A Day in the Life... (aka one very long post)

I started this post after seeing a link up about a day in pictures but by the time I was finished with it I realized that I had way too many words and too few pictures.  Far too many words... I'm not sure how many people will make it through this super post... but, a not so brief snapshot of my day:

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A picture from yesterday...
so that you can see what his hair
looked like before the hair cut...

Wake up to "Dada.  Dada.  Dada.  Daddy.  Daddy!  Dad!!!!  Daddy!!!!"  roll over and grab the phone.  It's 6:15.  He slept through the night. Do a little dance (in my head).  Whisper to Paul that it's morning.

Hear Maggie playing with a toy truck in her room.  Lay very still as Paul gets up and takes the kids downstairs.  Steal a few more minutes of laying very still, pretending to go back to sleep until the alarm goes off at 7.  Get up way before it goes off.  Turn off the alarm.  Go into the bathroom.

See that the toilet is clogged.  Grab a plunger.  Try to fix the toilet.  Try again.  Try a third time.  Realize it's never taken this long to fix.  Finally succeed.  Breath a sigh of relief that no outside help was needed.

Get washed and dressed.  Look around for hair clip to pull my still growing out bangs back.  Find it.  Walk into the bathroom.  Look in the mirror.  Realize that the clip is no longer in my hand.  Walk back into the bedroom.  Flop onto the bed to reach the window sill (clip keeping place) and feel my elbow hit the clip I'm looking for.  Grab it.  See that the brush is over by the space heater that I turned on and brushed Sadie's hair next to the night before.  Decide that I don't need a brush.  My hair will stay up better without one.  Marvel at the laziness of not walking across the room to get the brush.  Finally get hair up and go downstairs.

Patrick yells "Dadda!" when he sees me and then "uh-oh!" Yesterday he pointed at his sister who was trying to set off the alarm and said "She did it!"

His new look!

Go into the kitchen and hear about how one of the kids' toys attacked Paul as he was walking through the room "like a bear trap" and how his back (which happens to have quite a few ruptured disks) is extra hurt.

Run downstairs and get clothes for the kids.  Get Maggie dressed since she has therapy with Paul (and a therapist) at the center today (it's her only day when it's not at home).  Convince her to wear her princess sneakers instead of her Dora crocks.  Make sure Sadie's getting dressed.  Decide to leave Patrick in his sleeper until after his nap, since he won't be going outside before it and his room is the coldest place in the house.

Nearly trip over the cat who's telling me he needs food ASAP.  Ignore the cat (who's dish has food, just not the type he wants right then).  Take out the trash.  Take out more trash.  Grumble internally about being the only person who takes out the trash (not true, not even most of the time).  See the recycling cart out on the curb. Get it.  Realize that our yard is full of QD litter (I can tell because of the plastic bag accompanying the other litter).  Pick it up and throw it away.  Think about moving someplace outside of the city limits.  Think about the insane cost of the water and sewer in the city (it's only barely beaten out by our electricity costs).  Think about how beautiful the sun looks coming up over the horizon.

Go back inside.  Almost step on the cat.  Feed the cat.  See Patrick's little face pop up above the baby gate.  He's holding an empty carton of milk.  Take the milk and thank him.  He starts to cry.  Find a full carton of almond milk and fill his sippy cup.  Yell up the stairs to remind Paul that therapy is at the center today.

See the giant box carrier the mailman left yesterday (our second hand homeschool books for first grade are arriving) and asked me to leave outside.  Realize someone has peeled an orange into it.  Clear out the orange.  Put it on the porch.  Set off the alarm.  Make it to the panel before it actually sounds (8 seconds).  Put in the code and breath a sigh of relief.

Listen to Sadie sing Let it Go.  Listen to her attempt to sing it again in Spanish and then in some language I can't pinpoint (it's at the end of the movie on Amazon Prime).  Tell Patrick my name actually is Mommy.  Hear him mutter "da" under his breath.

The part of the lawn already raked...

Get snacks and a sippie cup ready for Paul to take to Mae's therapy.  Remember that tomorrow Mae's evaluation with her new OT, one of her regular therapists and her social worker is scheduled for after her morning therapy.  Realize that I can't find the note card with the directions to the newly built Autism Center.

Search the house.  Remember scribbling about another meeting on the same card.  Find my calender and realize I've scribbled in both meetings minus directions. Find the note card on the mantle. Breath a sigh of relief.  Call for Paul and tell him he and Mae are now going to be late.  Watch him limp downstairs courtesy of the "bear trap toy" (one of those little toy boxes activity station things).

Hear him say he can't find his keys.  Look for keys.  He announces he's found them.  Get him and Maggie out the door.

The part that's not...

Patrick starts to cry because he wants to go with Daddy too.  Tell Patrick he can have a super special treat watching one whole episode of Diego with Mommy and Sadie.  Sit down between him and Sadie while they watch.  Sadie tells me one of the penguins reminds her of me.  The emperor penguin.  "Oh and look, there's Patch the Penguin."  Giggle with her.  Get a Patch kiss.  Think of close it is to a bite.  Feel him bite my thumb.  He puts his head down dramatically when I say "ouch!"

Decide to give Patch a hair cut.  Set up my computer so he can watch cartoons.  Bribe him with a gummy worm.  Start planning a normal 2-3-4 clipper cut. Decide halfway through as he dramatically hurls himself from side to side that he's getting a "new summer cut" which will be a #2 clipper cut all over.

Marvel at how his hair is very blonde at the bottom and he now looks kind of bald.  Remind myself that hair grows back.

Sweep up and take him up to the bathtub.  Take him into my room and cover him with his Crisco/Vaseline/Cortisone mixture because his eczema is flaring (it does pretty much every time water touches his skin), and get him into another sleeper.  Tuck him, protesting, into his crib for his nap.

