Wednesday 9 October 2013

A day in the life: A toddler and expecting (i.e. me!)



I'm wanting to do a 'day in the life' series, after seeing it on another blog and thinking it was a really good idea. Basically my plan is to get mothers from families different from mine to write about what they do in a day. It made sense to start with mine, so here it is (in all it's pretty dull detail!). The frog and I have started a new routine, so I'm attempting to get certain things into our day. See how I succeed (or don't!) on a normal monday.

0840 Mr K. late for work as he's slept in. Usually the frog acts as an alarm clock so we're all running behind today. I get the boy up and downstairs for some TV time while I wait for my sickness to pass.

0930 Get the frog some breakfast - oatmeal and frozen berries. It's shopping day so there's an embarrassing lack of anything in the house

1000 Brush teeth, make beds and upstairs pick up. Load of laundry.

1015 Playtime. I catch up on Masterchef while the frog plays, trying to get rid of residual nausea.

1045 Song time. We get half-way through 'happy and you know it' when the boy gets bored.

1046 Blanket time. I'll do a post about this soon, but it is going well.

1047 Learning time. We read some books, play with his cups while doing numbers, colours and Afrikaans. Animal sounds are thrown in there somewhere.

1100 (Has all that only taken up 15 minutes!) Another playtime while I, yet again, sit on the couch with the TV. Sickness is struggling to pass today.

1130 This is usually snack-time but again, no food in the house (stale Cheerios offer a tide-over. Talk about bad mama moment). Frog is showing definite signs of being tired so I take him upstairs, book, song, prayer and bed.

1230 Let me be clear - bed does not mean sleep. I go in every 5 minutes to check on the boy, who is desperately tired but can't give it up. Some of the time he is screaming murder, some of the time just singing to himself. In between rushes to his room I finish off an essay and do some blogging.

1300 Frog finally asleep. I have lunch and a cup of tea, which curbs the sickness. I then do my weekly schedule, which includes updating my diary and calendar, writing my meal and shopping list, character quality and completing my weekly family binder. Quick clean of the kitchen and another rest on the couch.

1500 The frog is up - it's been a long and very welcome nap. He has lunch (last piece of bread and cheese spread) and we read the character quality for this week. I speak to my mam on the phone and put that laundry in the tumble dryer. The frog and I have some cuddle time on the sofa with a bottle of milk - I love those moments.

1700 We play for a few hours, watch some TV and have some outside time (by that I mean he plays on the patio, his sleepsuit tucked into his little shoes while I sit on the step). Tantrum when I get him back inside. We both get dressed (did I mention I'm still in my loungers at this point too?) and wait for Mr K to come home.

1745 I make the mistake of telling the frog that Papa will be home soon - cue running to the window and then having a meltdown when he's not there. 15 minutes of crying and flaying arms when I try to comfort him (there's even a bite thrown in for good measure - sometimes 'papa's boy' is much less charming than it sounds).

1800 Mr K gets home and we all go grocery shopping. Usually I do this in the day but I'm struggling to push the trolley at the moment and it was going to be a bigger shop than normal.

1845 Shopping done - armed with a shopping list, a helpful husband and content toddler it went very smoothly. We put away the shopping and start dinner.

1945 We eat mac and cheese with tomato, pancetta and breadcrumbs - a new and pretty successful recipe - clean plates all around, hubby and I talk briefly about our days.

2010 The frog has his bath and goes to bed (it's a late night for him and we're hoping for a quick-to-sleep).

2040 Nope. And the back-and-forth to his room begins, complete with two full-blown breath holding incidents (he's mostly grown out of them but when he gets especially upset he holds his breath until he passes out. Unfortunately for us that passing out didn't lead to sleep!).

2250 Sleeping. Oh so finally, sleeping. It was an especially long bedtime tonight - usually it takes about half that time. Husband and I watch Star Wars in bed (something I should have mentioned: we're geeks. There's no two way about it).

2305 Asleep myself.

Was this an average day? I guess it was. 6 out of my 8 daily chores done, week set up nicely with the weekly schedule complete. I watched too much TV, but on these sick days I'm willing to let it slide. Plus I know we're out all day tomorrow, so it'll even out.

Good day? Actually it mostly was - difficult evening but I got plenty sleep the night before and was in a pretty positive mood, as was the frog. We played and got some housework done, and had a little family time in the evening, even if it was in Asda.

Exciting day? No. But if there's one thing I'm learning it's that not every day as a mother is going to be exciting. Laundry has to be done, toddlers fight sleep and the groceries have to be put away. None of that is particularly exciting, and some of it can be downright boring (and difficult). In fact the best advice I've heard recently is that not all of motherhood has to be enjoyable - that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong, or even that you've got a bad attitude. It just means that not all of it is pleasant, as we all well know.

So, I want to hear about your average day. Coming next in the series is a post I'm really excited about, written by my very own sister (the likely housewife) -  A Day in the Life: 5, 4 and twin 1 year-olds. If you'd like to be the following Day in the Life guest blogger, please get in touch. No day is too dull or too 'normal' - I want to hear about your normal.

2 comments:

  1. I'm pretty excited to write about a normal day in my life - not hugely different from what you do.

    ReplyDelete