Another Typical Day

Once again another 3 months has passed and it is time for a post about everything that I did within 24 hours. This time it is for Monday May 7th.  As you read this post, please understand that I am not super mom.  Monday's just happen to be my most productive day of the week.  By Thursday I'm usually trying to sleep on the couch while the girls watch movies.  And yesterday . . . well I had a minor emotional breakdown in the morning, so Brandon called in sick to give me a break. (Hey, I've been doing this on my own since Derrick was a week old- I deserve a break!)    

6:40 am   I wake up to Derrick's cries.  I get up, go into the living room where he sleeps now, and feed him on the couch.

7:10   Brandon gets up and starts getting ready for work.  Derrick's done eating and falls back asleep so I head back to bed.

7:30   Brandon kisses me goodbye and goes to work.

7:55   All the babies are waking up.  The girls each get a bottle.  Derrick gets a diaper change.  Then both girls get their diapers changed.  I turn on the radio to the Chunga and Tysen show on 101.9 The End.  These guys help get my day started everyday.  The eight o'clock hour is my favorite.  I start a load of laundry because Monday is my laundry day.  

8:12   I have a bowl of raisin bran and Lydia decides she wants to eat too.  I put the girls in their high chairs and feed them bananas and scrambled eggs.  

I update my to do list for the day/week.  Washing laundry is the highest priority.

8:30   Derrick has been chilling out in his swing (he basically lives in this thing when he is awake)  He starts to cry, but I can't feed him because the girls are still in the high chairs. I clean off the counter while I wait for the girls to finish.

8:33   Lydia signs that she wants out (Hands up).  I get her out and she starts rocking Derrick.

8:34   I decide Charlotte is done so I get her out too.  She and Lydia play around the apartment while I nurse Derrick.
9:00  Done nursing.  The girls smell poopy so everyone gets another diaper change.
9:08  Derrick is fussing like he is ready to be wrapped up so I get him all swaddled and lay him in his bed. The girls find the box of shoes that are too big for them.  They have fun pulling all the shoes out.

I put in another load of laundry.  Derrick is awake, but calm.

The girls and I start cleaning their room.  We go on a binkie hunt behind their cribs and find six binkies.  They want to play in the scooted out cribs.

9:35   We take a break when the girls decide they want to get dressed.  Then it is back to cleaning.  The girls help put away their books.  

9:54   Charlotte takes an empty box into the kitchen.  She comes back to get me so she can show me how she gets in and out of it. Lydia wants a box too so I find her one.  They both sit in their boxes.

10:30  The room is clean and even vacuumed.  Derrick has drifted off to sleep.  Everyone is doing well so I decide to move onto cleaning my room. The girls love when they are allowed in my room. They like to get on my bed and thumb through my old scriptures.

They also like to help with the laundry.  Here is Lydia putting dirty clothes into the dresser drawer.

Then she started putting the piles of sorted dirty clothes back into the laundry basket.

Charlotte helped clean off my desk.

11:00  Lydia has joined Charlotte on the desk and is starting to attack my craft boxes.  Thank goodness it it time for Sesame Street.  The girl's favorite part of the whole show is actually the list of sponsors at the beginning.  They shriek with happiness while watching those.  I vacuum the bedroom.

Then I start emptying the dishwasher.  This is much more interesting than whatever is happening on TV so the girls come help me out.  

11:21  Lydia and Charlotte both go over to their chairs and want to get in.  This means it is time for lunch.  They have peanut butter on bread and apples.
11:30  Derrick wakes up.  The girls aren't close to being done eating.  I change him and then nurse him a little bit to make him happy.

11:43   Girls done eating.  I can really nurse Derrick now. The girls watch Elmo's World.
12:00   Super Why comes on.  This shoe blatantly reuses footage and it drives me nuts.  But the girls like the songs.  So we keep watching it while Derrick eats.
12:19  I'm completely done with the nursing/burping routine.  I'm also the only one still watching Super Why.    I gladly turn off the TV.  I start another load of laundry
12:30   It is time to put the girls down for a nap.  They cry a little bit when I put them in their cribs.  But they must like having freshly washed bedding.  By the time my 5 minute timer goes off they are quiet.  I put Derrick into his little chair. I have a baked potato for lunch.  I go online to move money from our tithing savings account to our checking account to cover the tithing check we paid on Sunday.  I also quickly check e-mail and facebook.
1:00   I've been bouncing Derrick in his chair with my foot.  He fell asleep like that.  

I move him into his crib.  I finally get dressed for the day (I had to wait for my load of jeans to be dry)

1:15  Everyone is fast asleep so I run the garbage out to the dumpster and check the mail.

1:20   It's naptime for me too.  I put my sign up on the door so I wont get any wake ups from well meaning visitors.  (We don't have a huge problem with this  -- I just would hate to have my sleep interrupted)

1:35  My nap is short lived because Derrick wakes up.  It's okay though because I was really just laying there thinking about our upcoming trip to Colorado in 6 weeks.  While I nurse Derrick I call the place we are staying in Colorado Springs and extend our stay another night so we have more time to enjoy the area.  I also call my sister, Emily, and tell her when to expect us to visit her during the vacation.  Derrick goes back to sleep during this.

