A Day in the Life

I love to read other people's posts about a day in their lives.  Voyeurism at its best perhaps?!  It's just interesting to me to see how people spend their time.  I've never done a similar post before, so thought now would be a good time!

I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone say to me, "I don't know how you do it."  I'm never exactly sure what "it" is, but I always assume it means work full-time and have four children because that's usually what the conversation is about.  {I'm also never sure what people think my other option is....I have the kids.  It's not like now I can stop taking care of them!  That comment always makes me giggle a little.}  

I should preface this "A Day in the Life" post by making it clear for anyone who does not know, my husband does not work.  While our stay-at-home-dad set up would definitely not work for everyone, it works well for the most part for us.  We are so fortunate to have Chris home, and I think him being with our children so much is something that is so good for them, both now and in the future.  I was fortunate enough to stay home with them (meaning the boys) for four years, and now it's Chris' turn.  It's not always easy, and sometimes I really, really wish it was me home with them still, we have made it work for four years now.  I do what I can to make things easy for him while he's home, and while there was a definite learning curve involved for both of us when he first left his job, we've gotten into a good routine.  

I tried to take as many photos throughout the day as I could, when I remembered, so here we go!  

I am, by nature, a very early riser.  I always have been.  I am the most productive in the morning.  And, by morning, I generally mean I get up at 4:00 a.m.  Yesterday Jack wet the bed and came downstairs upset at 3:00 a.m.  By the time I got him cleaned up and settled in our bed I was wide awake, so I just stayed up.

Remember when I did my juice fast and drank no caffeine?  Right, the no caffeine is out the window.  The juices remain, but the caffeine is snuggled up right next to it.  This is my favorite coffee cup.  Ridiculous, I know, but I love it.  I get mad when it's not clean.

I paid some bills, organized some of Katie's medical and school paperwork, checked my email, checked my facebook, read some blogs, looked on Pinterest for a crafty idea for a birthday gift for Jack's little friend, reviewed the calendars of the guys in my office to make sure there was nothing crazy that I was unaware of on them for the next few days, made a to-do list, and started a grocery list. 

I checked everyone's backpack to make sure there was nothing I missed the night before, repacked them, cleaned out all of the crap my little hoarder David has stored in his backpack, cleaned everyone's eyeglasses, and found everyone's shoes for the day.  (You'd think that with the cubbies under that bench the shoes wouldn't be an issue....think again.)

I started packing lunches, only to realize that Jack's lunchbox had somehow gotten wedged behind the lunchbox drawer.  See it way back there?  You can barely see the bat signal!  I figured out how to remove the drawer (which was MUCH easier than I anticipated - WIN!) and got everything reassembled.  While I was sitting on the floor up close and personal with the cabinets, I noticed how dirty they are, so I quickly cleaned the bottom row of cabinets and drawers.  Yes, this is the ridiculous stuff I do at 4:30 in the morning.

I packed lunches for David and Jack.  We had some slim pickings!  I really need to go to the grocery store, so their lunches were a bit creative.  Henry bought lunch, and Katie was home for lunch.

I took a shower and got breakfast started.  That day the children had strawberry muffins, scrambled eggs (ahem - a dozen scrambled eggs. . . good thing we have an egg connection!), and clementines.  Chris gets up around 5:30 and generally takes the dogs for a quick walk while I'm getting breakfast ready.  The big boys also started swim practice, so I packed their swim bags and got everyone's clothes out for school.  (I sometimes do this at night - it really just depends on what I have the motivation to do!)  I remembered it was picture day for Jack, so I swapped out his shirt and quickly ironed a nicer one for him.  Chris got back from walking the dogs and woke up the boys.

I got ready for work and got Katie up.  She is SO not a morning girl!  I snuggled her for a few minutes and we sang a couple of songs.  She was in a fantastic mood and was very cuddly.  I got her face washed and hair brushed, grabbed some clothes for her, and got her dressed.  (She's doing SO great with her potty training.  Is it still training if she has no accidents?  I think she's trained.)

I did one last check of everyone to make sure their teeth and hair were brushed, faces washed, clothes matched and everyone had clean underpants on.  Just trust me.  You don't check unless it's been an issue before....  

I was out the door to work at 6:45.  I live about thirty minutes from my office.

This is most of my drive.  I may see five other cars in the ten miles between my house and the interstate.  I love it.

I stopped at McDonald's for a coffee and ran through the drive thru.  When I got to the window to pay, the cashier told me the woman in front of me paid for my coffee and wanted her to tell me to have a blessed day.  That's NEVER happened to me before!  I was so excited - it's so silly to get excited about not having to pay for a $2.00 coffee, but it was more exciting to me that someone thought to do that.  I will certainly be paying that forward.

