A day in the life of us

*This day was actually a couple days before Brett came down with meningitis. I just had not gotten around to posting it until now.*

Here is one day in our life. I will be writing periodically as the day progresses. Let's see how it goes!!

6:15 am- Brett wakes me up momentarily kissing me goodbye. He is driving up to Nashville, doing a job and driving back this evening. He has had a crazy week.

7:15 am- Evelyn wakes up crying. I get her up and nurse her. If she had woken up a little earlier, when it was not yet light, I could have nursed her back to sleep until 8 or so. We get up and go downstairs. I make coffee and change her diaper. 

7:45- Lexi is bouncing around asking to be let out, so I oblige. Usually I make her wait until Nate is awake because the back door is right under his room. Sure enough, she runs off into the neighbor's yard to bark at their dogs and when I call her back, Nate wakes up. He much prefers to wake up slowly so he is a little groggy. He is very much my child and we both take a long time to get going in the morning. 

8:00- The children are both grumpy so I commence breakfast. Scrambled eggs and blueberry muffins that I made yesterday. Nate is obviously not feeling quite himself after being sick Tuesday night with a stomach bug. He only eats a bite of eggs and half a muffin. Usually he can put away some food! Evelyn however devours a bunch of the eggs. I had the stomach bug too and so only eat a few bites. 

8:30- We talk to Brett, who is still driving, on speaker phone. Nate carries the phone around with him and talks for a couple minutes. 

8:45- Nate says (for the tenth time this morning), "Watch Bob?" i.e. Bob the Builder.

 I say (for the tenth time this morning) "No it is not time to watch anything right now."

 Nate says, "Ask Dad watch Bob."

 "Why do you want to ask Dad? Do you think he will say yes?"

 "Yes, Dad watch Bob" Nate says. And he is right=) Amazing how quickly they learn who to ask for what!

9:00- We go upstairs to begin packing for this weekend. Brett has a job in east TN near our friends Richie and Suzanne so we are all going along with him and staying until Sunday afternoon! Nate lines all his trucks up on a spare bed and shrieks whenever Evelyn throws them down. Then we have a talk about sharing with how he can give Evelyn one truck and then she will leave his others alone. I help (multiple times) with the sharing side of things and the leaving alone side of things. Evelyn hangs on me and fusses while I sort a basket of laundry, setting aside clothes to pack. I eventually decide that we need another change of scenery because everyone is grumpy and clingy.

9:30- We come downstairs and I turn on a Judy Rogers CD in the kitchen. This makes both children laugh and smile for a while. They each have a little cup of Cheerios and spread them all over the kitchen floor. Lexi will enjoy eating them later. I am happy that they are happy long enough for me to clean up most of the breakfast mess in the kitchen. 

10:00- Nate wants to paint, so we get out the dot paints and markers and I copy some truck pictures for him to color. We write his name and other peoples' names and talk about the letters. He only colors a little on himself. 

10:20- We all go back upstairs and finish getting dressed for the day and picking up the bedrooms. 

10:40 am- Nate comes and says, "cough, mommy" and coughs a little. I offer him a drink and then a minute later he throws up on both of us. We rush to the bathroom, but he insists that he's done. As soon as I let him step back from the toilet, he throws up again, all over Evelyn's back (she had crawled along behind us, of course), the bathroom rug, and my slippers. He is very concerned about the mess. I strip everyone down, wash everyone off with soap, and start another load of laundry. We all get redressed.

11:00- Evelyn is obviously very sleepy, even though this is early for her nap. I put Nate on a big towel and turn on an episode of "Bob" for him. My stomach still feels queasy so I am hopeful that he just threw up the blueberry muffin he had for breakfast because it was too hard on his stomach. Evelyn and I go upstairs to nurse.

11:12- Evelyn is asleep and I lay her down in her bed. Then I call Mom Hawkins to tell her that the children will not be coming over later today in case Nate is still contagious. Usually today I have two riding lessons to teach in the afternoon and the children go over to the Hawkins. I work more on cleaning up.

11:20- I throw some chicken bones and other stuff in the crock pot to make stock for chicken soup for dinner. That is really the only food that sounds appealing to me. And it must be homemade chicken soup, not canned. I should have some in the freezer for just such days!

11:40- I talk to others involved in the scheduling of riding lessons, trying to see if someone else at the barn can fill in for me today. I also disinfect the upstairs bathroom. 

11:50- Nate yells up the stairs for me and wakes Evelyn up. She is still sleepy because her nap was cut short, but refuses to lay back down. Oh well. 

12:00 pm- Feed Nate some applesauce to see if he throws that up. If he throws up again today, then we will definitely not be going away this weekend. I would hate to cancel, but I would hate to share this bug even more. We shall see how the rest of the day goes!

12:10- I wash and cut several packs of strawberries that were a very good price last week. We were obviously not going to eat them before they went bad, so into the freezer they went! 

12:20- Nate really wants to go outside, so I reluctantly bundle everyone. It is cold and windy, so we only last outside for about 15 minutes. I have to hold Evelyn the whole time because the ground is sopping wet and I do not want her to crawl around on it. 

