A Day in the Life ….

 

So Trish over at Love, Laughter, Insanity has shared with her readers what a day in her life looks like. She did one while she was still staying home with her youngest and then another one when she was settled back into her routine at work. Can I just gush about how much I adore this lady’s blog?! Anyway, apparently those two posts brought about the idea that she would host an event where bloggers would post a typical day in the life of themselves. I never jumped in on her Twitter conversations (I always feel like I’m butting in…), but I definitely seriously considered participating in this event. And here I am.

To set the background for you all. I am Tara. I turn 30 this year (not until July, but I’m already not taking it well…). I live in a small town in southern Illinois. I have been married to my high school sweetheart for almost 8 years. We have one son, who turns 3 in late May and we are expecting a daughter in mid-May. Oh and our anniversary is in May …. we obviously like the month of May, ha! My husband and I both work for my family company. He is a plant manager and I am a bookkeeper. It’s tough working in the same office as your spouse. Whew. But we are both very lucky to be involved in the family business. It also allows me to have great flexibility when it comes to our kids. Something that I am very, very grateful for.

The day that this describes is probably not the most typical for me. This was documenting Monday, March 23, 2015. Husband was out of town for work training, so I was single parenting it.

So without further ado, (you are about to find out just how long-winded I am)… here is an example of a day in my life:

6:00am – alarm originally goes off. But I don’t like 6am. So I always hit the snooze button three times when it goes off so that it will go off again at 6:30am. Today I spend a few minutes scrolling through Facebook and Twitter. Once I’m satisfied that I haven’t missed anything huge overnight, I get out of bed to head to the bathroom to get ready for the day. Once done in there it’s back to get the dog off our bed and head to the kitchen to put breakfast in my purse (poptart … I’m such a slave to nutrition).

7:05am – go in to wake Garrett. He had somewhat of a rough night. Last night he went down at about 8:45. He was up at 10:30 when he threw up in bed. He’s got a lot of drainage going on from his allergies right now. That always makes him cough himself sick. So I knew he would be a bear this morning.

At 7:15am, my prophecy came true. He had a complete and total meltdown because he didn’t like the way I took the dog outside for his morning walk. Life with a toddler, I tell you, you have no idea if you’ve never experienced it. I send him back to his room to calm down. At 7:25am, I am finally able to get him up and dressed for the day. But now he doesn’t want to go to school.

Welcome to my Monday morning ritual. I finally convince him that he doesn’t want to miss out on school, and at 7:45am, we’re locked and loaded in the car heading to school. We arrive at the school at 8:06am. A few weeks ago we went through a very strong “DON’T LEAVE ME IN THIS GODFORSAKEN PLACE MOMMY” stage. It was very difficult. And I never know when it’s going to rear it’s ugly head again. Luckily, today was not one of those days. He happily went and put his jacket in his cubby and sat down on the carpet. It’s days like this that I wonder when my little baby has been replaced by a little boy with such a little spitfire personality.

I arrive at work at 8:15am. Nothing exciting happens in my day-to-day work life. As stated earlier, I’m a bookkeeper. So my morning consisted of putting the previous Friday and Saturday’s invoices into my computer system and getting the previous week’s invoices enveloped and stamped to go to the post office later today. At 12:05pm I find myself in the drive thru lane at Burger King (once again, such a slave to nutrition). I take it back to my desk at work. Very rarely do I take an actual lunch break. As a normal rule, I simply eat at my desk. At 1:15pm I find myself with free time and I finish reading Insurgent having only had about 30 pages to go before the ending. And here’s the greatest part about my job … I even had time to write and post my review of it. As long as my work gets completed, no one really cares what I do in my down time at work.

At 3:40pm I leave work to go pick up Garrett. I’m lucky that his daycare is literally right down the road as my office. So it doesn’t take but a few minutes to get there from work. It’s a gorgeous day outside, so when I pick him up they’re playing outside. And he runs all the way to the back of the playground and into a playset “hiding” so that he doesn’t have to go home. Ha. And this is the kid that didn’t want to be left at daycare 2 weeks ago. I don’t blame him, in our new house we don’t have our yard fenced in yet, and with me being 7 months pregnant, I simply can’t chase him down in the yard when he takes off from me, so we don’t play outside much unless dad is home.

