A Day in our Life: March 2013

It's been just a little more than a year since my last "day in our life" post. I decided a while back that I'd like to try to do these once a year until the boys are older (and maybe even then.) I can't tell you how much I love looking back on my previous "day in our life" posts. The remembering of daily moments and then the actual documenting of them during that day helps me slow down and appreciate this time that I have with my boys while they are little.

Right at 7:02 am, Ethan comes into our room and tells us, "mommy, daddy, my green light came on." We're still using the "Ok to Wake" clock because it's still working for us. Ethan doesn't (usually) come out of his room until the clock says he can. By the time he sees his green light, goes to the bathroom, and picks up a few toys, it's two minutes past seven when he enters our room. (That wall color in our bedroom and the fabric on the chaise have already changed, by the way...thank goodness!)

After he wakes us up, Ethan will sometimes ask if he can get some grapes from the refrigerator and I say "yes." Then, I stay in bed another 15 minutes while he eats his grapes and plays with his toys. At some point around that time (7:15 - 7:30am), Logan wakes up. So, I head upstairs to change him and get him up. He's in a bed, but we keep his door locked (from the outside) during the night so he doesn't roam around. (But we've got a monitor in his room so I can see/hear him anytime.)

With smiles like these from both boys first thing in the morning, there's a pretty good chance it will be a good day!

7:30 am - By the time Logan and I head back downstairs, Ethan has pulled three of the four chairs from the breakfast table into the living room to make a fort. This is not normal for this time of the morning, but he got the idea into his head to do it, so he did. That's Ethan...one track mind and very determined.

But this keeps him occupied while I get breakfast ready. The boys are always more than ready for breakfast in the morning. I cannot make it fast enough for them.

7:40 am - Oatmeal is in the works. Logan bypasses the fort and comes straight to the kitchen to sit on the counter while I make breakfast. Every single morning he does this. Partly because I think he's really hungry, and partly because he just likes to be close and "watch" whatever I'm doing.  He'll say, "I watch you, mama." 

I realize that this photo exposes me as a mom who will sit her 2.5 year old son on a kitchen-height counter, right between the knife block and a kettle of boiling water. The chances of a catastrophe are pretty high here. Usually he does not sit there, but he wanted to watch the water bubbles...I stayed close. 

While we're waiting for oatmeal and fruit, yogurt is a good first course for breakfast.

7:50 am - When the boys are all set and eating, I make my breakfast, which varies daily. On this day, I was having vanilla yogurt and Kashi GOLEAN Crisp! Cinnamon Crumble cereal. (This is not an official plug for the cereal, I just really love it.)

8:15 am - Breakfast is almost over and this particular day is a Wednesday, which means that it is laundry day. I spend a few minutes gathering laundry from all over the house and start a load. I usually do 4-5 loads and then I'm done for the week. Except for the occasional unplanned, but necessary, load.

8:30 am - Casey leaves for work. Sometimes earlier than this. The boys and I have a tradition of going to the garage to say goodbye when he leaves in the morning. We've always done it.

I feel like this next picture of Logan waving to Casey is one of the reasons I love documenting our whole day. Because otherwise, I would not have my camera at this moment and I would have missed capturing it. A moment that happens so often in our lives and is just so sweet. I'm thankful to have it in photo form now.

8:35 am - Breakfast is finally, offically over and the boys take their dirty dishes and such to the sink area. Logan has just mastered this "chore" in the past few months. Sometimes he does it with a smile on his face (like below). And sometimes he needs a little prodding to "remember" to do it.

8:45 am - After a quick clothing change and the addition of shoes, the boys are sent outside to play. It's a beautiful, sunny morning, but still a little chilly. They are both wearing their "pirate" pants...$5 sweat pants from Target that I cut to be jagged at the bottom for their pirate day at preschool. They are wearing those because they actually love them...and because it's laundry day and there are no alternatives!

