A Day In The Life!

Yesterday I was supposed to post A Day in the Life. But that day in my life was pretty much stinkin’ crazy, so I decided today to do a regular “day in the life”, complete with actual pictures to document what a day in my life looks like.

Here’s a couple bullet points before we begin:

• I’m a stay at home Mom. Best job ever. Most days
• I have a 15 month old daughter, Tera. And a 2 month old foster daughter who we call “Little Miss” online.
• My husband is an EMT and works 24 hour shifts at a local fire department. He then has 48 hours off, which is GREAT when he isn’t sleeping ;). We have a crazy rotational schedule, so even though this is a Wednesday, it’s pretty much like a Saturday for us.
• Each day is different for me, depending on if Theo is home to help me. On the days that Theo is at work for a long stretch of time, I don’t usually accomplish nearly as much as I did on this particular day!

Let’s begin!

Technically, my day began at 4:17 am when Little Miss woke up for her first feeding. It usually takes 20 minutes to an hour. This particular time it only take 15 minutes to feed her, then a diaper change and then she began screaming. And screaming. And screaming. Which lasted quite a while, until Theo took her and held her on his chest.

7:30 am and I’m up for the day, letting Theo sleep in while he still holds Little Miss. I know Tera will be up soon, so I want to get up before the rest of the household and have my “me time”.

So much for “me time!” The demands have already started! This is Moose and he LOVES food.

I feed Moose and make some tea, then sit down in the quiet of my home to do my devos. I also have my daily planner on hand to jot down all those things that pop into my head that I need to get done that day.

Around 8, I go up to get Tera! She is a great sleeper now, but she certainly gave us a run for our money for the first 8 months of her life. I thought she would never sleep. Going into her room in the morning is one of my favorite parts of the day!!!

I change Tera’s diaper and she throws it in the trash can for me. I hear Little Miss wake up and start screaming, but Theo gets up with her and feeds her.

Meanwhile, downstairs Tornado Tera has already pulled all the shoes off the shoe shelf and has moved onto her bookshelf. I browse social media while she destroys the downstairs.

Little Miss is crying again, so I go upstairs to take her while Theo sleeps in. With his work schedule, he needs all the sleep he can get. I change both their diapers (Tera, again). It’s 8:30 am and I’ve already changed three diapers (not counting that one in the middle of the night).

It’s breakfast time! Oatmeal for me, and an egg for Tera. Little Miss hangs out in her bouncy seat and is finally content. No crying! Yay!!! And yes, I know I’m not supposed to put the bouncy seat on the counter. But I think that the risks of it being on the counter are less than the risks that my 15 month old can inflict.

I also throw all the bottles in the sink to wash, and tidy up the living room while Tera is destroying the kitchen.

Breakfast!

After breakfast, I run upstairs and get Theo up to watch the girls and get Tera dressed while I jump in the shower and get myself ready. 15 minutes later, I’m out the door with Tera to run errands. We headed first to WIC and then to the YMCA to look into a membership. I left Little Miss with Theo…and she cried the entire time I was gone.

We got back just in time to say goodbye to Daddy while he went off to dump leaves at the dump and do other yard work. Since Little Miss was finally sleeping and loves car rides, he took her with him.

I rinsed off Tera’s cloth diapers with the outside hose and then threw them into the wash.

I then laid Tera down for her nap and decided to tackle the disaster that is our bedroom. It’s now around 11.

I put on a show (HGTV for the win!) while folding the massive amounts of laundry that needed to be folded and put away.

An hour later…much, much better.

I sit down to write some thank you notes and birthday cards just in time for Theo to get back with Little Miss (who is still content and happy!! *Praise hands!*)

NOT crying! Poor thing has had a TOUGH life already, and she is only 2 months old. She is a beautiful girl and we are so, so thankful for her in our lives. We are so thankful for everything that she has taught us and that we get to play a role in her life, even though we have no clue how long that role will be. Sometimes I forget to keep all this in mind when it has been days and weeks of pure screaming and crying, but it is something that I need to remind myself of on a minute-by-minute basis.

Theo makes lunch while I go get Tera because she actually never ended up falling asleep. She was talking and playing and occasionally crying, so I decided we aren’t going to fit in two naps today! We are transitioning between one and two naps, and it makes our schedule a little bit insane some days!

