A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life | Thursday, January 26th, 2017

Shelby (6), Hadley (3.5), Brady (6.5 months)

3:45 a.m. I hear Brady, so I roll out of bed to go to the bathroom & then go to his room. I quickly change his diaper & scroll through my Facebook newsfeed as I feed him.

4:10 I get back in bed and continue to look at my phone for a few minutes trying to decide if I should just go ahead and get up for the day or try to go back to sleep. Brady's middle of the night feeding has been gradually getting later & later. He used to wake up anywhere between 1-3ish, but recently it's been anywhere between 3:30-5:30. I love that he's getting closer to sleeping through the night, but I have a hard time going back to sleep in the mornings when he needs to be nursed so close to my alarm going off.

4:30 I put my phone back on the nightstand & try to go to sleep.

5:35 I hit snooze on my alarm. It took me forever to fall back asleep after feeding Brady, and it feels like I'd just gotten into a deep sleep when my alarm went off.

5:45 My alarm goes off again, and I begrudgingly get up out of my warm bed for a quick shower. Derek, Hadley, and Brady are all asleep, but I can see Shelby's light on in her room.

6:00 Just as I'm getting out of the shower, Shelby walks into the bathroom asking for help buttoning her dress. Derek walks into the bathroom soon after her to put his contacts in. The two of them head downstairs while I dry my hair & get dressed for the day.

6:15 I come downstairs to find these two playing Connect Four. While they play Connect Four, I start making Shelby's lunch & prepping our breakfast.

Prior to moving here, Derek has always had to leave for work very early in the mornings. Now that he doesn't have to leave the house until 6:30 most days coupled with the fact that Shelby's school starts early, Derek actually gets to see our children (at least one of them!) in the mornings before he leaves! Derek's alarm goes off at 6, and he's out the door by 6:30...but he squeezes so much into those quick 30 minutes and helps to make our mornings run much more smoothly! He always makes our bed, puts all the dishes away (that were left to air-dry on the kitchen counter from the night before) for me, and gives Shelby some undivided attention...not to mention, he gets himself ready for work too. ;)

6:30 We say our goodbyes to Derek, and then Shelby heads to the living room to read while I continue making her lunch & prepping breakfast.

6:45 I hear Hadley waking up, so I head upstairs to help her get dressed then I fix both girls' hair.

7:00 The girls & I sit down for breakfast.

7:20 I hear Brady waking up, so I leave the girls downstairs to finish eating while I run upstairs to get him up & change his diaper.

7:25 The girls take their dishes over to the sink, sweep the floor under their chairs, & wash their hands/faces (with prompting from yours truly to keep them moving at a quick pace!). Then we brush teeth, go to the bathroom, and put on shoes & jackets.

7:45 After putting Brady in the carrier, we walk to school.

7:55 The bell rings & we say our goodbyes to Shelby.

8:00 We're back home, and I need to feed Brady before we head off to preschool. I usually try to feed Brady in his room b/c if there aren't any distractions, he nurses super fast. Hadley retreats to Shelby's room to play while I feed Brady.

8:15 We manage to squeeze in a little Curious George before we have to leave for preschool.

8:35 We leave for preschool.

9:00 Brady & I drop Hadley off at preschool and head back home. My mom calls almost as soon as we get in the car. I talk to her for a few minutes but have to cut our conversation short so I can try to keep Brady awake on the drive home.
9:20  We pull into the garage & I rush upstairs to lay Brady down as quickly as possible. Tuesday & Thursday mornings are exhausting for sweet little Brady b/c he has to wait so long for his morning nap! Once I get him down, I finally get to clean up from breakfast. After cleaning up the kitchen, I fold & put away a load of laundry and then get taco soup in the crockpot for dinner.

10:30 I finished my chores, hooray! Since Tues/Thurs mornings are my only "breaks" all week, I try to make time for myself to relax a bit during this time. So since my chores are done, I sit down to scroll through Facebook a bit and read. I just started Here's to Us by Elin Hilderbrand.

11:30 I check the monitor & see Brady is just waking up--perfect timing! So often I have to wake him up to go pick up the girls from school, and I always feel so bad doing that! So I'm thrilled he's already waking up on his own! I get him loaded up in the car so we can head to preschool to pick up Hadley.



12:00 We pick up Hadley and head back home.

12:15 Back home & Brady needs to nurse before we can eat lunch. I again retreat to Brady's room to feed him where it's quiet, and Hadley stays downstairs to play.

12:25 I come downstairs with Brady & hear Hadley in the bathroom. She tells me she has a "messy poopy," which is code for she needs help wiping her bottom. I set Brady down in the living room, so I can go tend to her. Oh, the joys of mothering! ;) 

12:40 Lunch time!

