 minutes about kids birthday parties. So now I'm watching People's Court, while I reply to more work emails.
4:00 - 5:00 - Spent 45 minutes with a particularly angry Boy #1, going over his math homework. We had parent-teacher conferences last week and his teacher showed us a rather precipitous drop in his scores, so we've been going over his homework with him a couple times a week. I finally told him to leave with half of his work still to do, but I couldn't deal with the attitude for one more minute. I remember hating math when I was his age, and a lot of his problems are similar to mine, like being so messy that you get stuff wrong, etc. Does parenting get any easier??
5:00 - 5:45 - Cooking dinner. Tortilla soup, but we're out of tortilla chips.
5:45 - 6:15 - Go out, pick up DH. Boy #2 doesn't complain getting in the car, I couldn't have asked for a better day with him. Drop them off at home and run to the grocery store to pick up a few things, including tortilla chips and salad for tomorrow's ward dinner. Pass by the candy aisle without buying anything, pretty much unheard of lately. Could be because the leftover valentine's cupcakes from Boy #2's class are sitting like lead in my stomach. :)
6:15-6:45 - Dinner with the family. Again, most people ate and there were no meltdowns. Bread turned out delicious, and more of that was eaten than soup by the kids, but hey, it's food.
6:45 - 7:10 - BAck to the homework with Boy #1. He redid about 12 problems, and got most of them wrong again so we sat together and did it. I'm really glad I waited until after dinner because he wasn't nearly as surly as he was before, so maybe he actually learned something. The other boys are playing semi-together, Boy #2 gave Boy #1 a piece of gum just to be nice (for all he loves his candy, he is very willing to share) but Boy #1 left it on the couch and Boy #3 ate it. And by ate it I mean ate it.
7:10-8:00 - The kids started horsing around with lightsabers, which you know isn't going to end well, so after about 15 minutes and one lightsaber to the eye (Boy #3 aka Darth Vader) DH put on a video and the kids watched for a little while.
8:00-8:10 - the nightly battle of the scriptures takes place. The biggest complainer is Boy #2, who (my guess) really just needs to go to bed, so he shows it by throwing a nightly fit and tonight was no different. Occasionally this behavior is punctuated by Boy #1 pointedly looking at the clock and sighing, because we are cutting into his stay up late time. But we're doing it, there must be some points in it for that.
8:15 - 9:30 - It's craft night with the relief society and I go, even though it started at 7. It was fun, my friends were there so we could hang out and talk, but I should have left a half an hour early because someone came who really makes me uncomfortable - she's nice and a good person but says some things that are so inappropriate that it makes dad in his least tactful moods look prudish.
9:30 - 11 - get home and return a call to the counselor in the bishopric over primary. We discuss a potential replacement teacher, and I'm not thrilled with the suggestion, but I'm going to try to have an open mind and pray about it. This is one of the things I dislike the most about my calling. I get off the phone, finish doing the dishes, and DH and I watch The Office and Scrubs.
11:00 - I finish writing about my day, I'm about to go upstairs, read my scriptures and go to bed. It's pretty late for me, and I might regret it tomorrow, but I also really hate giving up my free time once the kids go to bed. I get as sulky as Boy #1 when he misses his stay up late time. It was actually a better day than some I've had recently, and I think a lot of it was due to the fact that I was writing down how I spent my time - kind of like a dieter who keeps a food journal. So thanks for listening, don't know if any of this matters to you guys, but it helped me anyways. :)
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