12:01 a.m. - Been in bed since 9:30. Still can't sleep. All of a sudden I'm all stuffy and snotty myself. Although this isn't typical... it's how my day is starting.
12:32 a.m. - Wake Aaron up and ask him if he wouldn't mind doing Ansley's nighttime feeding when she wakes up... I'm moving to the couch because all my sniffing and coughing I'm afraid may wake her. He agrees to do that for me. Thank you, Jesus.
7:45 a.m. - Officially awake for the day. I've been awake several times in between, but this is when the day... today... starts.
8:00 a.m. - Inform Aaron that I'm sneaking in the shower while both kids aren't making any noise. As I'm stepping in I hear Ansley start crying. Could really use the steam from the shower with my nastiness today, but it's going to be a short shower so I can get things going for the morning.
8:06 a.m. - Out of the shower and listening intently. Apparently Ansley decided to go back out. Woo hoo! May get a chance to actually get dressed and ready for the day all at once!
8:08 a.m. - Scratch that. Dried off and went to our room to pick out clothes and Ansley's crying again. Throw on a t-shirt and comfy shorts with the idea that I'll at least change into jeans later... when they finally get out of the washer, into the dryer, and brought upstairs. I make the decision to let Ansley fuss long enough to at least dry my hair. She's not screaming yet.
8:10 a.m. - Drying hair when I realize Bryton is now awake too. I get it 'pretty much' dry - and tend to him first. I peek my head in the door to tell him good morning, that I hear him, that I love him, and that I'm going to make his breakfast.
8:16 a.m. - Making Bryton's breakfast. Pour Kix in his bowl, cut up strawberries, pour a glass of milk and put it on the table. Ansley is now screaming.
8:18 a.m. - Get Bryton up and to the breakfast table. The diaper and his clothing will have to wait.
8:19 a.m. - Get Ansley up and go to the kitchen to get her bottle made.
8:21 a.m. - Decide rather than ticking her off even more at this point, that I'll wait until after the bottle to change her diaper and her clothes.
8:30 a.m. - Have given Ansley half her bottle and burped her twice when she decides to get the hiccups. Not wanting to add insult to injury, and being that she's not fussing to have her bottle back yet, I decide to lay her on the floor for a bit to get rid of the hiccups. I use the opportunity to start other projects.
8:31 a.m. - 8:42 a.m. - A whole array of projects are underway. I go pick out Ansley's clothes and get a new spit cloth. I decide this is a perfect time to strip the beds of the sheets to be washed for the day (we're wondering if residue on our sheets are making us all sick, so this HAS to be done today). Once Ansley goes back down for her morning nap I won't be able to get in our room. Bryton is now asking for more strawberries, so I'm back to the kitchen to cut up more strawberries for him, then I decide while I'm doing laundry to go ahead and pack everything else up that needs to go to the basement. I deliver the strawberries on the way to do so. I move all of the laundry and bedsheets to the kitchen floor (the last step before the basement), and decide to pick up all of the 'debris' from the night before (Ansley's bottle, her diaper, her spit cloth from the middle of the night feeding, etc.)
8:43 a.m. - Bottle is resumed and finished by Miss Ansley.
8:50 a.m. - Put up baby gates, shut doors, and get the house ready for B. Clean up his breakfast, pick out his clothes, give him some saline, change his diaper, and get him dressed. Blow his nose.
9:00 a.m. - Come back to realize that Ansley is mad because she's pooped. We celebrate poop in this house, as it seems it is difficult for my children to come by. Change Ansley's diaper with Bryton's help.
9:02 a.m. - Bryton sees his first time out of the day after he threw his basketball at sissy's head and successfully hits her. In the meantime I put lotion on Ansley's poor little face / head.
9:04 a.m. - Get Bryton out of timeout and have him tell me what he's done wrong. He comes and apologizes to Ansley and we hug and kiss and he goes off to play.