1:35  I get off the phone when I hear Lydia awake and crying - I hate when she wakes up crying.  Charlotte joins in and then so does Derrick.  Crackers make the girls happy and a diaper change helps Derrick.  I also nurse Derrick so he will sleep during our walk.  I put in another load of laundry.  When I go into my room to get more clothes I find Charlotte sitting at my desk.  It's so cute!

3:00  We all go on a walk to the park.  The girls ride in their twin stroller and Derrick rides in the Mobi wrap on my chest.  (Yes, I get lots of strange looks)  Charlotte loves to slide.

And Lydia loves to swing.  I usually spend a lot of time going back and forth between them.

But sometimes they both like to swing.

And they both like to slide.  Actually, lately Lydia has decided it's too much effort to climb the stairs to the slide.  She just climbs onto the bottom of the slide and pushes herself off.  She even says "weee" while she does it.  

Thankfully, Derrick is content to sleep on my chest.

The girls also love to climb this wall, but they don't go to the top.

And they love to play in the sand around this thing that looks like a volcano.

They also like to climb in and out of the volcano's windows.

4:40  Eventually it's time to go home.  I nurse Derrick while the girls entertain themselves by pushing boxes around the house.
5:00  Earlier in the day I decided we'd have an easy dinner tonight. That way I could put more energy into laundry and cleaning the bedrooms.  So I start making my favorite easy meal - Lynn Wilson Burritos with rice and beans.  I'm glad it's easy because both Lydia and Derrick are crying.  Derrick wants to be held. Lydia is hungry.  Charlotte is content and just keeps pushing her box around.
5:20  Brandon comes home and we have dinner.  The girls love this meal and eat a lot.

5:45  Brandon and I relax on the couch while the girls jump onto the couch from boxes.

6:00 We have Family Home Evening.  This is how is usually goes:  We sing Popcorn Popping (the girls know most of the actions) and Do as I'm Doing.  One of the girls "says" the prayer.  Then we have Announcements and  discuss different things that are happening this week (this is my favorite part).  The girls usually wander off by this time.  Then we read a section or two from the For Strength of Youth pamphlet.  The girls usually wander back and want to get into Brandon's lap while he reads.  Don't be deceived by how perfect this picture looks.  The night we took this picture he stopped and started reading the heading for one of the sections about 5 times before everyone happy and well situated. 

6:30   Then it's time for every one's favorite part - Time to make the treats!

We always make something to satisfy our sweet tooth's.  Tonight it is brownies from a recipe I got at a RS dessert night exchange (Thanks Steffani!)

The girls love helping and they love licking the spoons.

7:15  The brownies are done and we enjoy eating them.  After eating their brownies the girls play around.  I nurse and then just enjoy holding Derrick while Brandon helps out the girls with their little random needs.

7:45  The girls are getting pretty ornery.  It's time for bed!  We get them into their pajamas then put them in bed with their binkies.  Brandon and I sing them a song, read a chapter from the Book of Mormon, read a page from the conference issue of the Ensign, write in their little journal, and say a family prayer.  Usually they calm down while we do that.  But not tonight.  They cry loudly through the whole routine.  As soon as we are out of the room I tell Brandon that he's in charge.  I head out to do some grocery shopping.

8:05  Before I can trust myself driving to the store I have to relax a little.  So I just sit in the car and enjoy the silence.  Then I drive to the store and then continue to relax in the car - it's so nice to be alone.  eventually I go into the store and get the shopping done.

9:00  I come back home to a quiet and clean house.  Brandon says the girls fell asleep within minutes of us leaving them alone. Derrick followed soon after.  Brandon, being the stud that he is, cleaned up the kitchen and living room.  Brandon and I get everything ready so I can take the kids to my mom's house the next day.  Everything has to be packed in the jeep tonight so we don't have to do it early the next morning.

9:35  I take a shower.  And then we relax and enjoy the fact the kids are all asleep.
10:15  Derrick wakes up.  Brandon stays up with me and we watch Seinfeld while I nurse Derrick.
10:35  Derrick is basically done eating, but he's no where near ready to go to bed.  So we watch the Simpsons
11:05  30 Rock entertains is while we wait for Derrick to get tired.
11:35  Derrick is pretty close to asleep.  We stay up for the Late Late Show because we love Craig Ferguson.  By the end of the monologue Derrick seems almost asleep.  We put him down on the window seat and head off to bed.  He cries a little bit in protest, but we don't care.

12:00  By midnight everything is quiet.  (Check out the fact that Lydia is sleeping in the exact same position as she was during naptime - that's really random)

2:30  Lydia wakes up.  This hasn't happened for at least a week and a half.  Brandon gets up, makes her a bottle of warm milk, changes her diaper while she drinks the bottle, and puts her back to bed.  (At least that's what I assume he does - I fall back asleep as soon as I know it isn't Derrick)

4:45  Derrick wakes up.  I nurse him on the couch without TV because by this time it's so late it's early and I'm not ready to watch any Wake up in the morning TV.

5:15  Derrick falls back asleep so I sneak back to bed without changing his diaper.

6:15  Though some strange coincidence all three kids wake up at the same time.  And the girls are WIDE awake. We suspect they know they are going to Grandma's today.  Brandon gets the girls ready while I feed Derrick.

7:00   I get dressed and have breakfast.

And that is 24 hours in my life with 18 month old twins and a one month old baby boy.