Sorry for the picture free post, and a very long one at that! My computer is currently not recognizing my camera, so I'm without pictures until I can figure it out.
I've been thinking for a while now, about doing a random "day in the life" type post. But I had no plan of a particular day. Somewhere, half-way through this hazy, lazy, summer day, I decided that today was as random as it gets...
I woke up to the sound of Iain and Elijah chatting away in their bedroom and I tried very hard to ignore it (I was still quite tired). Then Galen stirred beside me, sat bolt upright, crawled across the bed and flipped over me saying "I go downstairs!". I briefly considered trying to ignore that too, but after a moment of two I slowly stretched and got up.
Downstairs the kids played around, and ate a piece of fruit, while I put out the post I had started the night before and talked to Steve a bit via email. I went around the house, closing all the windows, trying to keep in the cool of night. I made scrambled eggs with broccoli (from our garden!) for Galen and I. Iain and Elijah went out to stack wood, a long-term project of theirs. The big boys can't have eggs, so Iain fixed them peanut butter toast with honey a bit later. Galen some of that too.
We all listened to Iain practice his guitar. Galen and I each had a plum while we listened. Afterward, Elijah asked if they could sleep in the same bed tonight. I said "yes". And they went to work setting up their "house", with Elijah's bunk as they downstairs and Iain's as the upstairs (it seems they are currently a family of 4, mother, father, and two dolls as children), while Galen and I stepped out to the garden. We gathered a big colander full of mixed greens and herbs. We puttered around the garden a bit, checking on the progress of various plants and weeding a bit here and there. Then we took our harvest back to the house and fixed a salad with several kinds of lettuce, wood sorrel, avocado, toasted sunflower seeds and a home-made vinaigrette. I made an iced tea of the lemon balm and sweet thyme, for later in the day.
Galen and I went back outside to sit on the front steps and blow bubbles. Iain and Elijah eventually joined us. I pushed Galen on his swing while they jumped on the trampoline. Then we switched and they swung, while I sat in the middle of the trampoline, ready to grab my little bouncy boy, should he venture to close to the edge. But he's old enough now to know what is ok and what isn't, so there were no problems. We walked back into the woods, to play in the creek, but the last several days of hot weather had left it mostly dry. Galen was still content to play in the muck, but it didn't keep the older boys' interest for long. They took to climbing the rocks and steep hills on the other side. Soon their play caught the attention of the mud stomper, and everyone was off. While everyone else would have happily stayed out for much longer, the Mama needed a drink and longed for a break from the bugs, and so back home we went.
Drinks all around, followed by chore time. We set the timer for 30 minutes turned on our CD of chorus songs and everyone works to make everything as nice as we could in that time, while we all sang along.
After chore time, the big boys went back out to make and fly paper airplanes, until a storm chased them inside and flying commenced upstairs. They have thoroughly researched and experimented, so that they now have airplane making down to both an art form and a science. I continued cleaning. Galen gravitated between "helping" me and plastering his legs with stickers.
'Nother snack, a slice of cheese and apricot and medicine for all the boys (made palatable with the help of some mashed banana). Then I sent Iain and Elijah down to the old house with a list of supplies to fetch (they love this, having a list makes them feel so grown up!), while I took a little rest.
I'm currently reading "The Secret Life of the Expectant Mother", and could happily spend the entire day, laying on the futon, lost in my book. So I laid on the futon, pillow between my knees, reading my book, while Galen cooked and fed me imaginary meals. This couple of moments of relaxing bliss, was abruptly brought to an end by Galen dumping an entire gallon of water on the floor, followed by several phone calls, during which time, he peed on the floor then dumped a big scoop of sawdust out...carefully spreading it over our newly swept dining room floor. Ah, there never does seem to be an end to the lessons in what happens when mama is distracted.
