A Typical Day

A while back, Sarah D asked me what a typical day was. Well… here goes

7 – 7:45 wake up and nurse twins while Jonathan gets girls breakfast , eat my breakfast, check email, blogs, etc

7:45-8:15 take shower and get ready while J troubleshoots with kids, boys usually go back down about 8

8:15-9 get girls dressed, do morning chores (make beds, start laundry, unload dishwasher, start dinner, etc), play

9-10 girls usually watch Sesame Street, Super Why or Sid the Science Kid and I work around the house. Or sleep if needed. On Mondays and Wednesdays, my mom comes from 9-12:30 to help me! Yea mom! If she’s here I usually run errands with the girls or do some cleaning I don’t normally get to (which is a lot!).  Or I take a big nap while she’s here. On occasion.

10 –11 nurse twins and play with them while they are awake! Snack time for me and girls

11-12  boys go back down for naps around 11 and the girls and I usually play inside- this is when we color and play dress up and play dough and I throw in some laundry and wipe bathrooms down. Truth be told I’m usually still cleaning up breakfast and snack (Sienna is SO messy!) at this point. But I always have good intentions of getting lots more done.

12-1 fix lunch for me and girls, eat, clean up, read books and girls go down to nap around 1

1-2 nurse twins and take pictures of them! Ha! This is when they get floor time since their sisters are “sleeping”

2-3 put twins down for naps and have silent alone time. I usually just sit and stare into space. Sometimes I do that but usually I check blogs, facebook again and then do my most important to dos for the day (I pick 3 a day which is kind of ambitious). I try to make important calls during this time (yesterday it was my pharmacy coverage- two separate issues took pretty much the whole hour). Sometimes I just talk to Brenna for the whole hour.

3-4 girls up- snack time and play

4-5 nurse twins and girls play outside during nice days. I try to start prepping dinner

5-5:30 put twins down for another nap and ok really try to prep dinner so someone can cook when J gets home

5:30-6:30 J gets home and does something fun with the girls and I cook or he cooks and I  keep the girls out of the kitchen

6:30 one twin (it varies) is usually up by now and we eat dinner

7-8 nurse twins, give girls baths, stories, songs, bedtime for girls, bedtime for twins

8 breathe

8-10:30 try to catch up on everything in my life that needs to be done and prep for tomorrow (finish laundry, load dishes, sweep kitchen, vacuum under S’s chair- did I mention how messy she is??? and our dining room table is on carpet???, etc) If I have to run an errand, this is when I get to go! And I’m usually pretty tired by now so I move a little slower.

10:30 nurse twins and watch House Hunters International

11:15 go to bed

11:15-7 get woken up anywhere from 2-7 times for pacis, blankets (3 year old!), screaming (1 year old!) or thinking I heard something (me!)

7am repeat

I’m typing this out thinking “Gosh I should get more done during the day!” but I didn’t include the 15 diaper changes or the 14 drink pourings that I do every day. I didn’t include the 20 hand washings and the looking for the missing croc. I didn’t include the time outs and warnings.  the early waking from naps and growth spurts. the bloody lips and tantrums. And honestly every task takes me 15 times longer to complete because I am interrupted every 4 seconds during the day.

It takes nearly every bit of energy and every minute of the day to do survival stuff- laundry, dishes, food, grocery shopping, keeping the kids from harming each other. Throw in our fridge not cooling (3 weeks ago) and my whole life is in chaos for days because of the time I had to devote to that. This is why it took nearly 4 months to get the boys’ birth announcements out. And I somehow managed to think taking a leadership role for MOPS would be a good idea.

But.

Its getting better. I’m learning how to streamline better and getting more organized. The boys dropped their early morning feed and while they aren’t sleeping straight through, they usually just need a quick pat and paci to go back to sleep. The girls play well together and independently (most of the time). The boys are just easy. I’m getting my groove back and sufficiently lowering my expectations at the same time.

So…what questions do you have? I know Merritt wanted to know something about how identical the boys will be? Give me some questions and I’ll answer them.