9:10 a.m. - Ansley's fussing like it's naptime, so I decide today to try to just lay her in her bassinet to see what happens, knowing full well it could mean a very stressful morning if she doesn't go to sleep. So I wrap her in her swaddle and put her in her bassinet. I return to our room to reinsert the pacifier four times in the next ten minutes, but she does eventually go to sleep all on her own... well, with the help of the pacifier. I have a love / hate relationship with that thing.
9:13 a.m. - Bryton gets time out number two for the day after he yells at me. (No words, just a little rebellious "ughhh!")
9:15 a.m. - Another little talk with B-man and an apology and we're off to watch Mickey. (Well, he is, I have things to do!) Mickey is our save - all for keeping him doing a quiet activity while we are trying to get Ansley to sleep.
9:16 a.m. - I finally get to brush my teeth! Yay!
9:20 a.m. - Bryton gets his teeth brushed! Success!
9:23 a.m. - I get to put my make up on. Granted it doesn't happen every day, but it happens more often than not. I have to do something for me everyday, even if it's just having make up on and my hair partially straightened.
9:27 a.m. - Receive phone call from Aaron.
9:30 a.m. - Finish the make up and do a quick straightening of my hair.
9:35 a.m. - Balance check book and call Aaron back to see if he'll do a deposit for us today. Make sure bills are good to go (I usually do them and write them in the check book a few days in advance, as I never know what my days may look like when they are 'due'. I only do bills two days a month.)
9:43 a.m. - I now have the opportunity to go down and bring up a basket of laundry, move the stuff in the washer over, and get our sheets going in the washer. I bring up the clean laundry and spend what seems like eternity folding it and sorting where it goes.
9:50 a.m. - The 45 minute intruder makes an appearance in our house and Ansley is awake and crying. I go reinsert the pacifier and pray it works. Praise Jesus, it does. Naptime is not over.
9:52 a.m. - Continue folding laundry.
10:00 a.m. - Realize that standing for the last two hours is giving me a lot of pressure so I decide to break with the folding and go take some ibuprofin.
10:02 a.m. - I continue folding again and start putting away what I can. (All of our stuff has to wait to be put away until Ansley is not asleep in our room.)
10:07 a.m. - I realize I haven't had breakfast yet. This is not typical. I am usually an avid breakfast person, but our house needs food in it right now and I haven't had the time yet to stop to grab something or figure out what I want... so I continue putting clothes away.
10:13 a.m. - Thinking of food reminded me that I'm doing a crock pot meal for supper, and the way my day is going, I know if I don't put out a physical reminder that I may forget about it all together. So I get my crock pot out and all of the dry ingredients I'm going to need to get it thrown together around noon. (You'd be surprised how many days since Ansley's been born that Aaron has come home from work - at 4 - and I've thought to myself, "Oh crap - I haven't even THOUGHT about supper yet." Ugh.)
10:22 a.m. - I'm finally getting my morning time to check my stuff online. What is not a big deal to everyone is to me. As a sahm I try to cut corners on our budget as often as possible, so I check my 'deal sites' everyday, as well as browse through my email (that was checked and cleaned up last night right before bed, but had 48 new in my inbox this morning.. and this is typical!) So I clean out my email, check my deal sites, realize that I can get a pair of shoes for Bryton cheaper than what I'm getting ready to get them for in store at TCP and so I do that transaction online, and then I check my facebook page. (Which I do often for the sake of knowing what is going on in the world and in the lives of our youth kids.) I then decide that if this blog is ever going to get finished I should start typing it out too. (This continues until about 11:20, with breaks in between to do the next few things...)
10:25 a.m. - Move Bryton's basketball goal into his room so he can play basketball (with his footballs since his basketball got taken away due to the aforementioned ball to the head incident) without waking his sister.
10:28 a.m. - Bryton decides basketball with footballs is silly and decides a snack sounds better. So I'm up again to fix Bryton a snack. He finally decides on raisins. This of course means he has to watch Mickey... again. *Sigh* Remember when he wouldn't watch tv to save his life? I think I miss that.
