A day in the life. . .

Last week a few of us decided to post a "day in the life" of our children, just to give each other a peek into what a typical day might look like in our lives. I belong to a Mommy's board online, and we come from various areas of the US and Australia. Some are sahm's, and others work; regardless we all have one thing in common: our babies were born in July of 2007. We formed this networking via BabyCenter, and after having our children have moved onto a new forum-and have stayed in touch on a regular basis. Since Laura was my July baby, that's who I based my "day in the life" on, but obviously Alex is a part of our daily routine! I posted a more in depth routine on the board, but I'll leave this one watered down. I also have it broken into two parts because one is a typical weekend day and then the other is a typical week night since I couldn't get it all done in a day.

Part I
5:15 a.m. “mom, it’s not dark out”. To which my response was, Alex it is way too early you need to go back to bed. Whining ensued and I told him that he either had to walk back to his room or I would carry him-but regardless he needed to be quiet because his sister was sleeping. I’m assuming he fell back to sleep for a while cause I didn’t hear a peep until after 7. Since I had been woken I was pretty much up and down from 5:15 on.

7:15 Alex heads downstairs to park his butt on the couch and watch a little t.v. This is how he warms himself up to the day, and it’s essential that he get this time or the day can turn out pretty ugly. He’s not what I would call a happy person upon waking, he needs some time to figure out if the day is going to be a good one or not.
Laura on the other hand greets the day with a huge smile, and all she really requires is that shortly after you wake her-she wants to have a little breakfast.



Breakfast ensues, which usually consists of cheerios, toast, yogurt and fruit. And on Saturdays we have a little more time to dive into things like eggs, avocados, etc.

9:30 a.m.
Next it's time to head to the tub, Laura goes first and Alex follows shortly after

I folded a few loads of laundry, while the kids soaked. Laura finished up first, and then I filled the tub fuller so Alex can turn on the whirlpool. I let Laura play around after getting out of the tub to burn off some more energy, but then I pinned her down, oiled her up, and got her dressed.
After I laid her down, Alex was ready to get out of the tub ; so we got dressed and then headed outside for a while. During the morning I managed to get all our bedding washed, so that all got hung out to dry, I pulled out the annuals I bought yesterday and Alex watered them for me, then we hit the dirt pile , the sandbox, and playset
By then it was almost 11, so I went in to check on Laura and she was just waking (another hard nap as you can tell!)
I got a sweatshirt and some shoes on her, and we headed out side too. After playing in the grass for a while , we packed up in the backpack and headed down to the woods to take Mag for a little walk (as you can see, Mag's just a tad excited). While we were down there Laura got to see a bleeding heart for the first time up close, while Alex splashed in the water, and Mag chased squirrels. We came back and played by the playset for a bit .
12:30
Alex watched Cars, and Laura played while I prepped lunch for all of us. Nothing exciting, Laura had chicken and asparagus, fruit mix, and gold fish . Alex and I just had cheese pizza and applesauce. After filling her belly, she played for a while and then laid down for a short nap. Her brother leads me to believe that he was probably up for good at 5:15 a.m. when I find him like this watching his movie after lunch . He usually never falls asleep on the couch.
2:30
Laura woke after a short nap, then after talking on the celly for a bit (she already looks like a pro) we went outside to play a little more and keep the house nice and quiet for her brother. She chomped on some pizza crust for a snack, as Mag supervised her.
And that concludes Part I.
(I'll just throw this one in for good measure).

Part II
This is a typical week night for us.

4:30 (Yeah for summer hours)
Arrive home after work, and a day at the sitters. Laura usually falls asleep on the way home , and she usually sleeps for an hour or so. She never sleeps near as much at the sitter as she does at home-I think all the excitement around her gets the best of her, so she sleeps like a log at home.

While she's napping, Alex and I mowed part of the lawn together (sorry no photo). After 30 minutes or so I stopped and waited for Laura to wake. Meanwhile, Alex "had to go pee outside". This is a man thing, because he gets the biggest kick out of not having to go in the house.

