Our Regular Life

Laura: age 5
Rachel: age almost 3

7:00am Josh's alarm goes off. Roll over and cuddle up together, drift back to sleep between snooze buttons. I love this guy.

7:30am Josh gets dressed and goes to work. Kiss goodbye. I get up, make the bed, feed dogs breakfast, let the dogs out, drink some water and take vitamin D and fish oils, tidy up a few things in the living room, find Rachel's developmental screen we were given at nursery school yesterday, take the opportunity to fill it out while the kids are still asleep. (Rachel still doesn't seem to be quite on track sleeping-wise since the time change 2.5 weeks ago and keeps needing naps and then staying up late/ sleeping in.) Finish screen, feel guilty about not having any one-on-one time with Rachel to work on the suggested developmental activities.

8:00am The girls seldom sleep in like this, so I take the opportunity to make some tea (and also find a Reese cup Josh left for me on the counter and a banana, which I consume while waiting for the kettle to boil) and check email/ facebook. Make mental note that Target is closing this week, plan to go there tomorrow.

8:15am The girls wake up before I have even taken a sip of my tea, and come snuggle me on the couch for a minute before going to play downstairs. I am then requested to bring up the mini trampoline from downstairs, and Me Time as I know it is over for the morning. Refereeing of turn taking on the trampoline commences. Demands for breakfast. I start some cherry berry oatmeal for Laura at her request. Bring Rachel's leftovers from last night out, which she is instructed to finish before she has oatmeal. I drink my tea while finishing up with facebook, email, and click-baity articles while the oatmeal is cooking. The girls take turns "being birds" on the trampoline. When breakfast is ready, negotiations are made between each other to watch a DVD of Mickey shorts.

9:30am DVD is turned off, I feed Rachel the remainder of her breakfast, take dishes to sink, scrub stuck-on oatmeal off pot, bring up girls' laundry from downstairs, make Rachel's bed, suggest Laura make her bed and check off chore chart. Girls play while I put away their laundry, I'm interrupted to wipe butts; negotiate size-, activity-, and weather-appropriate outfits for the day; and help people get dressed, before I finish putting laundry away.

10:20am Give kids choice of finishing making birthday cards for sponsor kids or playing outside. They pick outside. I find pants and socks and put them on. Give kids new chalk they were given for Christmas. Get out helmets and new scooter, new sunglasses. Brush own hair and put in ponytail. Coats, mitts and everyone outside. The girls play in the driveway on their scooters while I rake up winter dog poo in the side yard and call that my exercise for the day (I'll spare you the photo) ;). Raking interrupted because Laura wants to go inside and Rachel needs to potty and be wiped. Laura stays in while R and I go outside for a few more minutes to finish raking/ playing.

11:10am Come inside, help Rachel with coat, let dogs out, wash hands. Cut up apples, and give leftover dragonfruit and date doughnuts from last night's D dinner for snack. Rachel pretends she is a bird and pecks her apple. I get the craft stuff ready to finish the birthday cards, put away snack dishes, wipe table and counter.

11:30am Kids help finish cards, use punches and glue to make "stickers" for the cards, and practice writing/ drawing messages for them inside. I ask Laura how to say "Happy Birthday" in Spanish. She actually knows (Thanks, Dora!), but (obviously) doesn't know how to spell, so we look it up. Interrupted by phone call from Josh to ask when he should come home for lunch and to tell me what he'd like me to make.

12:30pm Finish birthday cards, and by some majestic planetary alignment, the kids suggest and offer to help clean up crayons, etc. Start making hashbrowns and eggs for lunch. notice and clean spills down front of cupboards, remember noticing girls need nails cut, call them up and do that. Discourage girls from playing board game with lots of pieces while I cannot supervise (making lunch) to make sure the pieces are not lost. Instead, kids start a movie they won't have time to finish before we need to leave for story time at the library.

Laura freaking out about her wet sleeve
and then angrily demanding to know
what I was taking a picture of.

1:15pm Josh is home now, and we tag team finishing making lunch. I brush the girls' hair and he flips hashbrowns and finishes eggs. I make juice for him and myself. Wrangle food into children, threats of not going to the library are made, gather up things that need to go back to the library, find a shirt to wear that I didn't sleep in, reapply socks to children, get boots and coats on and everyone ready to go. Laura's nose starts randomly bleeding and gets on her dress. Josh deals with nose bleed. I wash blood off her clothes which she then freaks out about because they are wet.