4:15pm – after a stop at the post office we finally arrive home. In the time that it takes me to go to the bathroom and come back into the living room that also serves as our play room I find that Garrett has found the one remaining box of toys from our move. This is a huge box. One full of toys that he had outgrown but that we had never taken the time to truly go through and weed out. This is how I found him when I came back from the bathroom. But what was so funny about the whole situation (because the huge mess it made definitely was not funny) was that he was screaming “Treasure! My treasure!” He’s a big Mickey Mouse Clubhouse fan and one of his favorite episodes involves Harmony Chord Island, Pawpaw Goofy and his missing treasure. So I guess Garrett thought he had really hit the treasure motherload with this box of toys! Ha! Never a dull moment.

We had play time in the play room until 5:00pm when we loaded back into the car and headed to the gas station and to get dinner. Wait for it … happy meals from McDonald’s. Yes, I am that parent. I can’t help it. I have no energy. I have no patience. And when I’m single parenting the last thing I want to do is make a meal that my child may or may not even eat. So bringing in happy meals usually wins out. I am blessed with a picky eater. Well, really he’s not that bad of a picky eater. It could be a lot worse. But I *know* McDonalds is always going to be a home run (strangely enough, so is Red Lobster…). He eats a little more than half of his meal (which is a win in our house) and then asks to go play some more. So I let him go back to the play room while I finish my dinner in peace and peruse some social media.

6:00pm Mickey has to come on. He requests the Pawpaw Goofy episode. Then we watch a “new” episode that the DVR has recorded. I have Mickey Mouse Clubhouse set to continuously record every episode, while only keeping 10 at a time. That way we have a continuous rotating series of episodes. Although there are a few that are his absolute favorites and we have them set on to keep “until I delete.” I let him have more screen time than I probably should, but it keeps him happy. And when you’re 7 months pregnant, miserable, tired, and facing the next three nights without your husband to help …. you do what’s necessary to keep the peace 🙂

At 7:45pm I tell him that Mickey has to go to bed. So we start the bathtime routine. I’m glad that he enjoys the bath. I know a lot of parents who have trouble with this. My kid is like a fish. He never wants to get out. His deal is once he’s clean he starts draining the water and once the water is all gone he has to get out. That’s usually when he starts the water back up in an effort to extend his bathtime. Sneaky little dude.

At 8:15pm he’s out of the bath and I tell him to get into bed so we can do his breathing treatment. He’s been suffering from his allergies and has been having a lot of drainage and a terrible cough. Unfortunately he’s started in with a slight wheeze. I routinely keep his nebulizer medicine on hand so that we can avoid trips to the doctor by keeping things as clear as possible. After his treatment it’s time to read. I’m blessed with a child who loves to be read to. He picks out the books he wants to read tonight … only 4 of them this evening. A Mickey book, a pumpkin book, Green Eggs & Ham, and Puppies in the Snow. The first two are short. Green Eggs & Ham is not. Puppies in the Snow is the one we *always* have to end with. I shouldn’t complain, really. Because one day I will miss these snuggle times.

Bed time is the bane of our existence. It’s not easy for us right now. His body has seemingly outgrown the afternoon nap. But his school insists that he still take a two freaking hour nap. From 1pm-3pm. I’m sorry, but that’s entirely too late for my child. And then he’s a bear to get to go to sleep in the evening at a reasonable hour. We also have transitioned him into the toddler bed because he was attempting to climb out of his crib. Well, that means the little devil can get out of bed and leave his room. And he does. Tonight, I leave the room for the first time at 8:45pm. After 6 times of getting out of bed and mom putting him back in (he wanted to play, wanted a toy, wanted to know where the dog was, wanted daddy, wanted a drink of milk, and finally wanted his stuffed bunny) he finally went to sleep for good at 9:22pm. UGH. This is about an hour later than mommy would prefer. And to be honest, it took me having to place the baby gate in front of his door and walking away to let him scream bloody freaking murder cry for 5 minutes before he would finally settle in. I hate locking him in because he hates it so much, but it’s the most effective way of letting him know that we aren’t joking when we say he has to stay in his room.

By the time he finally settles down, and I walk the dog one final time it’s late. But this will be the only time of day that I truly have to myself. All I want to do is fall into bed in utter exhaustion. What I should do is tidy the kitchen up a bit. What I do end up doing is reading about 20 pages in a new book and turning off the lights at 9:55pm.

All in preparation of doing it all over again the next day…

So there you have it. That is a day in my life. Not exciting. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. And with Miss K. coming in 8 weeks or less, it’s only likely to get more insane. But isn’t that what makes life worth living?!