All of the messes cleaned, and I settled down to my daily yoga session. The little love-bug, always sets up a blanket beside mine, and sometimes joins in and sometimes he twirls and sometimes he just plays around the edges. A little over a half hour in, our neighbor stops by to see if we want to join them for the children's art class at the library. I explain that we can't because we wouldn't be able to make it to our family chorus in time if we did. Steve comes home while we are talking. Right after she leaves, we find out the chorus is canceled for the night, so we decide to head to the library after-all. Steve and I take turns staying with Iain and Elijah and keeping Galen company in the kid's room. Because of our late arrival, the kids don't have time to finish the clay volcanoes and landscapes they are making, so the teacher packs up some supplies for them to take home. We all spend some time at the library proper, and then Steve takes all the littles out to the playground, while I spend some time picking out books for everyone. A nice big pile of books later, and we start for home.
Everyone gets set up at the table to finish there volcanoes. Galen is content to just play with a lump of clay, while I start dinner preparations and Steve goes down to the old house to do dishes. Iain finishes his volcano first and helps to chop potatoes, while I wash and peel them. The volcanoes cleaned up, and dinner well on it's way, everyone lays on the futon looking at the new books I choose. I manage to read a couple of board books to Galen before going back to cooking.
Dinner is kale and potatoes, with sweet Italian sausages on the side and the iced tea I made earlier. Everyone enjoys several helpings. After dinner is more medicine. And injections for Iain and Elijah (due to malabsorbtion issues from being sick, they are getting B-12 injections every 3 days). And teeth brushing, and all that other good before bed stuff. Because our impromptu excursion meant dinner was later then usual, it is now past the usual bedtime. Our normal routine is for me to take each child to bed in turn. I asked Iain and Elijah, if instead of their regular book, they would rather play a couple of card games with Steve? They went with the card game option, which let us do bedtime prep concurrently instead of consecutively, meaning everyone got to bed at a more reasonable time. The bitty boy and I went upstairs for our usual nursing and cuddling to sleep. I came back down as the second game was wrapping up and brought everyone up for kisses, tucking in, prayers and blessings.
Steve and I watched an episode of an old TV show that we like, on DVD, while I knitted booties.
Pepper the above with potty help, over-seeing sibling negotiations, about a gazillion stops in the bathroom for me, and what have you, and you have a pretty good idea of a perfectly random day in our life.
I've been thinking for a while now, about doing a random "day in the life" type post. But I had no plan of a particular day. Somewhere, half-way through this hazy, lazy, summer day, I decided that today was as random as it gets...
I woke up to the sound of Iain and Elijah chatting away in their bedroom and I tried very hard to ignore it (I was still quite tired). Then Galen stirred beside me, sat bolt upright, crawled across the bed and flipped over me saying "I go downstairs!". I briefly considered trying to ignore that too, but after a moment of two I slowly stretched and got up.
Downstairs the kids played around, and ate a piece of fruit, while I put out the post I had started the night before and talked to Steve a bit via email. I went around the house, closing all the windows, trying to keep in the cool of night. I made scrambled eggs with broccoli (from our garden!) for Galen and I. Iain and Elijah went out to stack wood, a long-term project of theirs. The big boys can't have eggs, so Iain fixed them peanut butter toast with honey a bit later. Galen some of that too.
We all listened to Iain practice his guitar. Galen and I each had a plum while we listened. Afterward, Elijah asked if they could sleep in the same bed tonight. I said "yes". And they went to work setting up their "house", with Elijah's bunk as they downstairs and Iain's as the upstairs (it seems they are currently a family of 4, mother, father, and two dolls as children), while Galen and I stepped out to the garden. We gathered a big colander full of mixed greens and herbs. We puttered around the garden a bit, checking on the progress of various plants and weeding a bit here and there. Then we took our harvest back to the house and fixed a salad with several kinds of lettuce, wood sorrel, avocado, toasted sunflower seeds and a home-made vinaigrette. I made an iced tea of the lemon balm and sweet thyme, for later in the day.
Galen and I went back outside to sit on the front steps and blow bubbles. Iain and Elijah eventually joined us. I pushed Galen on his swing while they jumped on the trampoline. Then we switched and they swung, while I sat in the middle of the trampoline, ready to grab my little bouncy boy, should he venture to close to the edge. But he's old enough now to know what is ok and what isn't, so there were no problems. We walked back into the woods, to play in the creek, but the last several days of hot weather had left it mostly dry. Galen was still content to play in the muck, but it didn't keep the older boys' interest for long. They took to climbing the rocks and steep hills on the other side. Soon their play caught the attention of the mud stomper, and everyone was off. While everyone else would have happily stayed out for much longer, the Mama needed a drink and longed for a break from the bugs, and so back home we went.