11:20 a.m. - I realize I've not been to the bathroom since I woke up at 7:45... time for a momma potty break.
11:25 a.m. - I start fixing Bryton lunch and serve it, while trying to start Ansley's waking up process. (she'll sleep forever in the mornings sometimes, and that can lead to very bad afternoons) I go in our room, open the door and open the curtain to let light in to see if that helps get her up.
11:30 a.m. - Bryton has finished his hot dog and wants more. Mom to the rescue.
11:35 a.m. - Still no signs of wakeness from our bedroom, so I decide to go ahead and move around in there and put away our clothes that have not been put away yet. Still nothing. So I unwrap her swaddle and walk out.
11:45 a.m. - I go back and realize she's completely unswaddled and still sleeping, so I decide to get a picture of her. Bryton is once again out of food so on my way to get the camera I veer off to bring him his next 'course'. I come back, grab the camera, and by this time she's awake. I snap a few pictures anyway... I mean, I went to all that work to get the camera didn't I?
11:48 a.m. - I lay her on the floor and change her while Bryton is finishing up.
11:50 a.m. - She's happy at the moment so I decide to do some other little things that are plaguing my brain: check the mail, make the bottle, and move the laundry over again. Laundry out, laundry over, laundry in, and laundry up... and I even have time to fold it before she's fitting. I decide to put the laundry away while I have three seconds.
12:00 p.m. - My darling husband is home with a cape on. He asks if I'd eaten lunch yet (he'd gone out with a friend already), and I laugh a little in my head because, well, I haven't even had breakfast! He takes Ansley to feed her so I can eat, but I decide to use that time to get the roast in the crock pot. (Definitely shot noon in the foot...) I dredge the roast, brown it, get the crock pot going and the seasonings going, cut up some potatoes and carrots, and get it all, finally, going. Then I clean up the mess I've just made, realize I have a whole dishwasher of dishes now, and decide to get those going.
Meanwhile - Aaron is feeding, burping, and eventually changing again (woo hoo poop!) Miss Ansley. He then changes Bryton for me as well, and spends some time just spending time with them... man I've got to make time for that in my schedule at some point...
12:30 p.m. - All of the above is finished and I can hear in the background that the washer and dryer have both stopped... got to get on that quick, I'm sure our sheets need to be rotated and put on for a little while longer... but Ansley's fussing.
12:40 p.m. - Aaron is headed back to work and I've already tried the swing for Ansley, thinking surely she can't be tired yet? Maybe just bored? Nope. She's tired. So I get her swaddled up and decide to see if I can get two unbelievable naptimes out of her today (by putting her down minus rocking, bouncing, shhhing, or standing on my head.) No such great luck for nap number two.
12:45 p.m. - I've put the paci in more times than I can count at this point, and quite frankly, I'm tired, so I get her up and decide I'll turn Mickey back on for B while I rock her for a little bit.
1:00 p.m. - She's dozed in and out some, but she's not staying asleep. We're going to try just laying her down again.
1:02 p.m. - Paci back in.
1:03 p.m. - Paci back in, wrap the swaddle up around it so maybe it'll help her hold it. (I know, bad mom.) I'm able to go downstairs and shift around in the dryer to get out B's sheets and get ours, which are still damp, tumbling again.
1:08 p.m. - Success for 5 minutes, but she's back awake. Paci in yet again.
1:10 p.m. - Go to dress B's mattress so it's ready for his naptime in 15 minutes.
1:15 p.m. - I'm back out with Bryton at this point and can hear that Ansley is grunting and hiccuping like crazy. Oh well, it's not crying... maybe she'll self soothe. I decide to eat doritos in the meantime, standing in the kitchen of course, who can sit down to eat? Good lunch.
1:20 p.m. - Mickey is over and Bryton's naptime has arrived. He fits, but I bribe him with a snack when he gets up, and he relents and walks to his bed. It's then that I realize that I'm almost two hours past due on his allergy meds (epic fail), so I walk him back to the kitchen, drug him up, and have him blow his nose.