Yesterday we planted some zinnias and morning glorys in front of the barn , the kids supervised while I did the planting.

When Laura woke they had some puff snacks, and played w/ bubbles. , and here's Alex enjoying his puffs , when this kid enjoys something-he thoroughly enjoys it, he's similar when he's eating guacamole and chips, it's so funny.

6 p.m. Dad still wasn't home so we walked down to Grandma Bonnie's to visit for a while. Shortly after arriving there, dad got home and came and got Alex on the four wheeler. So Laura, Mag and I headed back. .

We've been in dire need of going to Walmart for the past week, so since I didn't make supper-I figured it'd be a good night to go into town for supper and a walmart run. I swear, walking into that store is like walking into a damn carnival. . . Sadly, this is what $125 gets us, and we didn't even get any formula!

9 p.m. Laura is usually in bed around 8 and Alex between 8:30 and 9, so it is late for us. As you can see, Laura is pissed that her nightly routine has been messed w/ . And Alex is getting himself dressed for bed . Laura gets a little playtime while her brother is going to the bathroom and cleaning up for the night , then it's off to bed we go. She was serious as can be about her bottle tonight, most nights she's a character-Jason had to immitate her seriousness . So while dad gave sissy her bottle, I read Alex the first of his two nightly books-by the time we got to the second, sis was down for the night and dad came in to hear the last of it. Goodnight little sissy girl .

School Days

"School" has been a heavy topic in our household the past couple weeks. Between Alex, me, and Jason we've all been busy contemplating/taking steps/or planning about our future school endeavors.

Alex is enrolled in Grace Lutheran's Pre-K 3 year old program next fall, and we are very excited for him to start. When people hear that I've enrolled him in something like this, they get a false sense that I'm sending him to school to learn, when that is not my intention at all-I am actually looking forward to furthering his socialization skills. Grace offers a 50/50 play/academic atmosphere for their 3 year old program, so it's not exactly "school". It will give him an opportunity to engage with a different group of kids, different from daycare or Sunday School. It also starts to give him a consistency in the academic side of things, and introduces the concept of following specific directions. I'm looking forward to seeing how he likes the program.

Jason took an Accuplacer exam earlier this week, which is basically an exam you have to take because you didn't complete an ACT or SAT upon high school graduation. It's a measurement of basic skill levels in reading, writing and math. He scored well in reading and writing, but not so much in the math. He seemed discouraged when he got home, but I assured him that anybody that hasn't thought about math in the sense of Algebra and Geometry in 10 years would have done the same. And I also reminded him that math doesn't mean measurements in 16th's. Being out of school for so long takes a lot of motivation to go back, but once you do-it's hard to explain that how you view school is completely different. Jason is looking into the Civil Engineering program w/ an emphasis on structural engineering, this is offered as an associates degree through MPTC. He's going to be taking an Algebra warmup course this summer, and then start w/ his curriculum in the Fall. Just like me, he'll be working at it parttime, so it will be a work in progress. Being self-employed with a family to support, I think it's important for him to give himself something to fall back on when he moves on to that next step in life-he's talented in construction, in both the mental and physical aspect of things-I think this degree helps him to utilize the best of both worlds. Being a student myself, any encouragement given is a nice reminder of who your support systems are-Jason would probably appreciate some encouragement himself the next time you see him.

