A (somewhat hectic) Day in the Life

I drive. A lot. Before the girls started school, I would some times go one or two days without leaving the house. Now, my days are generally something like this…

6:15am – hit snooze 5 times wake up, throw on some clothes that aren’t dirty get dressed, wash my face, brush my teeth, wake up the girls and give them their clothes, send them off to brush their teeth and go to the bathroom

6:50 – make breakfast (or if we’re running late put Cheerios or fruit in bags for the car ride), brush and fix hair, make sure Summer has her back-pack and lunch

7:05 - pull out of the drive-way… proceed to drive 16 miles to Summer’s school in rush-hour traffic

7:40ish- arrive at school. kindergarten parents walk their kids in so I try to find a good parking place. it’s on-street parking downtown, so this is tricky.I had to over-come my fear of parallel parking quickly. we usually have to walk about half a block to the front doors

7:50 – get to Summer’s locker, help her put her backpack away and make sure she has her folder; kiss her good-bye and walk back to the car

8:00 – drive 16 miles back to the area we live in; we usually have about 30 minutes to kill before Camryn’s preschool starts so we either stop and get something to eat, or stop by my moms for a quick cup of coffee/juice

8:50 – take Camryn to preschool. this does NOT involve leaving the car, thank goodness. in fact I usually let Camryn sit on my lap in the drop-off line and then send her out my door (the pic above is her “driving”)

9:00 – get back home. feed the dog and fish. do a load of laundry. make beds. unload dishwasher. do other around-the-house stuff. or not. some times after I feed the animals I sit on the couch under a blanket and don’t move much (don’t tell anyone). check Facebook and e-mail. blog. start on any design work I have to do. realize it’s already time to leave again to pick camryn up.

11:55 – pick Camryn up from preschool. if it’s nice out, sometimes I let her play on the school playground for a bit. then if I need to go to the store, we do that. if not, we head home.

12:15pm – get home, make us lunch. encourage her to play instead of watch TV. sometimes I win, sometimes she does.

12:45 – finish any cleaning I didn’t finish – or start on - in the morning. play with Camryn. work on blog stuff and design work. waste time on Facebook.

2:00 – drive 16 miles to pick Summer up from school

2:30 – get to the school. try to find a decent parking spot again. it’s usually more crowded in the afternoons, so we almost always end up walking a bit to get to the doors.

2:40 – the bell rings and we get Summer, I check to make sure she has all her stuff… she usually has left her jacket in her locker so we get that, then head back to the car

2:55 – drive 16 miles back home

3:20 – get home, look at Summer’s folder to see if she has homework, give her a little while to unwind, figure out what’s for dinner if I don’t already have that planned

4:30ish – have Summer start on homework if she has any, straighten up the house a bit since the girls have usually gotten out a lot of stuff since we’ve gotten home

5:00 – start dinner, the goal is to have it ready at 5:30 but sometimes this doesn’t happen. hopefully joe is home by this time to eat but it depends on the day

6:00 – clean up kitchen, let the girls play for awhile (outside if it’s nice or inside if it’s not)

7:00 – girls clean up if they’ve gotten toys out, then bath time

7:30 – girls get pajamas on, brush teeth, Summer makes sure her back pack is by the door, they choose a book for one of us to read

7:50 – get them in bed, read a story

8:00 – lay their clothes for the following day out at the ends of their beds, then we tell them goodnight

8:15 – make Summer’s lunch for the next day, make sure dishwasher is loaded, straighten up, take a bath or shower if I have enough energy

9:00 – figure out what I’m wearing the next day, get pajamas on, park myself on the couch or my bed, and either watch TV, work, browse Facebook, or read (Patricia Cornwell at the moment!)

11:00 – hopefully fall asleep around this time if Joe isn’t keeping me up playing games on the iPod

6:15am – start all over

TGIF.

I live for weekends these days, as I’m sure every parent with school-age kids or full-time jobs do. I had a 5 year break from caring much whether it was a Tuesday or Saturday but I am totally back in the game now. And I’m trying to imagine a newborn in the mix of all of that. Joe is starting a new position at work that is going to require him to change shifts for a year; he will be working from about 1pm to 9pm on week days and be on call one weekend of the month. It’s going to be different. Monetarily, it will be well worth it, so we will make it work!