1:25 p.m. - He's in for naptime, and I sit down at the computer to once again check my email (13 new this time), and continue writing this so I know I have it caught up. This should be my 'me time' for the day... and Ansley and Bryton are both
1:40 p.m. - Hear Bryton screaming in his room... more like yelling... happy yelling, but yelling none-the-less. In I go to calm the beast... tuck him back in, and remind him why he's in there.
2:00 p.m. - I finally get this blog 'caught up' to the minute, and I decide to take some time and do damage control of what still really needs to be done today (like, I'd feel as if I'd failed if it didn't get done). I come up with this: our bed redressed, some more laundry done and put away, Ansley a bath before the day is out, grocery shopping accomplished and the floor vacuumed, yet again. I'd love to get the house dusted and the bathroom cleaned, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The bathroom has been on my list of things to do since, well, since I made the list, and I can't even remember how long ago that was... grrrr.
2:03 p.m. - I realize I need more saline and decongestant, and I make the choice to go do that. I come back to start tackling the things left on my list, which basically leaves me at the moment with finishing our menu plan for the next two weeks so I have a grocery list raring and ready to go. Off to Kroger's ad to see what's on sale and start stacking coupons...
2:45 p.m. - Check facebook and hear Bryton in the background - he's still not sleeping, beautiful.
2:55 p.m. - Ansley is making noise... going to get the laundry out, moved over, and more in before she gets tuned up. (Last load of laundry is in the washer! Yay!)
3:35 p.m. - Bryton's awake. I get him up, realize he's not slept at all, and deal with an unhappy child who gets no snack for no nap.
3:45 p.m. - Ansley is up. I get her up, get her changed, and get her bottle ready. I feed her.
4:00 p.m. - Aaron is home, he decides to do the vacuuming for me. While he's doing that I get Bryton cleaning up the floor in the living room and I go dress our bed with our sheets.
4:15 p.m. - I start getting our food cut up for dinner while Aaron feeds Ansley another two ounces. How do single moms ever do it? They have to never eat. I also use this time to unload the dishwasher, again.
4:30 p.m. - Dinner is on the table. This is actually really early for us, but I've got to go grocery shopping tonight, and being I slept very little last night, I have my eyes set on an early bedtime tonight.
4:50 p.m. - Cleaning up dinner and reloading the dishwasher happens.
5:00 p.m. - Ansley is fussing for her last nap of the day. It's a shorty. Aaron is going out to mow before I can go to the store, which leaves me with one extremely fussy / fit throwy little boy, and one really tired little girl. I spend the next 45 minutes putting in pacifiers, getting onto Bryton for a number of things, telling him 'no' to a snack time and time again, rocking Ansley, putting her back down, getting her back up, putting her in her swing, sending Bryton to time out, and finally sitting for 10 minutes before I leave to go do the grocery shopping. I have this ten minutes because Aaron is showering... whew. Have I mentioned that I'm tired and really not feeling well? Consider it mentioned. I use this ten minutes to update this and insert pampers points into my account.
6:00 p.m. - Aaron and I spend the next 15 minutes trying to decide if I'm going to go ahead and go shopping and bathe Ansley in the morning or do it now and me grocery shop after. Being that it's a two store trip, we decide to go ahead and let me go shopping and he'll put her down. Failed on the bath tonight, guess the morning will have to do. There's one thing on the list that's not getting done.