1:00 Brady & Hadley play for a few minutes while I attempt to start cleaning up from lunch.

1:10 I take Brady upstairs to change his diaper/clothes, & get ready for nap #2 of the day.

1:15  Back downstairs to finish cleaning up the kitchen. Then Hadley and I go to the living room to read some of the new books we got at the library the day before. We're almost two books in before I start getting super drowsy. ;)  I nod off for a minute or two (which happens more frequently than I'd like to admit, ha!). Hadley is always super sweet & lets me sleep for a minute or two before waking me up to keep reading. ;)

2:05 We wake Brady up, throw him in the carrier, and walk to school to pick up our Shelby-girl.

2:20 We're back home from school. After the girls take off their shoes/jackets, they usually sit down to read on the couch for a few minutes while I unpack Shelby's lunchbox & go through her folder from school. Then I feed the girls a quick snack.

2:30 I head upstairs to feed Brady & leave the girls downstairs to finish their snacks & read.

2:45  After feeding Brady, I usually give the girls their bath & get them in their PJs. (Crazy early I know, but this is what works for us in this season of life!) But our schedule is different on this day b/c we're going to the Talent Show at Shelby's school at 5:30. So we skip our baths & play for a bit. Shelby takes a break from playing to write a note to Adam (her BFF from Biloxi/San Antonio) and Mo Willems (one of her favorite authors).

3:45 I put Brady down for nap #3 of the day & take the girls outside to mail Shelby's notes and let them ride their scooters in front of the house.

 

4:05 We come inside. The girls read for a bit while I prep an early dinner for them.

4:25 The girls sit down for their early dinner. Hadley is having chicken nuggets, yogurt, fruit, & peas. We had two leftover slices of pizza, so Shelby is having one slice along with yogurt, fruit, & peas. I eat the other leftover slice of pizza to tide me over until I eat dinner with Derek later in the evening.

4:55 As I'm finishing cleaning up the kitchen, I hear Brady start to wake up. I'm shocked he's already waking up b/c he usually sleeps until 6 most evenings. But it works out well that he's already waking up, so I will have time to feed him before we leave for the Talent Show.

5:00 I leave the girls downstairs to read and/or play while I head up to Brady's room to change his diaper & feed him.

5:15 I come out of Brady's room and look downstairs to check on the girls. Here was my view:

5:25 After putting on shoes & heavy jackets, we head out for the Talent Show!

6:25 We stayed at the Talent Show until we saw a little girl in Shelby's class perform, and then as soon as she was done we headed for home. On the walk back, Shelby kept telling me how tired she was. ;)  Derek was finishing up unloading groceries as we walked in the house. He usually always goes to the commissary on Friday evenings, but since we were going to be at the Talent Show on this night he went ahead to the commissary a day early.

6:30 On our walk home from the Talent Show, I was telling the girls how I performed in my school's Talent Show as a teacher. So I showed them the video of my performance before we headed upstairs for bedtime. They thoroughly enjoyed it! ;)  Then it was upstairs for teeth brushing, potty breaks, and jammies.

6:45  Derek read the girls their bedtime stories & tucked them in while I nursed Brady before putting him down for the night.

7:05 All three are tucked in, so Derek & I head downstairs to eat our taco soup for dinner. I forget to jot down any times after tucking the girls in, but after we eat and get the kitchen cleaned up I start my nightly load of laundry. Prior to Brady being born, I always washed the girls' clothes together every couple of days and washed Derek's and my stuff together. Once Brady was born, I switched to doing one family load of laundry every single night with everyone's clothes from the day. I started doing that b/c I didn't like to leave clothes with spit-up on them overnight to sit, but I've kept up this routine of a nightly family load of laundry b/c it keeps me on top of it. I put the load in the dryer every night before bed, and then I fold it and put it away mid-morning the next day.

While I start my load of laundry, Derek works a bit on his puzzle in the dining room. After my laundry is going, he heads upstairs to shower while I jump on the laptop to blog & order a few things for myself for my birthday. :)  When Derek comes downstairs after his shower, we are ready to eat dessert. We always eat dessert together every night after the kids are asleep. We realize we're out of ice cream {practically a crime in our house!}, but Derek picked up some break n bake cookie dough at the commissary so we eat a few pieces of that raw.

9:25 We head upstairs to get in bed & watch/listen to a "vlog" of the Talking Points from The Factor with Bill O'Reilly together. We talk about what we watched for a few minutes & debrief from our day.

9:45  Alarms are set & lights are out!! We have found that cutting cable + adding a new baby into the mix has resulted in much earlier bedtimes for us! ;)