The first Day in the Life Guest Post follows!
I am a mother of two beautiful, energetic, happy, exhausting girls ages 3 ½ and 10 months. I work as a consultant 3 days a week and I am at home with my daughters the other two days. I look forward to my two days at home with my daughters, but they are definitely “harder” than the days I am at work.
A typical day at home with my daughters starts around 6:30 a.m. I try to get up and shower before my youngest is awake and before my husband leaves for work. My youngest wakes up around 7 a.m. The three of us have breakfast together while my husband gets ready for work. He leaves around 7:30 a.m.
The morning is usually one of favorite times because I love eating breakfast (it is the one thing I can actually cook successfully!) and everyone is happy and excited for the day. We usually have pancakes or French toast but sometimes I try to mix it up by making scrambled eggs. We take our time in the morning- eating, talking, listening to music and dancing. After breakfast we have some play time and get dressed.
My youngest goes down for a nap around 9 to 9:30 a.m. Even though I try hard to limit TV time for my oldest, she LOVES TV, so I usually let her watch a show or two while my youngest naps and I get ready for the day or do some cleaning. Super Why and Word World are our favorites right now. I try to make myself feel less guilty knowing that she is watching something that is helping her with letters and reading.
Then comes rush time… my oldest does gymnastic one day and swimming the other day. No matter how early I start getting ready we always seem to be late. We must get my youngest up for her nap, bottle ready, snack for the oldest, oldest on the potty, shoes and jackets and finally out the door. After gymnastics/swimming we rush home to have lunch. I try to make the lunch earlier in the day so we can sit down and eat right when we get home. Lately it has been peanut butter and jelly for my oldest and I have started eating it too because it is just easier to make two at once. My youngest is still eating baby food and then will pick at some table food.
We rush through lunch because a physical therapist comes to our house to work with my youngest right after lunch. We discovered that my youngest had a stroke at or right before birth, and she is not able to fully use her left arm, hand and leg at this point. She is a left side hemiplegic. She has been getting physical therapy twice a week and we are seeing progress. She recently started sitting up and rolling over- we are so proud of her! The therapy session is about 45 minutes and is equivalent to an adult doing 45 minutes of cardio, so my youngest is usually pretty tired afterwards. She will then take her afternoon nap while my oldest and I have some special alone time. We might do Play-Doh, coloring, reading, cooking, puzzles, games.
My youngest will wake up by 3, have her bottle and then the three of us might go for a walk or run some errands. We start getting ready for dinner around 4:30 and my husband is home around 5:30. Then we have usually eaten and cleaned up by 6. Then it is play time, bath time, get ready for bed and stories. My husband usually puts my oldest to bed while I put my youngest to bed since I am still breastfeeding her at night. If all goes well, both girls are in bed asleep by 7:30. Phew! Then my husband and I have a couple hours to ourselves, which I usually spend doing work, catching up on email, doing laundry, going for a walk or maybe even relaxing every once in a while. Then it is in bed by 10:30 or 11. Love it!
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