What Do You Do All Day?

Fair warning- this is a very long post. Make sure you have time to read it. Start by clicking on the article to view larger, then read what I have to say about that. I promise it's just fun. If you want to write about your day and how it looks and then link in the comments, feel welcome to. I know that we all have very different looking days.


One of the ladies at my MOPS table sent this to me today. It's nice, but I think that she didn't really give enough insight into what goes on during my days, so the reader could be left thinking that it was just another blanket answer to the question she had rather than what she was looking for. So- for the lady that wanted to know what goes on in the day of a mom, here is an overview of my life.

7 am (on the good days)- Kids wake up. Curly gets her Kix and milk after changing her diaper into panties and you might think that would be easy. It takes about fifteen minutes. She wriggles and gets distracted a lot.

7:15 am- Start feeding Smiles. I would say to get both sides done takes about 20 minutes or so (since you don't have children, lady in the paper, I will remind you that when you breastfeed a baby you have two sides to take care of. ) Then change his diaper and clothe him, which is much faster because he is too small to participate. This makes things much easier.

7:50 am- Put Smiles on the floor to play with sister for a minute so that I can go to the bathroom and get coffee started.

7:55 am- Pour coffee into cup and head back to the kids (our house is very open, so I am able to watch her with him the whole time...other than the bathroom...we do have SOME privacy, though usually Curly follows me there too)

7:57 am- Take Curly to go potty.

8:00 am- Conversations with Curly. They are sweet, but often LONG because she is like her uncle N. in the fact that it takes her like three hours to say absolutely nothing. Ummm, uhhh... or perhaps starting the same sentence six times (NOT exaggerating there) because she has such long thoughts that her brain forgets what the point was when she started. Then she starts all over again.

8:45 am- Yes, that time flew and I am wondering where the last forty five minutes are because that conversation COULD NOT have taken THAT long! I take a minute to call my Mommy. It's part of the morning routine. Usually she will appease me for a bit knowing that she is probably the only adult conversation that I will have until 5 to 6 pm when Handsome calls to tell me he is on his way home.

9:05 am- Take Curly potty.

9:30 am- I figure out that I am going to need to shower some time and that Smiles is half an hour late for his nap. I put him down and sacrifice my hygiene for another hour because the, probably childless, people who designed our house put his bedroom smack between our bathroom shower and the laundry room. While he is sleeping I can not shower or clean the clothes. When can I do them you ask? Well, you tell me. We just wear dirty clothes and don't wash ourselves much.

While Smiles sleeps- Curly and I read sometimes. Sometimes I do some of the dishes that we made last night. Often I check e-mail and do my blog reading...sometimes the writing too. Sanity time. Curly is a great individual time type of kid. I hear that lots of kids need entertainment a lot of the time they are awake. I am blessed with a girl that likes to play by herself sometimes. She likes to be in the room with me, but often that is enough.

Unless I am on the phone.

10:15 am- Take Curly potty.

10:30 am- Smiles wakes up. We change his diaper. I feed him (two sides, remember? you're learning!) He gets some play time in the exersaucer, which he LOVES. We play some music or sing songs on our own. I try to get a load of laundry in, but some thing gets in the way. It goes by super fast!

10:30 am- Take Curly potty.

10:47 am- I actually get to take a 5 minute shower. Curly with Letter Factory (children's DVD) and Smiles in his swing. They are safe from the dog and each other.

11:00 am- Lunch time. Curly usually likes to make herself a Peaner Jelly sandwich. It requires lots of help and some clean up, but it makes her feel independent and she loves it. She eats that along with her other food which is different depending on the day, while Smiles has himself some big boy food too. THAT is a mess and requires lots of cleaning.

12:00 pm- Yep, that's right. I didn't skip time on you there. I can't speak for everyone else with children, but mine eat SLOW. Like molasses. In the winter. Smiles, well he is a little faster, but he will chew on the washcloth that I wiped his face with for quite some time. We talk during that time or whatever. Often I will use lunch time to try and get a couple of things done too. Usually the remaining dishes, folding laundry, going to the bathroom, stuff like that.

Anyway, noon means start getting them down for nap. Put a diaper on Curly for nap and put her into bed. That takes about 15 to 30 minutes depending. It's always different. "I need my water." "I can't sleep with a pony tail in!" tears falling like tumbling down a flight of stairs (it gets worse as each second goes by). I will spare you more details.

Smiles fights it too. By the time I am done putting them both down for nap, it's half over already!

1 pm- I eat lunch. I have a little computer time. I read most of the time, sometimes I take a short nap if the night before had multiple wakings by crying children needing something.

1:30 or 2 pm- One or both are waking up. Curly is a grumpy guss when she wakes up. It takes her about half an hour to come around. Smiles always wakes up HAPPY! That's where he gets his name. He is an absolute JOY when he wakes up. So...I end up showering Curly with snuggles for a little while so that she can wake up and get those grumps out.

I change the diapers and give them each drinks. Curly gets hers in a cup. Smiles, well you get that drill by now. We play for a couple of minutes before Smiles goes down for another nap.

2:15 pm- Take Curly potty.

2:20 pm- Leave the bathroom to shortly after notice the "pee pee" dance happening.

2:25 pm- Take Curly potty.

3 pm- Smiles goes down for his final nap. Curly and I play a game or do some type of learning activity together. She loves her alone time, even though she adores her brother.

3:50 pm- Smiles wakes up. We take Curly potty.

4:00 pm- Feed Smiles while Curly plays by herself.

4:15 pm- Get the kids involved in something so that I can start dinner.

4:30 pm- Cook dinner.

5:00 pm- Feed the kids dinner.

5:30 pm- Start getting Smiles ready for bed.

5:45 pm- Get Curly ready for bed.

5:55 pm- Feed Smiles on both sides and then put him in bed.

6:15 pm- Read to Curly and put her in bed with Daddy who got home about 5 minutes ago.

6:30 or 7 pm- leave Curly's room.

This is when I am free of children for the night, MUCH earlier than most mommies. If it's not a day when Daddy was home for dinner, we eat at this point. I like to eat with him so that he feels like he is part of the family too. By 8 pm we are usually finished with eating and cleaning a few of the dishes, leaving plenty for tomorrow of course. Then I have no brain. Seriously. It's like, "What is it that I do now?" And then I just do the routine things that naturally happen. No deep thought involved, just spend some time at the computer because that's where my mind likes to process, talk and spend time with Handsome, and read a bit.

At 10 pm I wake Smiles if he hasn't already asked to eat (that would mean crying if you didn't catch that since you obviously know nothing about children, lady in the paper). He eats. I sleep. I wake up the next morning to do it all again.

This example was a day with NO grocery shopping, NO library visits, NO play dates. NOTHING. Smiles DID NOT poop with the force of a volcano (insert imagery here) while in public with no spare clothes because I left the house in a hurry and therefore had to take them off him and bring him home in a diaper and sweater (lucky for me he still has blankets all the time). *big breath*

So you see, though your life is busy and difficult (because we all have to deal with what we are given and each of us has difficult things in our day), your friend with children who doesn't make time for you is a different kind of busy. When she goes to the grocery store, she is still at work. You, my dear, are not. And when she gets those few moments to herself, she may just forget that she hasn't called you in awhile. She very well may have forgotten her name. It really happens people. I swear, sometimes it really happens.