John and I managed to get a sitter this past Saturday night so we could attend a friend's Christmas party. John has a super co-worker that likes to do the job for us and she only asks for payment in dinner. How incredible is that? Anyway, good party, couple of drinks, nice to see old friends I hardly ever get to see anymore. Wish we could have stayed longer or had more drinks, but we all know what that means in a world with small children. While at the party I was asked many times how things are going (very well, thank you), and a couple of times people wanted to know what a typical day was like for us. This one was a little harder to answer. I don't think I've ever gone through an entire day moment by moment, so here goes...
6:45am I wake hopefully on my own, maybe due to babies talking, and hop in the shower. John gets up 5 or 10 minutes later and starts good mornings with Sam and Will and gets them into new diapers.
7:00-7:15am Nurse both babies together. Lillian usually wakes from commotion and John gets her diaper taken care of and starts a TV show for her. Gotta love DVR!
7:15am John showers and gets ready for work. I finish feeding boys and move them to the living room.
7:45am John and Lilli eat, sometimes I can join them, sometimes I have to wait, sometimes I have to feed babies, and on rare days we can all eat together
8:00am John leaves, if he's on time, and I am on my own. Gasp!
8:15am Finish breakfast, clean up Lilli, Sam, Will, the table, put everything away, get all babes down from their chairs and head to the living room floor. At this point the kids are clean, but I am usually covered in some type of food which I will wear for the rest of the day.
8:30-9:15am This would be when we try to all play on the floor for a while. I also change the babies into their day clothes and try to get the two year old to agree to wearing daytime clothes as well. What usually ends up happening is I end up going from one kid to the next changing poopy diapers for an hour straight. This morning for example, I think I had changed (with John's help at wake up time) at least 4 poops by this time. And a compromise was made with Miss Lillian - You can wear your Dora pj's all day if you choose, but that means you cannot wear them again to bed this evening. So Dora's now or Dora's later? Dora's now of course.
9:15-9:30am Get babies down for nap. If its a good one they will sleep until 10:30 or 10:45. During this time Lilli and I might color, play puzzles, watch Sesame Street, or do some type of craft if I'm in the mood.
10:45am Boys are up and play in excersaucers for 15 minutes while I start to get lunch prepared. Early I know, but this is the only way it works.
11:00-11:15am Nurse both boys at the same time. Lillian watches a DVR'd episode of Word World. Sometimes this feeding will go until 11:30ish as the boys like to lollygag.
11:15-11:40ish I can now leave the boys on the floor, either sitting or laying, and they will play contently for a while. Lilli finishes her show while I get lunch finished and on the table.
11:45 or Noon We all try to eat together. At first I was waiting until they nap to eat my own lunch, but really, its PB&J or leftovers for me most of the time, I can eat that and feed two babies, its not rocket science. Its not very enjoyable, but its nourishment.
12:30pm I clean up the kitchen if I can while the babies play on the floor again. Most of the time they start to fuss or Lillian gets quite needy at this point. So I usually can only get leftover food into the fridge and trash into the can before I have to sit and hold babies and play whatever I can possibly play that is quiet and entertaining to Lilli.
1:00 - 2:30pm I get all 3 kids, if possible, to listen to a book or two. Sometimes babies are too fussy or sometimes Lilli doesn't want books. Lilli will sometimes even sleep until 3. Or sometimes she will be up at 1:45 because her brothers woke screaming and there is no way to stop them or ignore them. Today it was a bit of both. The boys woke after HALF AN HOUR, cried for a little until I finally decided they were not going to get back to sleep. They did not wake Lilli today. This sucked for me though because I was actually trying to nap while they did today. I had chills and a fever - some sort of flu I guess. Regardless, the half hour nap thing is about to send me over the deep end some days. Then other days they will nap until 2:30.
If the boys wake early, I try to keep them occupied and not screaming until Lilli wakes up. Some days this is really, really hard because holding them at the same time is hard, and until recently, it was nearly impossible. And sometimes not even this calms them down. If they wake early and are crying, they are downright pissed, and there is no relief until I nurse them at 3pm. And no, they are not mad because they are hungry, I can guarantee it. The nursing at 3pm sometimes only lasts a few minutes, but the act calms them, nourishing or not.
3:00-3:15pm Nurse the boys for snack time. Lilli watches another show and will get her snack after the boys nurse.
3:15-4:30pm I play with the kids. This can be hard some days and not so bad on others. It really depends on how everyone slept and who might need more attention - the babies or the two year old. If everyone took a good nap, and the weather was nice, this might have been when we would take a walk or go to a local park. In the cold we go nowhere. I have yet to leave the house to any other venue with all 3 of them by myself. It 100% freaks me out. I have a hard enough time leaving the house with just Sam and Will. If I add Lilli to the mix, I might end up on the evening news as the lady that lost her baby in a Target.
4:30pm If the babies took short naps I try to put them down again for a cat nap. Today they cried for 30 minutes. It was awesome. Then one of them slept for about 20 minutes and I have no idea if the other one slept at all. I also try to get dinner started at this time, if I have not already done this during the 1pm nap.
5:00-5:30pm I wait in anticipation for my husband (and help) to get home. Sometime ago we started giving the boys a bottle at this time to get them used to formula and to learn to hold their own bottles. Its working.
6:00pm Dinner and clean up. Most of the time John or I or both of us are holding a crying, overtired (not for lack of trying!) baby.
6:45pm Start babies' baths or bedtime ritual if no bath. Try to wrangle the now crazy two year old and plop her into the tub as well.
7:00-7:15pm Feed babies. As of yesterday, I am weaning them from this feeding. It is sad. It is a hard one to let go of because its very relaxing and sweet for everyone involved (except maybe John who has to chase a naked two year old around the house to get her pj's on). I wanted to wean this feeding first though for a couple of reasons, mostly selfish ones. I want to go out to dinner with my friends from time to time, and the babies need to get used to someone else putting them to bed once in a while. Not to mention the fact that they both have teeth now and have taken up biting me. Not pleasant.
So up until yesterday John was always on Lilli bedtime duty while I fed the boys. Now we have switched in order to get the boys used to taking a bedtime feeding from someone other than me. The first night we had to put Mr. Will down without food. He refused the bottle (but remember he just ate at 5:30 and is not starving - this is what I had to tell myself over and over again...). But tonight they both took the bottles from Dad no problem. One day we will be able to sit them next to us, read a book while they hold their own milk! The beginning of self sufficiency is a thing of beauty.
So that's it in a very, very tight nutshell. I don't deviate much from this schedule. We run a tight ship around here, we have to.
We had the boys 6 month doctor visit and we've been decorating the house for Christmas, so I will hopefully get to those updates next...
