Since I have become a mom, 4 looooong years age, my life has greatly changed. I’ve had to learn skills that I never thought necessary, like how to simultaneously cook oatmeal, talk on the phone, and bounce an infant on one hip.
Not to mention, my husband and I have served in ministry, led a home group once a week, met with couples, and discipled younger people. Then, about 6 months ago, I decided to start blogging. Yeah, awesome (insert sarcasm)! Diapers, potty seats, Bible studies, cleaning, ministry, and everything else wasn’t enough. I wanted to add more to my plate. ‘Cause you know the expression, “If it ain’t broke… then break it!”
Everyday of my life is fascinating, enthralling, hilarious, and yet, somehow, painfully like the day before it. For those of you who care–care how I manage to feed two small people three times a day (plus snacks), clean my house, write 5 posts a week, disciple 2 women, and maintain a rocking marriage, all while balancing a pile of plates on top of my head and riding a tricycle… here you go. Here is a day in the life–of me…
6:50 a.m. My alarm clock, I mean my son, gently awakens me… no, wait, abruptly awakens me with the sounds of him calling from his room, “Mama! Mama!”
6:53 a.m. I lay in bed, trying to ignore my son’s calls and go back to sleep, while the list of all I need to do today fills my head.
7:15 a.m. I’m up. Yes, I let him wait in his room that long. My son is up. My daughter is up. My husband, not so much.
7:15-8:30ish a.m. I stumble to the kitchen and make breakfast. Or more like, I put out a bowl of dry cereal and tell my kids to snack on it, while I check the computer and put up my daily blog post. Later, I return to the kitchen and whip up breakfast, a healthy, nutritious, balanced, breakfast free from all preservatives and processed food. Oh wait, that’s Betty Crocker, not me. Sometimes I get us confused. Somewhere in there, I get us all dressed and ready for the day. Man, I’m gooood.
8:30ish-9:30ish a.m. I don’t know exactly what my kids do during this time. I think they watch cartoons sometimes, or run around outside, or play in their rooms, effectively pulling out every. Single. Toy. They. Own. Meanwhile, I ignore screams coming from the other side of the house, and begin my daily social media barrage. I tweet. I Facebook. I maybe tweet again. I ignore more crying. I respond to comments on MR. I comment on other blogs. I yell across the house, “Be kind, you two!”
9:30ish–hopefully just before nap time. During this time of day, I systematically set out to exhaust my children, so as to guarantee an excellent nap time experience. On bad days, we run errands (also know as a form of torture for any mom). On good days, we play with other kids and I see other moms, or we visit the park, or we attend morning Bible study, or we hang out with family. