June 14, 2008

1 month old!

can't believe it. next thing i know, she'll be in kindergarten! it has been quite the month. we are now in full swing - and we're getting our routine down. she usually wakes up around 6am, and if i give her a quick feed, she'll lie quietly with me for another hour. up at 7, coffee for me. empty the dishwasher, make breakfast for cohen and lili. wake them up at 7:30. get them fed, dressed, wipe down counters and table. feed luci again. get luci into her carseat, shoes and jackets on lili and cohen. leave house at 8:30. drop cohen off, go pick up julia for 9am. take julia, lili and luci with me as i run errands - usually grocery shopping, the library, or shopping for gifts (we average a birthday party every week, this is ridiculous). today we went grocery shopping, and it didn't go as smoothly this time - the kiddy corral for lili and julia wasn't open (ack!), and luci got cranky, so i was walking around with luci in one arm, pushing the cart with the other, and asking lili and Julia to put the groceries i selected into the cart... exhausting! Anyway – after we run errands, we usually race home to drop off our treasures and i will feed luci while the girls go outside to play. Then, we’re back in the van again, off to pick up cohen at 11:45. Next, i usually send the kids downstairs so that i can make lunch. Luci usually has a prolonged nap at this time – 2 hours. While the kids are sitting down and eating, i’ll prepare a snack for the afternoon, sweep the floors, mop if it’s needed, and start getting dinner ready. When the kids are done lunch, i send them back outside to play, or if it’s rainy, i’ll put in a movie for them. Luci will wake up and while she enjoys her lunch, i’ll enjoy a cooking show or two on tv and a much needed 30 minutes off of my feet. Then she gets bouncy chair time, and i get going on the laundry. I can’t believe, by the way, how much laundry 5 people generate. I’ve started going through everyone’s dirty laundry, and if it isn’t REALLY dirty (visual dirt and/or bad smell), it goes back in the closet. Shh, don’t tell ian. I still do 1-2 loads every day. And i’m always about a load behind. Sigh. After laundry, i get the kids at the table for their afternoon snack, followed by a piano lesson for one of them and a craft for the others. We rotate days for the piano lesson, of course. Then, amazingly, it’s usually around 4:30, and we all collapse onto the sofa and watch some well-deserved cartoons while we wait for ian to get home and/or parents to come pick them up. Dinner follows, then playtime and swimming/skating/soccer/t-ball or whatever lessons that we have scheduled for that day. If ian’s home, 7:30 is ME time. I get one hour. I usually use it to take luci for a walk. I LOVE the walk. She’s quiet, i have my i-pod loaded with either classical music, 80’s tunes, power ballads or WHATEVER i want. No screaming kids. No “why, mom?”s. No pouting. No whining. If i don’t take the walk, i will typically hand off luci to ian, and take a bath. When he’s working nights, of course, i don’t get my hour. And that’s tough. I find it really difficult on those nights.

In the next few weeks, i have to start finding the time to work out 2x per week, plus 2 nights of swimming as well. I have to do it – i have to allow myself to be a priority for those times. I just can’t imagine it. I barely have time to pee these days! Sometimes i forget to feed myself lunch. I’m probably drinking too much coffee too. Well, 2 cups seems like too much!

During my walks, i’ve been doing a lot of thinking. On one hand, i am absolutely LOVING staying home with the kids. I had so much fear about whether or not i could handle it – and now i’m certain that not only can i handle it, i can do it really well, and enjoy myself too. The kids are happy, and my house is clean for the first time in years! Today i actually made BOTH banana bread AND cookies – from scratch! The thing is though – i feel like staying home for one year is only going to give me a taste of what i can do. When luci is 1 year old... that is just when it starts to get really fun and rewarding. It seems like such a tease to go back to work then. I have other options of course – i could start teaching again, and stay home. I could go back to school... i just don’t know. And i don’t want to wait to decide – because i know this year will go so quickly. It’s not even a year anymore – 11 months only!
Ohhhh what am i doing, messing with my schedule by typing this. I just realized that i have to get up at 6:30 for when j&b are dropped off in the morning. Then i have to get lili ready for her ballet recital – which i THINK is at 10am (her class is usually at 9:15 but one of the parents last week told me it’s at 10 this week), and pick up Julia. After the recital, drop Julia off, go home, wrap all of julia’s birthday presents, make lunch, wake up ian, take cohen and lili to julia’s birthday party.
Ian is off sat/sun/mon/tues – and i think i may ask for a morning off. Go see a movie by myself or something. Go sit in a hotub somewhere (ha, yeah, cause my bathing suit fits SO well).
I should be asleep. My brain is mush. I must be crazy to take on this much... but what’s really crazy is, well, i’m happier than i’ve been in a long time. I love my kids, i love my husband, i love being a mom and i can tolerate being a wife ;)


pics later. sleep now.
ps - started to write this post this morning at 9:30am. finished at 11:22pm. nice.

0 comments:

And baby makes 5 2008 © Blog Design 'Felicidade' por EMPORIUM DIGITAL 2008

Back to TOP