1:00- I realize that it is 1 o'clock!!! We all sit down on a big pillow on the floor and read 3 books. I try to read before nap and bed, but it happens most consistently before nap time. Nate has always loved reading and will sit and listen for as long as I will read. Evelyn mostly wants to eat the books, tear the pages, or try to turn to a page that we are not currently reading. So she usually plays nearby and only sits with us part of the time. 

1:20- Put Nate down for nap.

1:30- Feed Evelyn some lunch...peas and cut up left over chicken. I love giving peas to the children for lunch because I don't even cook them, just thaw a cupful in hot water, drain, and give them the cup. I wash some dishes...how do they multiply at this astonishing speed with just the four of us? Clean out the sink and start the dishwasher. I am not at all sure that Evelyn has actually consumed any of her food, given the large quantities in her lap and scattered on the floor. 

2:00- I chop veggies for soup. Evelyn plays on floor. Beginning recently she plays very happily by herself. Read a couple blog posts.

2:30- Evelyn is tired of playing by herself so we move to living room to play together. I look at the monthly Publix magazine with her and drool over the chocolate recipes. I seriously consider making a pull-apart cinnamon pecan bread that is featured, but decide it is a bit too labor intensive for today. 

2:45- I pour the broth into the veggies for the soup. Yum! I am very excited about this pot of soup. I've been craving homemade chicken vegetable soup for three days. 

3:00- Evelyn wants to nurse. She actually falls asleep, which I was not expecting because she does not usually take two naps. 

3:30- I call mom and talk to her about whether or not it is wise to go this weekend in light of Nate throwing up. Brett says he should be finished in Nashville in about an hour, so he will be home around 9:30-10 pm. Poor guy has been travelling many hours this week! 

3:40- I look at knitting kits from knitpicks.com that have just been marked 50% off. This makes them surprisingly inexpensive. Of course I have the yarn for a couple more projects that are not even on my needles yet...

4:00- Sit down to knit on Evelyn's leg warmers that I started this week. They are fun to work on because they are going so quickly. I am nearly finished with the first one! 

4:15- Dad calls with a business question and I am reminded of all the office work on which I am terribly behind. Why in the world am I knitting?! I hop on the computer and start working. 

4:40- Evelyn wakes up crying and when I get her out of bed I check on Nate. He has obviously been awake for a while because he is standing up, waiting for me with his hands full of trucks. 

5:00- Since we did not eat much lunch, I decide to eat dinner early. The soup is ready and quite tasty! Evelyn eats heartily but Nate is more interested in the applesauce and the veggie tray. As long as he eats lots of vegetables, I won't fight over the soup. 

5:20- I discover that my amazon order arrived sometime this afternoon! It is some closet organization shelves and racks. Nate has been recently asking me for a "new present for Nate". I guess he enjoyed Christmas. =) When he saw the big box, he was sure it was a "big car" for him even though I kept telling him that it was for me. So he was a little disappointed with the contents of the box. Then we took everything out of it and with packing tape and scissors I made it into a house. They loved going in and out of the door!

6:00- I am excited about the large shoe rack so I decide to assemble it. There were only three steps in the directions so I figured that I could handle it. Brett is so good with such things that I usually don't even attempt to put together anything that is complicated enough to need instructions. =) It was very easy! We carried it upstairs and put most of our shoes on it before the children get bored of that and we move onto something else. 

6:45- Nate suddenly announces, "Nate need to poop on potty!" We have been talking a lot about potty training around here and have managed to pee several times but he had never pooped or told me that he needed to go. I take him immediately to the bathroom, and sure enough, success!! Nate seems very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, even though I try to make a big deal out of it and be very excited. I was a little worried that he was not quite ready but it seems that he is! Yay!! We will have to begin training in earnest very soon. 

6:50- We call Dad to tell him the exciting news!

7:00- I try to clean up the kitchen from dinner but about 3 minutes in, Nate begins jumping up and down and begging me to "dance". So I turn on the radio and we all dance in the kitchen. This is one of my favorite things about kids...they make me laugh and do silly things that I would never do with anyone else. 

7:20- We go upstairs for bath time. Nate loves the bath and will stay in it for a very long time. Evelyn is very excited initially about bath time, but quickly tires of it and wants out. We bring three trucks into the tub with us and Nate lets Evelyn play with one of them. She always wants the two that he has instead, but they work it out most of the time. 

7:40- We get out of the tub, get dressed in jammies and pick out 3 books for story time. 

7:55- Nate goes to bed. I nurse Evelyn and she falls asleep.

*I had stopped writing down the day at this point and I have no memory of the rest of the evening, other than that Brett arrived home at around 9 pm and was very tired.*

Many I should write down my day more often so I see my life more honestly. It was surprisingly encouraging to read over at the end of the day. Many days, I know I have hardly sat down all day but I can't remember much that I have actually done. So much of parenting little ones is not anything that is ever complete, so you can never check off a list and feel "accomplished".

But it is all essentially important work and we have a lot of fun too! =)