I parked in the parking garage and walked up to my office with an attorney from down the street.  I work with his office a lot and he's one of my favorites to work with.  We talked for a little while about his family and his daughter, and I headed up the street to my office.  I got to my office at 7:20.  This is my view for the day.  I love my cozy little office, and especially love the photos of my muffins hanging on the wall in front of me.  Do you stick post-it notes on your computer?  I always have a bunch.  I think that one is for a warrant I need to pull, and that little paper on the bottom of the monitor is from a goldfish bag.  It's a happy little fish named Bert, and the attorney I work for is named Bert so I had to keep it.  Like my purple chairs?! This picture doesn't accurately convey the hideousness of the color.  They're very comfortable, though exceptionally ugly.

I am almost always the first person to my office.  I get all of the lights turned on, check the fax machine to make sure nothing came in after we closed the day before, check my voicemails, print emails that need to be reviewed and filed, return emails, check voicemail, pull files for the day, do a little filing (which I am SO behind on!), and get started for my day.  Throughout the day I took and made thirty-three phone calls yesterday.  I kept track for this post, and because I was curious.  It felt like a very slow phone day, so I'm going to do it again for a couple of days to see if that's typical.  I met with a couple of clients, drafted some letters and court pleadings, emailed (fifty-seven emails. . . maybe that's why there were no phone calls!), did some bookkeeping, ate lunch at my desk, and repeated the same for the afternoon.  I got my bank deposit together and was out the door at 4:30.

I walked back down to the parking garage and headed out for the day.  At this point at home, Chris had picked the boys up from school, came home and made their snacks, started to go over homework with them, did a practice spelling test with David, and got them changed for swim.  Swim started at 4:30, so as I was leaving work the boys were getting into the pool.  Chris took Jack and Katie to the playground while the boys were at practice, mostly because Katie would be impossible to keep out of the pool.

I ran through the drive thru at the bank to make my deposit for work.  I love the girls at our bank!

I had to get the things I need for the birthday gift I'm making for Jack's friend.  It would be so much easier to just buy him a Lego set, but I won't do it.  I went to JoAnn's to get some fabric.  

It was hard for me to only buy what I needed for this project, but I did it!

Next I walked over to Dollar Tree to pick up a few more things for the gift.  I'm going to do another post about the present - it's going to be so cute!

I ran over to WalMart to pick up something for dinner for Chris and me and also to get one last piece of the present.  I also stopped in the paint section to look for a specific color that I had seen in a blog post. Guess which one it is - it's one of the ones in this photo!  I have several projects up my sleeve at home now that the weather isn't 100 degrees out and the paint would actually dry on something if I put it outside.

I picked up the rest of the things on my list and headed home.  Traffic was not great, as there was a four car accident right by the onramp to the interstate.  It took me about twenty-five minutes to go probably a quarter of a mile.

Finally I got back to the nice slow part of life!  I got home at 6:00.  The kids had already eaten, so I quickly put my things from the store away and we got ready to go out and play.

Jack went outside first and Katie wasn't happy about it.  She couldn't reach the lock we have up high on the door.  You know, to prevent her from getting out of the house when she's not supposed to!  She dragged the stool from the bathroom into the breakfast room and got up as far on her tippy toes as she could to try to unlock the door.  Moderate cognitive delay?  I don't think so.

I told her to get some shoes, so she put on her rainboots and headed out the door.  In her underpants, white shirt, and boots.  That's how we roll.

After some outside playing, we came back in and got the kids washed up.  They changed their clothes and went potty, and everyone headed up to bed.  Henry and Katie are always great about getting ready for bed when I tell them it's time.  Jack is easily distracted and needs several reminders.  David can be as slow as Christmas, especially if the television is on, and needs to be asked about 1,346,028 times.  So that television quickly got turned off.  Our kids are some early to bed children.  Chris took Katie up to bed and I brought the boys.  The boys were in tucked in their beds at 7:30 and were allowed to read for ten minutes.  I popped into Katie's room to kiss her goodnight, then came downstairs and cleaned up from the quick dinner Chris and I had.  I flipped through the mail, checked the papers the boys brought home, reviewed their agendas, packed their school bags, watered our plants, and went back up to turn off the boys' lights.  I loaded the dishwasher, cleaned up the toothpaste from the boys (seriously?  How many people brushed their teeth in there?  It looked like enough toothpaste for 17 kids.), checked my facebook and email, got my project stuff organized, checked the lunch menu for Friday and decided Henry and David can both buy lunch, and got ready for bed.  I was in bed at 9:00.  That's an early night for me, but I generally don't get up at 3:00!  Chris watched football and came to bed sometime after me - I had fallen asleep with the light on while I read in bed!  

I'm linking up with Holly and Amy!