During the school year my days feel a whole lot longer than in the summer, even though the daylight hours actually get shorter.
My day starts around 6:15am when the alarm goes off. My husband needs to get up, and the alarm wakes me up. I usually jump up to pee before he gets out of bed, then I lay back down while he is getting ready. On a good day, everyone is still asleep right now. Sometimes I will hear baby boy on the monitor, and down the hall I usually start to hear my teen getting up and getting ready. She is pretty good about doing her own thing to get ready and out the door on her own, which is nice.
At this stage in my pregnancy, I try not to have too much scheduled for early mornings, so lately my husband had been letting me stay in bed for an extra 45 minutes. He has been taking care of getting the other kids awake and fed and ready for school. I never really go back to sleep but being able to lay there and rest has been nice. Between 7am and 7:15 I get up and head downstairs. Like clockwork, once I hit the third trimester I started waking up nauseous again, so I take my acid reducer with a few sips of water and say goodbye to everyone.
Lately baby boy has been waking up starving, so by the time I come downstairs he has already been fed. He will take my hand and lead me over to our recliner where we will snuggle and watch some cartoons for a little while. I am thankful for this because it gives my tummy time to settle down. I usually check my phone for emails and do any banking I am able to do on my phone. It takes about an hour or so, but I go from nauseous to starving pretty quickly. This is when we turn off the TV and I get myself some breakfast and baby boy gets his first snack. I usually let the dogs out again at this point so they don't bother me for food.
After we eat, we head down to the basement where the playroom is. My full-size freezer is also down there, so if I haven't already I try and figure out what we are going to have for dinner. I check to make sure the cat has food and water, and sort and start any laundry that has piled up overnight. I do laundry every day. Sometimes there is still a load to be switched from the night before. I get winded easily now so I try and combined trips to the basement and get as much done as I can. Baby boy and I hang out down here for a long time. It's a no TV time, so we play and I will sometimes bring down a magazine to look at in between his playing and my chores.
Starting in the 10 o'clock hour I start keeping track of the time. Sometimes he starts getting tired so I try and watch his cues. He recently switched to taking pretty short naps, usually under an hour. Because of this I have been trying to keep him up until 11:30 or so unless he is in really bad shape. So we do a variety of activities to keep him engaged. If he is playing contently I take this time to make any phone calls and follow up on any paperwork I have, but nothing too involved that I couldn't stop at a moments notice. When I see him starting to really wind down I will get him another snack. Sometimes it is pretty close to noon, so I will feed him lunch instead. We clean up, he gets a change of clothes, dry diaper, and I lay him down. Due to seperation anxiety and me being too tired to fight, I started staying with him until he is asleep. I know it is a horrible habit but it became the path of least resistance because he would spend forever screaming and not sleeping and I just couldn't deal. What happens when Bonus Baby arrives I have no idea, I will deal with that then but for now this works. So I will sit next to the crib and rub his face and arm and usually he is asleep within a few minutes.
While he is sleeping I try and take this short time to grab a shower. Sometimes I have enough time to actually get out, get dressed, and grab something to eat. When he wakes up he is almost always cranky, and will sort of throw a fit. If I have eaten I will sit in the recliner with him with a show on for the 30 minutes it takes him to chill out. If I haven't eaten I will eat while he is waking up, and get him a snack and drink ready to go. I have to be careful of the time because I need to be out the door by 2:30 to go and pick up the kids from school. If I have any errands to run, I try and do them before I pick up kids, which means I am leaving the house at this point. So much depends on how my time management has been, and how well baby boy is cooperating. Occasionally I will have to make a stop after I pick up the kids, but I try not to because even that extra half hour can mean I hit traffic getting back home.
On a good day where we have no appointments or stops to make, we are back home by 3:45. I get the older kids a quick snack, and once homework is done they take their brother out to play so I can start dinner. In the past couple weeks I have been hitting a wall of exhaustion around now. When I fee this way I usually grab a glass of water or sometimes a decaf coffee and put my feet up for a few minutes before starting dinner. My husband is usually getting back home around now so he is great about taking over so I can get myself together enough to make dinner.
I am also lucky that the older kids are pretty good about doing what they are supposed to. We finally got them to a point where they get dressed for school on their own with little fuss, get homework done right away, and can get their own snacks if I need them to. They are also good when asked about helping with baby boy, for the most part. I am always there to supervise and mediate of course, but teaching them to be responsible for themselves is important to me. We also gave them a new job this year of making their own lunches the night before. They know the rules of what should be in their lunch, and they are learning what they pack they need to eat. They are also learning how to portion, so if they come home more hungry one day, they know they need to pack a little more. They also enjoy having their own choices. We are really working on the clean up after yourself part though haha
This part of the day kids are scattered around, so once I have dinner pretty close to ready it is time to try and round everyone up. This can mean simply checking the basement or out front, and often sending someone to the playground across the street to gather up kids. We all sit down to eat together every night, so it is our time to talk about our day, what's ahead for the rest of the evening and next day, ect. One of the 2 middle kids is always the first one done, so once they take their plate to the sink they make their lunch and if it's a shower night they head upstairs to do that. (I try and get dinner on the table early, but it has seemed to be 6:30 by the time I get it together lately. I move a lot slower right now haha)
Baby boy usually gets his bath after dinner, so my husband usually does that. My teen helps clear the table and wrap leftovers. I sometimes try and work on any other bills/paperwork I have to still do, or switch laundry again, or dishes if I feel up to it. Lately I sit and put my feet up watching the front door for kids going in and out. My older son has wanted to be outside at the park every night and since he has done pretty well with being up later and waking up early with no crankiness I let him. The kids know my deal breaker for staying up late(r) is crankiness and whineyness the next day! I finish up as much as I can. A few times a month I have to do budget/finance stuff so that takes all my brain power.
Baby boy goes to bed the same way at night as he does for his naps, so between 7:30 and 8:30 I get him to sleep. The last week or so he has been so tired he is a screaming mess, thrashing in my arms as we say our prayers, but he falls asleep pretty quickly. I head back downstairs between 8 and 9pm after I have tucked everyone in. My teen is on her own schedule so she is usually floating around still. Sometimes my husband and I will watch something and hang out for a little bit. I am tired enough to go to bed right away, but I am bad and don't usually make this a priority which is stupid, because at this point I am way too exhausted to do anything productive anyway. So at some point I go to sleep.
My days are way more productive when I am not pregnant, when it's not so hot out still, and when we actually have appointments scheduled. This week was a fairly easy week, but next week I have things scheduled every single day. I don't know why my schedule works out that way, but I will have a down week, then a crazy one. Next week is dentist appointments and physicals, with early dismissals, a no-school day, and another birthday party to prep for. One child had 2 days off of school this week, I had one meet-up for lunch scheduled, and today I have 2 side dishes to make for a cookout tomorrow. (See the post titled Randomness Glaore for details on that!)
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