6:20 p.m. - I've got my list, my coupons, and I'm off to grocery shop. Wal-Mart first (need new bottles for Ansley, as the little ones aren't helping anymore. Also need some headbands for myself, and I'm finishing up Easter basket stuff.) Kroger is next. Half way through Kroger I realize I've forgotten to buy hamburger at Wal - Mart (it's so much cheaper for the lean stuff). Good thing I don't have many hamburger dishes on my meal plan, and I still have two rolls in the freezer. I struggle with one of my deals because my whole reason for doing it was for paper towels, and the count and kind of paper towels that were part of the deal were no where to be found. Seems to happen often at our Kroger. It's a bummer. Get all checked out and have to go the pharmacy for more sudafed. Of course that's a ten minute affair because of all you have to go through to get the stuff... filling out paper work and them entering your license, etc. But I finally get out of there, get home, get it all carried in, put away, get the remains of tonights dinner cleaned up and get the dishwasher going for the second time today. And that brings us to -
8:15 p.m. - Thankfully Ansley is already in bed, dad has done that duty, and is currently putting Bryton to bed as well (he didn't nap today so his bedtime is earlier). I'm sitting down currently to finish this blog. Within the next hour, barring all unpredictable events, I'll recheck my stuff for the last time today, eat a snack to make up for the lack of lunch and breakfast today (ugh, as if my doritos weren't enough calories to take care of both), spend a little adult time with my husband debriefing the day (which is going to consist of looking at his new guitar), and will head to bed to do it all again tomorrow...
And at the end of the day - I can look at all I've accomplished and I ultimately feel like I've failed most days. Failed because I've not been able to hang out with Bryton more. Failed because if I'm missing out on time with him, I at least want a lot to show for it. Failed because I've put my quiet time, once again, at my least opportune time of the day... which means it probably just won't happen today. And it makes me think of how nice it'd be to be able to sit down with B in the mornings and read his Bible, and I resolve, yet again, to do that in the morning. That'll kill two birds with one stone.
I'm really cherishing the mommy / Bryton time I get when Aaron can watch Ansley occasionally.
So I'm getting an idea of Ansley's schedule (as of now anyway) and I'm trying to figure out how I can better 'parent' and nurture Bryton because of it.
Being home with my children is one of the greatest blessings I've received. I know Ansley's cries, I know Bryton's needs, I have both of their routines down pat, I see them reach milestones 99/100 before anyone else... and somehow, amongst all of it, I can say, "I miss my son," and it makes me hope that he doesn't miss me, that he doesn't feel neglected, because just because I'm home, doesn't mean there is nothing for me to do. Just because I'm home doesn't mean I'm shooting hoops with B all day.
And I intend to do the best I can to change that. Sure there are things that 'have' to be done, but ultimately, I need Bryton to know that he comes first. Aside from Jesus and daddy, he and Ans are the loves of my life, not cleaning, or doing laundry, or checking deals. All of which are important, but have their times.
And this momma - she could use a little fun in her life anyway.
If you've stayed tuned this long, I commend you... I've been writing it, and just writing it makes me tired.
Until next time -
Alicia
I was reading this and I couldn't help but laugh a bit because your day sounded just like mine. Stay at home mom is a very demanding job. I didn't realize how much so till Connor got here. I use to wear make-up everyday now well not so much. I'm lucky if I even get a shower. I know what you mean when you say you feel like you've failed. I miss all the time I had with Brooklyn before Connor got here. I feel like I say no...no...no... all day long. She acts out a lot because she thinks negative attention is better than no attention(Sad I Know). At the end of the day when both kids are asleep I can't help to think about how Brooke must be feeling, so left out. I just don't know what to do to make her feel just as important and loved as her little brother :( It breaks my heart!
ReplyDeleteGirl, you're far from a failure! I'm tired reading this, ha! I have those days when baby won't nap good, and the toddler won't nap good, and I forget to eat AND brush my teeth and stay in my jammies 'till 3 o'clock, and oh yeah, 4:30 rolls around and I haven't even thought of supper yet....
ReplyDeleteTotally not a failure, just a season of life. Some days I just have to choose to say no to the chores and yes to the kids...it's usually a win win situation.
This coming from the Mama who got to go shopping all by herself today, carry a purse instead of a diaper bag and STILL somehow managed to unintentionally wear her shirt inside out. Ahh, motherhood... ;)
wow i don't know what we are getting into, but we are less than 12 weeks away, haha.
ReplyDeletei do know that it will get better for you - but my dear you are in a tough season right now, that is for sure. you sure do accomplish a lot more than i can in a day!