Tonight I was settling in and taking my first breaths of the day when I heard the TV downstairs. It was after 9 and I suddenly realized I never told my son to go to bed! I had forgotten him. It wasn't too much past his bedtime, but pack my bags and ship me off because the guilt trip I took was swift coming. I went downstairs and kissed him goodnight and he giddily smiled because he got to stay up without getting into trouble.
How could I forget my child? My firstborn?!
Before baby girl came, my husband and I set up a tentative working plan of who would be in charge of who. Of course he got the easier two (#2 & # 3) and I got the outer two (#1 & # 4). That only lasted for a few days, as you are well aware, and now I have under my command all four of our precious crazies. Ok, it's fair if you read this blog and you have more kids than that and you're thinking, "hmmmph big deal!" But as for me and my house, this is about as big of a deal as you can get under the guise of severe sleep deprivation.
With little to no variance from day to day, this is a typical day for me:
6:30 Wake up with baby, nurse in a non-alcoholic drunken slumber.
7:15 Ask her older sister to pleaseeeee stop coming in to check and see if the baby is still asleep because I need her to stay asleep so I can get some more shut eye or get some things done before she is awake again.
8:00 Take baby and go downstairs to make breakfast. Today it was flax seed crepes. Yesterday it was something out of a box that may or may not have had a prize inside (Let me remind you again that I am severely sleep deprived and take no blame for what goes into my shopping cart these days).
8:30 Clean the kitchen as fast as possible before baby starts losing it and wants to nurse again before her first nap of the day
9:00 Hand out daily job assignments
9:15 Finish up with my portion of the jobs and bring Makenna up with me to help with diaper duty. She is in charge of diaper patrol and takes her job very seriously.
9:30 Start the morning nap routine
10:00 Surprisingly, baby is out and has a full tummy (I hope) and a peaceful look on her sleepy face. Some days this takes more than an hour to achieve.
10:05 Finish chore checking and give permission for "extra curricular" activities (aka video games) while I start my home work
10:15 Commence quiz #1
10:25 Finish quiz, start study guide
11:00 Grab Makenna a snack and oooo and ahh over her Lego tower and art project
11:30 Finish study guide while nursing baby
12:00 Make lunches for the kids, instruct them to turn off their games
12:30 Eat my lunch and nurse baby and pray she will be happy for the next 2 hours
12:45 Have kids clean up lunch and make a few threats about quiet time during mommy's exam
1:00 Welcome kid's BFF over which I subconsciously planned so they would be entertained while I took my exam
1:05 Start 2 hour exam
1:06 Realize that this exam isn't going to be easy, say a prayer that Maegan will sleep so I can concentrate.
1:30 Compliment Makenna on another awesome art project
1:45 Ask the boys to please include Makenna in their playing
2:15 Finish exam early and sigh with relief that I got a B
2:16 Finish nursing baby and get her down for a light nap
2:17 Dream of taking a nap
2:18 Call another creditor from my list of people to call to tell them my husband is deployed so please freeze his account until he gets back, and no, I wouldn't like to add more to my plan, thankyouverymuch.
3:00 Play a game with my attention deprived daughter
3:15 Nurse baby again ( do you sense a pattern?)
3:30 Send friends home
3:45 Plan FHE with Marcus
4:00 Start dinner
4:15 Go pick up the movie Marcus wants to watch for FHE
4:20 Nurse baby while making dinner
5:00 Eat dinner and start movie The Parent Trap
6:30 Bathe Makenna, listen to Maegan scream because how dare I put her down and not nurse her again.
6:45 Read to Makenna
7:00 Short Family Home Evening song/scripture study/ prayer
7:05 Start hallucinating from all the noise and lack of listening ears
7:15 Try to keep Maegan awake while I sing to Makenna and put her to bed
7:30 Start nightly routine with Maegan
7:45 While nursing, have "my time" while I read my scriptures, ponder the days events, and check email for the millionth time to see if there is any word from my husband who supposedly landed at his base assignment today.
8:00 Reward my hard work with the season finale of 24. Goodbye Jack, you will be missed, even though I am MAD you turned yourself into the Russians and that once again your love interest died.
8:10 Put Marcus to bed
8:30 Lay Maegan down and hope for the best
8:40 Take first breath of the day because all the babies are asleep and Jack is still alive
9:00 Realize that I forgot to put the first child to bed so the day is still not over **
11:30/12/1:30 lights out depending on homework, hearing from my husband, blogging, and having to nurse baby again **
** Probably the only variation to this day is that instead of taking an exam I would be doing homework and instead of watching 24 I would be doing more homework and instead of forgetting to put the last child to bed I would have remembered because I would have been cleaning up the kitchen before starting my final round of homework and nursing Maegan before going to sleep.
If my son ever asks, help a Mama out and please deny I ever wrote this post and that I used the words "forgot my firstborn." That is usually not a part of my typical day.
Change up your days by putting your boys in charge of lunch. At 8 and 5(?) they can do it and would LOVE it. Just make sure you have stuff for lunch like bread, various sandwich fillings, tortillas, cheese, yogurt, crackers, fruit, pre-cut veggies . . . stuff that is fun to work with and easy to fix. You can leave them in charge of lunch clean up, too. They'll love the responsibility and creativity, and you'll gain an extra 20-30 minutes of "free" time (as long as you stay away from the kitchen so you don't feel like supervising :) ).
ReplyDeleteAnd when you're fed up with the routine, remember that these are blessed days, even if they feel crazy/hard/unblessed.