A Day in the Life

I've been wanting to record a day in the life of our crazy family of five in a while, and last Thursday I finally did. I missed some "kodak moments" simply because I didn't have my camera ready -- for example, the first event of the day is not captured in picture: Getting Rhea out of bed. That happened before I even knew where the camera was. :) Here goes. (Sorry if it's too detailed to keep your attention; it's partially for my own benefit, because at the end of these days I usually can't even remember myself what filled my 12-15 hours of time. :)

7:07 Rhea hollers "MAMA! Aufstehen!" (Get up!) Stumble out of bed and up the stairs to go get her, take off her diaper, find socks/slippers, go downstairs and make breakfast. This is also when David rolls out of bed and gets ready. Usually we have a quick breakfast together before

7:40 David leaves.

7:52 I can hear Alexa waking up. I go in to this:

... then she sees me :) Good morning to you, too, Sunshine!!

I then put Alexa in her bouncy seat while I finish breakfast.

8:00 Nurse Alexa while Rhea plays around us in the living room.

Then we lounge around a bit

...until
8:25 Lucia wakes up

8:30 Make Lucia's breakfast and clean up kitchen

8:46 Change Alexa's diaper and get her ready to go back down for a nap.

8:50 Mediate a brewing conflict over babies, who gets to play with which one, and which baby is really whose. This is important stuff, people, and I wish I had a picture of this process.

8:55 Start putting Alexa back down.

8:57 Rhea starts crying because she almost fell down the stairs (luckily it was only a couple of steps, but enough to get me to "unplug" Alexa and rush up the stairs to see what happened.) Back to Alexa.

9:09 Alexa is down. Go get a bath ready for Lucia and Rhea.

9:20 Big girls are in tub. Shower time for me. :)

9:40 Start first load of laundry and go upstairs to wash the girls.

10:00 Girls are out of tub and dressed. Time for some cuddles on the couch and we read a few books together.

10:30 Go back upstairs to do hair and brush teeth. After that, the kids play upstairs (read some more books, listen to music, etc) while Mama finishes getting ready herself.

10:45 Hang up first load of laundry outside, put in second load.

10:55 Second breakfast for Mama - this lady is starving again by now. ;-) While I have another cup of coffee I afford myself a few minutes of computer time. (The girls are upstairs after all. :) )

11:08 Girls come back down.

11:15 Start making lunch.

11:22 "I need go potty!!" Help Rhea onto and off of the pot.

11:27 Alexa wakes up again, and I get her dressed.

11:32 Serve the girls' lunch outside.

11:50 Pump milk so I can save time before we need to leave for tumbling class.

12:00 Get kids to finish eating their lunches.

12:15 Leave for tumbling class. Take Lucia and Rhea to the bathroom before class begins.

1:27 Get back home and wash hands.

1:40 Put Rhea down, get Lucia set up for quiet time in her room, change Alexa's diaper and put her down.

1:50 Call David to say hi. Check on girlies (just for the benefit of taking these pictures :) ), and then lie down for my own nap.

(Is it just me, or do you see a teenager in this picture too?!)

2:50 Get up again and start folding laundry.

3:20 Neighbor kids come over

3:22 Rhea wakes up.

3:30 Go outside with little kids, and hang up second load of laundry.

3:47 Check on baby sleeping inside. Continue hanging up laundry and monitoring the playtime.

4:30 Serve snack outside.

4:49 Neighbor kids leave. Uuh, what's for dinner?! Go inside and clean up kitchen and general clutter before David comes home.

5:11 Alexa wakes up. Change and feed her.

5:25 Clean up some more, get out frozen pizza. :)

5:32 Go build fort/tent in garage for the girls.

5:43 Go back inside, return missed call from David. He's on his way home!

6:10 David is home.

6:30 Dinner on the table.

6:55 Go put Alexa back down for the night.

7:00 Kids are done eating and want to read a book together.

7:20 Go upstairs and change girls into their pajamas, brush teeth, sing songs.

7:38 Big girls are finally in bed.

7:42 Go back up and give another drink of water and/or take Rhea potty one more time.

7:55 I leave to go shopping for an hour. David works.

9:30 I get back and show David what I got.

9:58 Get ready for bed. Pump milk and give Alexa her nightly bottle before we go to sleep.

10:28 Finally about ready to turn off the light.

Note that in this daily routine, I did nothing but attending to immediate needs (except for tumbling, neighbor kids playtime, 20 minutes of computer time, and one hour of shopping at night). If I'm EVER going to make progress on any type of project or do some cleaning/organizing other than the day-to-day, one or more of those things will have to go. Now, mind you, we don't have kids over every day, and we don't go to tumbling every day. But there are lots of other things that fill the same time slots. Including, occasionally, some project or cleaning. ;-) )