Normally, after the boys go out to play, I take a few minutes and get the kitchen back to square one...all the dishes away and clutter cleared. But today, I go outside with them first to take some photos. They used to want me outside to play with them, and sometimes they still do, but at their ages now, they have such a great time playing together. It's awesome.

It seems that Logan felt that the pirate pants would not be complete without the pirate hook.

Neither one of the boys can swing on the swings by themselves yet. Sigh. Is anyone else frustrated with teaching their kids this skill? Maybe it's a complicated concept...back and forth with the legs, lean back and pull up with the arms. Well, I don't expect Logan to do it yet, but Ethan has taken forever to teach. He's still not there. So, when I'm not outside to push them, this is how they swing...

Except today Ethan is feeling very brotherly, so he pushes Logan, which totally thrills him. Both of them, actually.

It kills me that Logan (my baby) can climb this rock wall by himself now.

If you haven't noticed in the previous photos of the swing set/fort, the boys have taken to "decorating" it with sidewalk chalk. My first instinct (months ago when they began) was to tell them not to do that, but then I thought, "why not?" And I couldn't come up with a legitimate reason, so I let them do it.

9:20 am - After spending a little time with the boys outside, I go back inside to get a few things done. Tidy the kitchen, start another load of laundry, touch-up vacuum the kitchen and living room floors (with the stick vacuum). And paint some sample squares of paint on my bedroom walls. In the photo below there are 8 color samples. I would end up with 12 on the wall before I finally made my decision. Just for the record, that's the most (by far) I've ever had to try before picking the right one.

10:15 am - The boys come inside. Often, they will play outside even longer than this and I have to make them come inside to eat lunch. But today, they wanted to play with the (inside) fort, which apparently is not much of a fort with the sheet completely falling down. We've done better.

Just Logan being Logan...

10:30 am - After they're done with fort-play (which only lasted about 15 minutes), I strip them down and turn on a show. They have a snack of Kashi granola bars. We obviously don't normally have our kitchen chairs in the living room, but since they were already there for the fort, I pulled them over. Kids like doing new and different things like that and sure enough, they stayed put for the entire 25 minute show. I took a shower during that time.

11:00 am - After the show, snack, and my shower, the boys get their own bath. This time, it's in our master bath tub. The boys love occasionally taking baths down here because it's a bigger tub than theirs. And also that new and different thing again, I think.

11:20 am - The boys are out of the tub and I get Logan dressed (Ethan takes care of this himself.) Remember how I said that Logan likes to be around to watch whatever I'm doing? He likes to sit on our dressers in the closet when we're getting ready in there. And play with the lint roller too.

11:30 am - On a whim, I called Casey at work to see if we could have lunch with him. He said we could, so we changed from our house slippers into real shoes and got in the car.

11:45 am - We picked Casey up from his office and took off to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Petra.

12:00 pm - This face is common for our Logan. He's such an emotional kid. So happy one minute, and crying over who knows what the next. So, it was no surprise that he was crying about something here. Don't remember what it was.

A quick pic with daddy before our food arrived. We did have our chips and queso, however, which was partially responsible for the sunnier outlook for Logan. Ethan is no-nonsense (mostly) at meals. He likes to eat and like most other tasks in his life, he does it wholeheartedly.

12:40 pm - Finished with lunch, we load up the car again, drive daddy back to his office, and head home. 

1:00 pm - Back home, the boys put away their shoes and head upstairs for nap and rest time. I put Logan down first. He still takes a nap (most days). He sleeps anywhere from 1.5 - 2 hours if he's at home in his bed. He still likes to be rocked too...and I am happy to oblige.

Ethan stopped napping several months ago, I think. I can't remember exactly. But he still has rest time for at least 1.5 hours every day. And he needs the down time. I let him play with his new leap pad (got it for Christmas) during this time as well as read books, color, or play with some toys quietly in his room. Ethan is really good at playing in his room by himself, so this switch to rest time instead of actually sleeping during nap time has been seamless.

