A day in the life

It should come as no surprise to anyone that I don't keep baby books for my children. I started one for Sam back when I was pregnant and delusional and thought babies actually slept all day. It was mostly filled out up until he was born. And then I couldn't believe that people made time for that when they could be horizontal and/or sawing some logs. It just never felt like a priority to me. I hear about other moms getting their panties in a twist because they aren't caught up on the latest stats. How big was Timmy's head circumference at his last appointment? Where did that flipping 26 month sticker go for his monthly picture? How much of his alphabet can he say out of order? I'm not judging anyone who records these things. I am actually proud of you if you manage to pull this sort of thing off. I can say with certainty that I would erupt into some sort of anxiety attack over filling the stupid thing out. And when I feel guilty about not having all of his vital stats written down, I ask myself if I truly give a shamrock shake about my exact weight at 14 months old. (No. No I do not.) What would I care to know about that time? Certainly not my weight. I would like to know what a typical day looked like for 14-month-old me. So I hope that Sam and Molly have the same sort of mindset/outlook whenever the day comes that they are interested in knowing more about their early years. (Because you know they won't be able to crack open a perfectly handwritten baby book. Ahem.)

ANYWAYS (that escalated quickly), the above paragraph coupled with Steve not fully knowing our new daily routine coupled with the fact that I'll want to remember (maybe?) what life was like on a random Monday during the deployment got me to thinking that I should document a "typical" day. Obviously every day here is different. We go to different places and do different things depending on the weather, if we're out of bananas (emergency code level RED DEATHCON 6), or if it's a preschool day (choirs of angels singing with beams of light shining down, glitter, rainbows, etc). Enough chit-chat. Here's a day in the life, with one photograph (or more if we're at the park) taken every hour.

7am- Mommy wakes up. Cannot remember what was so intriguing on HGTV last night that possessed me to stay up past ten.
Vow to never do that again. Ever.
Coffee.
Survey dishes that I put off doing last night.
Ignore dishes.
Drink more coffee.
Putz around on the internet, and try to hock a few more things around my house on craigslist.

8am- The tiny people have decided to join the land of the living. Time to pretend like I haven't been up for an hour wasting time.
Scramble to fix their breakfasts and lay out some diapers.

"No pitchur! No pitchur!" Bless his heart. I photo-document everything these days for Steve. And being soaked in pee was not something he wanted documented, I guess.

The princess eating her breakfast

Ignore the pink sippy cup. It's a long story.

9am- Molly playing with her "toys" and waiting for our friends to show up so we can go jog and play at a new playground.

Real toys are overrated.

At the playground with our BFF's.

And I will just go ahead and apologize for the onslaught of park pictures. I took 128. Yikes. (But I am not posting 128, so don't "x" me out yet.)

Shockingly, she did not feast on this all-you-can-eat buffet of woodchips.

Notice the new haircut? Doesn't he look 12?

I love these two together so much.

Summer shoes are in the mail!

I'm not sure if he could have been any happier.

My mighty one-year-old

Wheeeeeee!!

Aggie, please move to Korea with us? Please?

Are you eating chips, Levi? (Yeah Molly, woodchips.)

Killing me with cute.

Somewhere in there was 10am. We jogged home from the park and said bye to our friends.

11am- Lunch.

Cinnamon raisin Ezekial bread. Yummmmm. And nothing goes better with that than some sweet potatoes, right?

"Counting" his pea crisps- "too, nine, ate, free, NINE!" (2, 9, 8, 3, 9!)

12pm- Vacuum. Pointless.

Wash dishes while kids play. (My only piece of solid advice to first-time parents is to be sure to ignore your children enough. Not NEGLECT, just ignore every so often. It gives them a chance to figure out how to play on their own, thus giving you a chance to wash the dishes without screaming and insanity happening in the background.)

I love it when they can just play and be happy.

And voila! Dishes are done.

Pre-naptime Baby Einstein. "Myer's show," says Sam. He is clearly too big and grown to learn about farm stuff. Molly, on the other hand, can't get enough it seems.

1pm- SWEET BLESSED NAPTIME.
I promptly waste most of it by going through the day's pictures and listing things on craigslist.

2pm- Text with Steve for a little bit before he goes to bed. Waste more of naptime doing nothing productive.

3pm- Naptime is OVER. Time to gear up for the home stretch. Remind myself that it's all downhill to bedtime.

"Schammy big boi! Ugh HEEVEE!" (heavy)

Sam actually woke up before Molly (kinda rare) and was in a very nice mood, so we played together in his room until Molly woke up.

He's a flipping genius, folks.

He will snuggle if you bribe him with a book. And will even take a picture with his sweaty mama. Although he did tell me, "Esh nashtee." (It's nasty.) Yes, I know. I wasted all my free time not showering. My apologies.

4pm- Molly wakes up a bit before 4 and we head outside to play with the neighbors.

I thought you said you were gonna wash these, Mom...

Sam, eating our neighbor out of house and home, as usual...

Why is there sun in my eyes? Shouldn't someone do something about that?

Neighborhood work horse aka lady charmer

5pm- Dinner.

It's a shame we live all of 1.5 miles from the side of the sun, or else this picture might have turned out nicely.

Deep in thought with a turkey dog.

Clean up dinner, wash dishes, fold laundry, vacuum again. Blah blah blah.

6pm- Marvel at how we can actually live this close to the sun and not burn to a crisp or lose our vision entirely. (With two gingers, this is quite spectacular!)

Bathtime!! The only time they're cuter is when they're asleep! Ha!

7pm- Bedtime.

Every night he is so pissed he has to go to bed. He always throws someone out of his crib. And then instantly regrets it.

Every night we say prayers together and I let him say who we're praying for. The other night: "Dahdee, Mommee, Aubie, Schammy." (I point to Molly.) "Myerrrrrrr..."

(Side note- I will cry and cry and cut the person who teaches him how to say Molly's name properly.)

Finally, stinky sweaty grungy Mommy takes a shower.

That green glow just makes you wanna get clean, right?

8pm- Dinner for me.

Don't barf in your mouth- that's chicken with basil pesto and chicken sausage. I will talk about losing weight and eating all chicken to do it (apparently) in another post.

I didn't photo-document the rest of the night, but it basically went like this:

Sit on the couch and text friends and half-watch HGTV and then email Steve and suddenly realize that it's ELEVEN O'CLOCK and oh crap I have these built-in alarm clocks that will be sounding soon! Change sheets and remind myself to do something about that mound of clothes on the floor and go to bed.

And that, my friends, is a day in the life. Obviously the endless diaper changes and hand-washing and timeouts and sippy cup refills and other general maintenance-type things were left out, but that was our day in a nutshell. I'm glad every day is different, but with the same general routine. There is never a dull moment, that's for sure.