1:45pm Finally get everyone out the door a solid 15 minutes after intended. Drop Josh back at work. Head over to the library, no parking. Circle the parking lot a couple times in hopes of finding someone leaving. No luck. Park on the street at the pay meter. Hope the 15 cents I found in the car will sufficiently keep the meter man away. It buys us 18 minutes - only about half the time we'll need. Whatever. Hustle kids into library, return books/ movies we'd borrowed. Thankfully our children's librarian tends to start the programs a few minutes late, so we didn't miss anything. Song and story time starts. Rachel declares need to pee. I see through it (she doesn't have much of an attention for stories yet, and often asks to leave during). I tell her she has to wait until story time is over. They make their cute little rainbow crafts (fitting for such a rainy day!) Rachel cannot contain her energy and is excited to run around once they are done. Several warnings are administered until we finally must leave because she cannot stop running. Oh yeah, and our parking meter is probably way empty. We check out a new book and a DVD Laura chose.

2:45pm No ticket on car. Head home. Rachel is hungry. Yogurt snacks distributed. I look up what information needs to be included in the birthday cards to send them to the correct child. Get them organized and ready to mail.

3:20pm Get girls ready in gymnastics suits (Laura dresses herself!) Put Rachel's hair up. I get an 'I love you' from Laura while doing Rachel's hair. <3 Answer phone. Take message. Throw on work-out shirt and deodorant. Try to get people out the door a few minutes early so we will have time to pay for the new gymnastics session. The girls have been transformed into a pegasus (Laura) and a cat (Rachel) by their hoodies that they wear to gymnastics.

3:45pm At last minute grab water for the girls and subsequently forget to bring birthday cards to mailbox. Out the door again. Endure several duet renditions of Mary Had a Little Lamb and The Alphabet Song a la Laura Rainbow Dash (sung exclusively in neighs) and Rachel Kitty (sung exclusively in meows) all the way to gymnastics. As per the plethora of parenting advice articles I have read, I make a mental note to enjoy it. When we arrive the girls run off to the change room to take off their warm up clothes while I pay. Laura's lesson starts and Rachel and I have to wait for 15 minutes. Rachel spends it walking on the squishy, dirty boot mats while I chat with another parent in the parent and tot class.

4:13pm I take Rachel to wash her now black feet in the bathroom before her lessons start. Help Rachel through her lessons, try to watch Laura as much as possible, too.

5:00pm Help the girls get their warm up clothes back on and into the car. Pick up Josh from work. Come home. Scarf down the last lonely half doughnut. Josh unloads dishwasher and packs in day's dishes. I get kids changed out of gymnastics leotards, Chester comes to tell me that his ear is bothering him, I loosely supervise the girls as they are wrangy hungry now, prompt Laura to practice piano. Laura also sets the table (without being asked).

5:40pm Josh is done cleaning in the kitchen, we switch. I feed the dogs, let them out, administer ear medicine to Chester, and make dinner trying to use up as much random stuff in the fridge as possible while Josh spends time with the kids.

6:20pm Serve dinner. Hungry kids eat with minimal protest (shrimp alfredo with onions, peppers, spinach and arugula on gluten free pasta). We chat about our time at the library and potential future group Halloween costumes.

6:40pm Finish dinner (Rachel actually ate her whole dinner tonight!), kids want to watch a show, Rachel chooses Diego. Josh cleans up dinner dishes, starts dishwasher, and makes Rachel her bottle.

7:15pm Josh puts Rachel's diaper and pajamas on and brushes her teeth. The girls watch an episode of BusyTown Mysteries.

7:40pm We all play cooperative Ponyville game the girls got for Christmas together. We lose. haha.

"I'm not tired!!"

8:00pm Josh puts Rachel to bed and finally gets some time for himself. I go up for bedtime snuggles. As I lay in bed with her, I ask her what her favourite part of today was. She tells me about her favourite part of the new, live action Cinderella movie that we saw on the weekend was. I re-explain the question, and I eventually get out of her that playing outside on the scooters was her favourite. Before I even get up to leave, she adamantly tells me over and over again that she is not tired, and wants to come downstairs with me. I know that she is going through a phase of being scared of the dark/ going to sleep by herself, so I compromise by saying I will read to Laura in their room. That way she is free to fall asleep in her own bed, not on her own, or listen to the story if she chooses. I call Laura to bring up the book and get her pajamas on. Rachel isn't the best listener to longer stories now, so we are interrupted quite a few times (including but not limited to having to go wipe her butt), but we manage to get in four chapters. I brush Laura's teeth and tuck them in.

9:00pm Pee. Get a drink of water and a handful of Doritos (that Josh had requested for D dinner.) Fill up our water filter reservoir and the dog's water reservoir. Choose a date night activity from our bag.

9:30pm Call Josh up to play Wii. We play for half an hour and then head to bed.

T'was a good day.
I love my life and am so thankful!

One of my very favourite things to do is to read to my girls. Rachel doesn't have much of an attention span for stories yet, but Laura is transfixed. She would sit and listen to me read the newspaper. So far, we have read:

Pixie Tricks Series by Tracy West: (Laura, age 3.5)