Drinks all around, followed by chore time. We set the timer for 30 minutes turned on our CD of chorus songs and everyone works to make everything as nice as we could in that time, while we all sang along.
After chore time, the big boys went back out to make and fly paper airplanes, until a storm chased them inside and flying commenced upstairs. They have thoroughly researched and experimented, so that they now have airplane making down to both an art form and a science. I continued cleaning. Galen gravitated between "helping" me and plastering his legs with stickers.
'Nother snack, a slice of cheese and apricot and medicine for all the boys (made palatable with the help of some mashed banana). Then I sent Iain and Elijah down to the old house with a list of supplies to fetch (they love this, having a list makes them feel so grown up!), while I took a little rest.
I'm currently reading "The Secret Life of the Expectant Mother", and could happily spend the entire day, laying on the futon, lost in my book. So I laid on the futon, pillow between my knees, reading my book, while Galen cooked and fed me imaginary meals. This couple of moments of relaxing bliss, was abruptly brought to an end by Galen dumping an entire gallon of water on the floor, followed by several phone calls, during which time, he peed on the floor then dumped a big scoop of sawdust out...carefully spreading it over our newly swept dining room floor. Ah, there never does seem to be an end to the lessons in what happens when mama is distracted.
All of the messes cleaned, and I settled down to my daily yoga session. The little love-bug, always sets up a blanket beside mine, and sometimes joins in and sometimes he twirls and sometimes he just plays around the edges. A little over a half hour in, our neighbor stops by to see if we want to join them for the children's art class at the library. I explain that we can't because we wouldn't be able to make it to our family chorus in time if we did. Steve comes home while we are talking. Right after she leaves, we find out the chorus is canceled for the night, so we decide to head to the library after-all. Steve and I take turns staying with Iain and Elijah and keeping Galen company in the kid's room. Because of our late arrival, the kids don't have time to finish the clay volcanoes and landscapes they are making, so the teacher packs up some supplies for them to take home. We all spend some time at the library proper, and then Steve takes all the littles out to the playground, while I spend some time picking out books for everyone. A nice big pile of books later, and we start for home.
Everyone gets set up at the table to finish there volcanoes. Galen is content to just play with a lump of clay, while I start dinner preparations and Steve goes down to the old house to do dishes. Iain finishes his volcano first and helps to chop potatoes, while I wash and peel them. The volcanoes cleaned up, and dinner well on it's way, everyone lays on the futon looking at the new books I choose. I manage to read a couple of board books to Galen before going back to cooking.
Dinner is kale and potatoes, with sweet Italian sausages on the side and the iced tea I made earlier. Everyone enjoys several helpings. After dinner is more medicine. And injections for Iain and Elijah (due to malabsorbtion issues from being sick, they are getting B-12 injections every 3 days). And teeth brushing, and all that other good before bed stuff. Because our impromptu excursion meant dinner was later then usual, it is now past the usual bedtime. Our normal routine is for me to take each child to bed in turn. I asked Iain and Elijah, if instead of their regular book, they would rather play a couple of card games with Steve? They went with the card game option, which let us do bedtime prep concurrently instead of consecutively, meaning everyone got to bed at a more reasonable time. The bitty boy and I went upstairs for our usual nursing and cuddling to sleep. I came back down as the second game was wrapping up and brought everyone up for kisses, tucking in, prayers and blessings.
Steve and I watched an episode of an old TV show that we like, on DVD, while I knitted booties.
Pepper the above with potty help, over-seeing sibling negotiations, about a gazillion stops in the bathroom for me, and what have you, and you have a pretty good idea of a perfectly random day in our life.
2 comments:
I enjoyed reading this little "day in the life" snippet. I think this is why I enjoy reading blogs so much- so get glimpses into how other mamas live out their days with their little ones... thanks!
Ah yes, just your typical day in the world of giving and loving your children. Thanks!
Well done all they way around. I'm sorry about the medications and illness. I wish for glowing health for you all.
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