A Day in the Life-Summer Edition

I have seen a few of these floating around on other blogs, and I thought it would be fun to try and do one of my own. Instead of doing a specific day, I am going to do a general day, and hope this doesn't get too wordy-hah!

I am a big believer in summer being alot of down time and nothing too structured, especially this summer with being pregnant and having a toddler. My days usually started in the 7-o'clock hour when my husband's alarm goes off. He could sleep through the thing beeping for an hour, so I always wake up and make sure he actually gets up. Being pregnant, I was usually up between 2am and 4am to pee, and sometimes I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep. Usually close to when my husband is getting up, the baby would wake up, too. We would head downstairs and he would get his morning snack and drink and we would curl up in the recliner together for some cartoons. He would have his snack, and I would check my emails/bank account/blogs on my phone.

On a good day we wouldn't have anything to do all morning, but occasionaly we had an appointment scheduled early. If we did, I would get my oldest up to babysit so I could get ready and get whoever had the appointment fed and out the door. Most days we didn't have early appointments, though, and would get to be lazy. Once the next kid woke up within the hour (usually my other son) the boys would go hang out and play while I fixed breakfast. It's funny, because when all my kids were smaller, I ran things sort of like a daycare, where everyone sat down for meals at the same time, and there was a dedicated snack time. Now, on non-school days, everyone is quite staggered and not at all on the same schedule. Anyway, I would feed the boys and myself, and wrap up breakfast and leave it out for whenever the girls decided to grace us with their presence.

Most everything revolved around what schedule the little guy was on that day, especially if we didn't have any appointments or anything. If he went down mid-late morning and we didn't have anything to do later, I would take that time to go run errands. I would usually rotate which older kid came with me to get some one-on-one time. The others I left with instructions to pick up around the house a little, make sure the sink was clear, and get lunches and pool stuff together so we could head to the pool for a little while. On days when he took an earlier nap we tried to head to the pool right after lunch. I tried to plan it well, so that we either had something to cook up at the pool, or something easy to pull together when we got home. The days of staying at the pool from open to close are a thing of the past right now. I don't enjoy being there in the heat right now, and after a couple hours the littlest one has had enough, despite there being playgrounds and other things to do besides swim. I said this in another post, but even the older kids think the pool has turned pretty lame because there aren't a whole lot of families who spend the days there. Next year will be different because we are joining a super awesome, super-sized pool right by our house.

Let me be clear...just because I asked my kids to do certain chores while I was gone by no means means I came home to a clean house and bags packed. More often than not I came home to everything half done or not started at all, and had to plead and cajole and yes, even threaten, to get everyone working together. Despite my best efforts, sometimes it would literally take hours to get everyone on the same page. So much of our time was wasted with that crazy nonsense. Also, in between all the other stuff throughout the day there was extra stuff, like filling pet dishes with food and water, tripping over pets underfoot, letting dogs outside, letting dogs back inside, and picking up after the pets when they would get into something or knock cushions on the floor. Also, turning off lights a million times, turning off a TV no one is watching, and going behind each kid to make sure they are doing the chores they were asked to do.

If we stayed at the pool for dinner, my husband would meet us there and take over kid duty so I could get dinner on the grill. After we ate, he would head home with the small fry, and I would stay with any kids that wanted to still hang out and swim. If we went home, the kids usually headed down to the basement to chill out for a little while while I got dinner ready. All of us sitting down together for dinner is a big thing in my house. We take that time to go over anything that needs to happen that night or the next day. It is also usually a whirlwind of everyone eating and talking, and everyone is usually finished and I felt like I just sat down!

After dinner, the kids liked to go out to the ball fields and playgrounds across the street. If the baby was up for it, they took him, too. Usually my little guy was ready to take a bath by this point, though. My husband loves doing bath time, so this is when I get to sit for a few minutes and put my poor, swollen feet up. I tried to catch up on emails and texts and take a breather. By this time of night, I am just wasted tired, so it gives me a little pick me up. The kids would come back just before dark, and we would often make s'mores out on the deck. My baby boy would come down from his bath in a diaper and join us. On a good night, he could hang out until about 9, many nights he was in bed by 8. We really just go by how he is doing. If he is losing it, off to bed he goes. Sometimes he would pick up a second wind and run around like a mad man and that could buy us an extra 30 minutes or so. He is generally up from his nap for 7-9 hours before going back to bed for the night.

I am almost always the one who puts him to bed. When I take him upstairs, I usually tell the middle 2 kids they need to come up and brush their teeth. The camped out in the basement most nights, so I made sure they had everything from upstairs they needed now, instead of creating a ruckus when I am trying to get a toddler to sleep. On a good night, I would hold him, say bedtime prayers, and lay him down. His aqua crib toy plays soft music, and I would rub or pat him for a minute to settle him down, and that would be that. Some nights he would be so beside himself that my oldest would take over. A few times a month, she would somehow be the only one who could get him to sleep quickly and with little fuss, starting from when he was very small. We have no idea why, but if he is ever giving me a fight, in she comes and it's all over.

After I put the baby down, I would go back downstairs to finish anything if I still had the energy. Sometimes that meant a load of laundry, which is done on a near-constant loop in my house, most often it meant computer work...bill paying, budgeting, grocery store list-making, menu planning. I have horrible time management skills, so I try and plan at least the next night's dinner and pull meat out of the freezer and do a mental check to see if I have everything I need for the meal. I have been quite famous for starting a meal, and.not having a key ingredient or three. By this point in the night it's probably close to 9:30, and I need something to eat before I can think about bed. I would find something small to have, and either sit down at the table with a magazine, or actually sit down with my husband and watch something on TV for about a half hour. Watching TV is the worst choice, though, because I would get so comfortable in the recliner and be so tired that I wouldn't move until an hour or more went by, and that is just way too late for me to go to bed.

We tried to make sure the kids shut things down in the basement and started to settle down by 10 at the latest. The oldest one would still be up, and her and her dad would wait for me to go to bed before they hung out to watch whatever series they were following. My husband always walks me up to bed and we usually spend a few minutes catching up while I get ready to go to bed. Our entire marriage, I am always in bed for the night before him. He doesn't need as much sleep as I do, and when I don't get enough it is obvious to everyone around. He used to complain he was bored after I went to bed, but now he has a teenager to hang out with so he stopped complaining haha. He likes to flip channels and watch anything and everything, but I have to have a purpose and something specific to watch or it is not worth my time. If I wasn't pregnant, I would actually be able to hang more, so we would play board games or watch a movie or something, but I just don't have the energy right now.

On a good night I fall right to sleep and mostly stay that way...then it's rinse and repeat.