Tera and I go check the mail because I don’t want her to discover peaceful Little Miss in her carseat and gouge her eyes out. And yes, when I changed her diaper I completely forgot to button that darn onesie!

Back inside and I feed Little Miss a bottle while Tera plays with the carseat.

Sweet hands.

Little Miss gets a diaper change and is finally dressed for day. About 2 minutes after this diaper and outfit change, she poops.

We eat our grilled cheese, carrots and cucumbers while catching up on an episode of The Amazing Race. Little Miss loves to be in her bouncy seat, so she is sitting right next to Theo while we all eat lunch. She so desperately wants to be around people, and starts crying immediately when everyone leaves the room.

Around 1:30, Theo lays Tera down for try #2 on nap #1, while I clean up from lunch and change Little Miss again. I’ve lost track of how many diapers I’ve already changed.

I run downstairs, hang up the diaper covers, throw the inserts into the dryer and grab another load of laundry out of the dryer and take it upstairs to fold.

Little Miss started crying again, and in the 10 minutes that I was doing the laundry chore it has reached panic decibels. I know she is exhausted, so I swaddle her and give her a pacifier. I hold her and she stops crying, so I lay her down. SCREAMING begins again. So I pick her up and this time try to rock her/sway her/sing her to sleep. Her screaming increases in intensity and her body is as stiff as a board.

I have to admit, I get so very frustrated when absolutely nothing I can do can make her stop screaming. I hate that I can’t bring her comfort and that her life is so difficult and hard for her. I also selfishly just hate all the screaming and crying. She has now been crying for over an hour straight and I’m at the end of my rope.

Theo gets home and I almost cry from relief. He tries to get Little Miss to sleep with the same results. Just screaming. The problem is that she is SO tired. It’s been hours since she slept and hours of screaming. Her crying has woken Tera up, so she only got a 30 minute nap in. I’m frustrated, I’m feeling really stressed and I’m trying very hard not to lose it. So I decide to take Tera and go for a run. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and I wanted to spend some of it outside!

2 miles later, Tera and I were much happier girls, but unfortunately Little Miss still hadn’t gotten herself sorted. When I got back from my run, I was walking up the driveway and could her her crying all the way across our yard.

I stretched on the floor while Tera played and threw her books at me to read 2 words and then move onto the next book. Theo finally had Little Miss fall asleep, Hallelujah! Poor, sweet thing.

I swept the floor while Tera pulled everything out of my purse, off the coffee table and off the couches.

We decided to lay Tera down for another late nap since she only had a 30 minute one after lunch. Tera’s down, Little Miss is content being held  and fed by Theo (she loooves Theo) and I have a chance to work on my blog a little!

Theo got a nice bonus for mowing someone’s lawn AND we paid off our credit card today, so we decided to go out to celebrate at TGI Friday’s. We rarely eat out, so this is always such a treat and makes my day a whole lot easier when I don’t have to make dinner or clean up the mess!

Once we got home, I sorted through a bunch of Little Miss’ paperwork as well as washing the dishes and getting Tera ready for bed, while Theo fed and bathed Little Miss and helped me clean up all the items that Tera has strewn across the house. I can’t stand going to bed with an untidy house, so I always try to spend a couple minutes each evening doing the dishes, clearing off the table and tidying up. It makes my mornings go so much better when I do that!

And then it’s bedtime at 8! Tera has been exhausted since this whole time change thing and she is always more than ready for bed. What a trooper!

After putting Tera down at 8, Theo and I usually crawl into bed ourselves and watch a show on the laptop. Little Miss usually has her fussy time right around then, but once she works it out of her system she usually conks out so peacefully. She may be really hard to handle during the day, but she does really great at night. She usually only wakes up once and *usually* goes right back to sleep after that feeding! We are so thankful for that!

Theo is out by 10 since he has to be up at 5:30 for work (and a straight 24 hours after that!). I stay up a little bit later reading or blogging, feeding Little Miss her “dream feed” and just finally, finally having a little bit of “me time”. It’s been a long day and I’m exhausted. The days are indeed long. But the years are indeed short.