Sadie with the leaves we've raked so far.

Listen to make sure he's asleep.  Trudge downstairs with Sadie and rake leaves, with a window open so we can hear Patch inside.  Battle some serious winds (apparently 13 mph, which isn't all that high for here, but makes leaf raking a challenge).  Silently apologize to our neighbors who are done raking as the leaves fly from our partially raked yard (and several un-raked yards) into their neat ones.

Estimate that, if Sadie and I rake for two hours a day, it will take seven days to finish the front and side yards... and that doesn't even have us starting the back.  Try not to regret having a corner lot, which means way more snow shoveling in winter and way more raking in fall and spring.

Herd Sadie back inside where Patch is still sounds asleep and get her set up working on a phonetics program that she loves while I figure out lunch.

Walk into the kitchen and stand in the middle of it, trying to figure out what to make for lunch.  Decide to make it the biggest meal of the day since Paul will be in class during dinner.  Find gluten free pizza crusts in the freezer and decide on pizza.  Hear a loud knock at the door.  See that the box that I put out this morning is full of book packages again.  Laugh and say that yes, it is a lot of books for one kid (thankfully most of them were less than a dollar).

Hear Patrick yell upstairs.  Get him and change him into his Super Man shirt and some pants.  Snap a few pictures of his almost bald head.  Give him another cup of almond milk and start making lunch.

Answer Sadie's questions about pizza.  Find barbecue sauce so that I can fulfill her request for a barbecue pizza.  Put Hulu on my computer.  Pull out bacon to go on the pizza (the one meat Maggie will eat).  Cut up onions.  Make two small gluten free pizzas (one with cheese for Sadie and one without for Patch and Mae) and one normal pizza for Paul and I.

Hope Paul remembers to pick up Patch's allergy prescription.  Listen and hear Sadie telling Patrick a story.  Sit down and read this new article published about the family that many of us have been praying for this past week. Stop halfway through so that I don't become a giant puddle of tears.  Go check on the GoFundMe account for Jennifer and Cecilia.

Paul gets home and Mae bursts into tears.  She has a hard time transitioning from being inside to outside and outside to inside.  She knows what she needs and starts banging on the baby gate to go upstairs.  Take her upstairs.  Lay down next to her and sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star over and over again while she corrects my hand movements when they aren't exactly perfect (apparently my "diamond" wasn't pointy enough).  Hear Paul say lunch is ready.  Maggie hides under the covers.  Pick her up and carry her (she's not entirely cooperative) downstairs.  She relaxes when she sees lunch and slides into her chair.

Say grace and eat lunch.  Change Patrick into non-food covered pants.  Decide to take the kids on a walk.  See that Mae has stripped off her dress.  Get Patrick into warm clothes, have Sadie put on her jacket and pack snacks.  Wrangle Mae, who's having a meltdown about going from inside to outside (even though she really, really wants to go) into her clothes then into the stroller, than into her shoes.  She relaxes when she sees we're actually going out.  Tell Sadie she'll be walking next to me for the start of the walk.

Walk for half an hour one direction down the main street through town.  Turn and start walking back, eyeing the dark clouds warily.

The wind starts to kick up and nearly knocks over the stroller (they're saying it's 21 mph now and it's considerably less windy now than it was when we were walking).  Make it home.  Take them into the backyard and let them run. And run.  And run.

When the rain starts herd them back inside.  Maggie is actually okay with it this time.  Go back out and get the stroller and lock it in the garage.  Tell Paul that since he hasn't been putting the van in the garage the stroller is going to borrow it for a while.

Rush back inside and lock the door.  Open the new book packages and read Cupid and Psyche with Sadie.  Paul comes down just as the two sisters meet their ends and asks what on earth I'm reading to her.

Finish the story (which she loved).  Thank Patch for taking the discarded book packaging out of the box I'd put it in and bringing it to me.

Go into the kitchen and find a little piece of chocolate and a little piece of candy to eat.  Get Patch another almond milk.  Ignore the sound of the playroom being trashed.

Walk into the living room and plop down on the couch.  The four o'clock pregnancy sleepiness is striking.  Start reading one of Sadie's school books.  Cuddle under a blanket.  Almost nap, listening for baby wildness all around me.

The phone rings.  Get up and get it.  Talk to my mom.  Look at Beth's blog and see that her little girl was born today and is headed in for surgery.  Say a prayer and post a prayer request on facebook.

Not what she wore...
but what she really wanted to wear.

Try to figure out dinner.  Sadie had been requesting peanut butter and jelly since we usually do something simple when Paul isn't home, but realize we're out of g.f. bread.  Find g.f. tortillas and make pb and j "quesadillas" (minus the cheese... and anything other than peanut butter and jelly...).  Fill sippie cups.  Try not to see Patrick smearing peanut butter on his shirt and pants and shoes and face as he eats.

Wrangle babies into pajamas.  Wipe peanut butter covered hands and faces.  Give Patch his allergy medicine and Mae her melatonin.  Take the babies up to bed.  Sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to Mae.  Cuddle her into her blankets, making sure they're just right.

Tell Sadie she can stay up for one episode of My Little Ponies.  Clean the playroom.  Clean the living room.  Vacuum.

Tuck Sadie in bed.  Mae is already sound asleep.  Tuck her stuffed animals into bed.  Get about a dozen kisses from "Mrs. Bunny" (the bunny she's had since she was born).

Come downstairs.  Collapse on the couch.  Realize I haven't had dinner.  Eat dinner cold out of the fridge.  Sit on the couch.  Write this post and set a goal of getting upstairs to start work by 8... but the couch feels so comfy.. sitting down downstairs is always a mistake.

And that is my day in one very long post!  Did anyone make it to the end?  Mom, are you still reading?