I am enrolled at MPTC in the IT Tech Support Specialist program and anticipate graduating next Spring. I only have 5 courses to complete, so I feel as if it's right at my fingertips. Part of me wants to dive in and take 3 classes next Fall (in hopes of graduating sooner), but then I remind myself that I have a working life outside of school, that includes 2 small children. I also think, what's the hurry? And in the same breath part of me starts thinking even further-like continuing to work at my Bachelor's as soon as I wrap up my associates. School is almost addicting, it's as if I'm almost finished w/ what I had in mind-but I'm looking for more before I'm even done. I'm looking into to the MAAP at Marian College, majoring in General Management. The accelerated program is very inviting-1 night a week, classes only lasting 6 weeks long and running year round. Before anyone says (or thinks it) I fully realize that these courses will be 20 times harder than my current courses-so I need to take that into consideration as well. Why Marian? Ripon College is a member of the ACM, basically a consortium of private colleges in the Midwest; one of our fringe benefits is that we, our spouse or our children can attend RC free of cost (w/ the exception of books and room & board). We can also attend other colleges in the ACM at an 80% discount, which is where Marian comes into the picture. Not many liberal colleges offer non-traditional courses or programs, especially only 20 minutes from home-so that is why I'm looking into that one.

All of these thoughts, and then the next day-I'd rather go down to working part-time in an effort to stay home with my kids more. And 'd like to emphasize part-time, because those of you that know me, know my patience couldn't withstand being a fulltime sahm. Working fulltime you miss a lot of the firsts, someone else defines what consistencies your kids go by until 5 p.m., and you have to work together with someone else on the important things like discipline, potty training, and naps. I've been blessed with a wonderful caregiver in Tammy, she loves my kids as if they are her own-so that is some solace to me. Unfortunately staying home isn't an option for me right now, but I hope sometime in the future we can make it work. Kids are only young once, and while I do make the most of my time-there's not enough time in the day for spending quality time with the one's you love the most when it has to be squeezed in on weeknights and weekends.

I don't know what the right answer is, or which way I'll go-but when the time comes, something will happen that will let me know what the right direction is.

Rocky Mountain High

We returned safely from our vacation out to Colorado, to visit my sister and her family. We left last week Wednesday, and returned early yesterday afternoon; since my sister had a long weekend off of work it worked out great. The kids did a great job both on the trip out there, and again on the trip back. I'm sure they were both exhausted from the excitement and just lack of usual routine, so that helped them catch up a bit before having to go back into the real world today.

It's not that often you can go on a vacation with two young children, and seamlessly fit into another household; but that's pretty much what we did. Sure we had a truck full of suitcases, fishing poles, tools, etc; but my sister makes it pretty easy for us to move about our day. From a pak n play, to stroller, to monitors, to air mattresses, and an entire quarter of their house dedicated to us; we were able to just fit right in w/ out the caios of packing our entire house. Not to mention having to turn their house into a tornado as well. Those of you with children can appreciate when someone does this for you.

We have been to Colorado many times, with each trip very different as we get older and our lives change. We used to go there with flyfishing and a daily hike the only thing on our to do list. Now we go there to visit family, enjoy some scenery, and maybe be lucky if we head out to the mountains or foothills for a few hours. With younger children in tow that's perfectly o.k., they have some of the nicest parks you will ever see, and just getting outside to enjoy the fresh air is enough for my kids. It's not that often you can sit on your back deck with a view of the Rocky Mountain front range-on a clear day it's breath taking.

We did manage to make it up to Estes shopping, and for a quick loop around the park (in an effort to get Alex to fall asleep). Jason got the opportunity to fish a few times, and I got a little more time to myself this trip around too which was nice. We were able to be there for Ari's 5th birthday, and helped her celebrate her getting a cubbies patch. Ari's "been waiting to turn 5 all her life", so you can imagine how happy was to share it with some of her family. Alex got to swim with Maddie on her last night of swimming, even though they had to endure arctic temps. Ari loves horses, so she took us to the Anheiser Busch brewery where they house some of the Clydesdales filmed in their commercials. And those are just a few of the things that come to mind, but more importantly we just got to spend quality time with my sister and her family. I also have a few friends that live at far distances, so I know all too well how hard it is to divide your time between everyone when you are home-so it was nice to just have that time to ourselves with them, in their own element. It is just icing on the cake when you have a Rocky Mountain view!

Thanks Mischo Family.

If you'd like to view some photos of our trip, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/dobiluvr/Colorado