1:15 pm - I sit down at my computer most days during nap time. Usually it's to edit photos or just take care of general things. Sometimes read blogs. It's my down time too. Occasionally I'll prep dinner or shuffle laundry (did a little bit of that this day to keep it going). There's always photos to edit, personal or professional, so any given day, that's probably what I'm doing. 

2:45 pm - Ethan gets up from his rest time and brings his stuffed alphabet letters into my office to play. Sometimes he'll do that while I continue to work until Logan gets up. Usually we don't have to wait very long for that.

But, while we are waiting, I make my oldest take a photo with me.

3:15 pm - We hear Logan stirring on the monitor (squealing, actually), so Ethan and I head into his room to get him up. Then, both boys head off to the playroom at my suggestion. I have them both pick out a few books for me to read. We snapped this photo of both of them on my lap, and sometimes that's how it works. But often, they'll stick around for the books they picked and not their brother's books. And here's a confession...as much as I know we should do this reading ritual daily, it does not happen every single day.

3:30 pm - The boys play with their toys in the playroom. Today, it's cars. But any given day, they'll pull out different things. Although the cars are a regular player.

The kitchen too...Logan is getting me a drink of water.

And wouldn't you know, they both love to play with the Cinderella's castle that my mom bought several years ago for her future granddaugher(s), which she never got. But, if you think about it, castles are fun for boys too. While they're not worried about furnishing it, they do love to play with the characters (we have a bunch of Disney characters...even ones that didn't live in a castle).

5:15 pm - Just as we're done cleaning up the playroom and heading downstairs to think about dinner for the boys, daddy comes home! But don't be fooled, this is not his normal coming-home time. Usually it's around 6-6:30 pm (sometimes later, unfortunately). But tonight, he has a flag football game to play so he's home early to eat, change, and get to the game.

And normally, I would fix the boys some dinner from leftovers or something else while they watch a show. Casey and I eat later because he comes home so much later (usually). But tonight, I ordered the boys a pizza. Yep, I took the easy way out.

Ethan is completely happy with my dinner choice. They don't get pizza very often, so it really is a treat.

6:00 pm - Dinner is done, and because the boys didn't watch a show while I made dinner, I let them watch one after dinner. They also play with their toys in the living room while they watch.

6:30 pm - We head up to bed to read, pray, and do our bed time routines. We went up a little earlier than usual tonight so Casey could take some photos for us. But actually, our normal bedtime is 7 pm, and since Ethan has not been taking a nap, we've been making sure he's in bed completely by 7 instead of just going up there at that time. He's usually really ready for bed by then. And he's also a kid who loves routine...if we don't do every step of his bed time routine he is not a happy camper.

We usually read stories and pray together and then split up into the separate bedrooms for the boys. So, they gather on Ethan's bed first.

We've been working our way through the Jesus Storybook Bible one story at at time. (We love it, by the way.) Sometimes we'll let the boys pick another book too. Or they each take one and one parent reads it to them in their own bedroom. But after stories, they hug each other and say good night.

Then it's off to bed for them both. Logan likes to be rocked and sing songs. Ethan likes to do various special things with me and Casey. Songs, alphabet games, quizzes, etc. 

7:00 pm - Tonight they are both tucked in by 7pm because we went upstairs so early. Casey had to leave for his game shortly after we went up, so I'm by myself. I turn on the TV in the living room and fold some laundry. It doesn't all get folded and put away today. It's rare that I finish it all in one day. When Casey gets home, he takes a shower and I get our dinner ready. I have no idea what we ate that night, but I know it wasn't pizza. Maybe leftovers? Or something that didn't take long to prepare. 

8-8:30 pm - Cleaning up after dinner. Heading upstairs to edit for about an hour. Then, to bed to watch Gilmore Girls until I'm too tired to keep my eyes open. Great day.