A Day in Our Life: 3 kids, 2 Weeks In

I thought it would be interesting to track a day in our life as we find a new rhythm all over again. I'm editing it after the fact, but this was one full day in our life after two weeks as a new family of 5!

6:30 a.m. - On a typical day I get up to shower and get dressed in clean clothes. 

Most days I just put on a fresh pair of pjs and do my hair and makeup. When we don't have plans to leave the house, this is enough to help me feel energized. I feel so much better when I do that much as compared to the days when I don't. When I don't I feel sluggish and grungy. 

8:40 am - Breakfast

I generally get started on breakfast at about 7:15 ish and have it ready before the boys are up.  When they do wake (between 7:30 and 8 a.m. ) I ordinarily get them dressed and put a fresh diaper on Adrian before having breakfast. Today ran a little later because they played with daddy a little first. Notice Mac is still in pjs which (as I said isn't usually the case.)

Ava fits into the routine fairly well. She is usually ready to nurse at the same time as the boy are having breakfast 

I munch in between tasks, but I try and sit with the boys for breakfast when the opportunity is there. 

9:00 am - by now breakfast is done. Mac knows how to clean himself up after breakfast so he took himself to do that as usual. He asked to hold "baby sister". How could I say no?

I sat and helped Adrian finish up his breakfast before getting him cleaned up and helping Mac brush his teeth and get dressed.

9:30 am boys play while I clean. 

Aaron pitched in and vacuumed the entire living area so I could jump on the kitchen. 

My normal habit is to unload the dishwasher so that I can just load up the dirty dishes as they accumulate throughout the day rather than face a huge pile at the end of the day. That is what I did on this particular day, but sometimes I don't get to it and on those days I am really stressed.

 

10:27 am. Sometime around 10:30 (on this day it was 10:27 so I guess I got really specific there) Adrian will go down for his first nap. 

He sometimes cries himself to sleep, but most often he does down without a peep. 

On this particular day he cried and Aaron mistook the cries as a sign that he was done napping and took him out of bed. I was surprised to see him toddle into the front room and also noted that he was too reenergized to try and put back down so we skipped the morning nap. 

 

Adrian's nap time is usually Mac's snack and preschool time, so Adrian just hung out while we did preschool.

 

11:30 am - preschool time usually lasts a max of 30 minutes. After that I give Mac free time. This is the time when I start lunch and/or nurse Ava. 

 

The boys played together for a short while.

Then Mac requested to watched an episode of Dinosaur Trains, so daddy set him up.

12:30 - lunch time. I got lunch made and served right on time. 

Then more cleaning while they play in their room.

Notice a pattern yet? Make a meal, serve a meal, clean up a meal, repeat - the life of a mommy!

I try to be all cleaned up from lunch by 1:30. It always varies but I do have loose goals set to help keep me on course. 

1:10 p.m. - This is the time of day when I try to tackle a major chore versus the usual tidying I have to do throughout the rest of the day. 

On this day, the boys were playing. Ava was sleeping, so I started diaper laundry and sorted the rest of the laundry. 

 

Once my task was complete, I helped the boys clean their room. Then we read stories and got ready for naptime!

2:20 p.m. - boys naptime. Ava nurses at this time and I watch a show (or part of one anyway).

 

 

 

After nursing her, I take the time to do a task that I wasn't able to do while they were all awake such as folding a load of laundry or cleaning the boys bathroom.  If I'm lucky I can also get in some dinner prep.

 

 

4:00 p.m. - When the boys get up, I will take them out for a walk or just to play ball outside.  Mac is still working on pedaling his bike so we do that too.

 

5:30 p.m. - Bath time. I let the boys play outside for an hour to an hour and a half a day.  I'm sure they could use more, but this is all I can manage while still getting everything done that needs to be done. While they play in the tub I make dinner.  I have a clear shot of them from the kitchen and I check on them regularly.

 

6:30 p.m. - Dinner. That's basically self explanatory.

 

7:00 p.m. - Bedroom playtime while I clean the kitchen from dinner.

 

7:30 p.m. - Bedroom clean up and story time.

 

8:00 p.m. - Brush teeth (both boys now) then sings songs in bed.

 

By 8:30 p.m. I am out of the room and they usually (knock on wood) fall asleep by 9 p.m. (Adrian usually is asleep within 5 minutes, Mac takes time to wind down).

 

For the rest of the night, I try to get major cleaning done or work on laundry and prep for the next day.  Most of what I do during the day is just maintenance and upkeep so the real deep cleaning happens at night.

 

When I'm done with whatever task I have chosen to do on any given evening I will either shower or watch a show with Aaron (or both) and of course I nurse Ava off and on throughout the evening until she finally goes down for several hours which is usually around 10-11 p.m.

 

Then I go to bed and get ready to do it all over again the next day.

 

I will probably do another of these soon as I am now back to work and this will have been my first full week back.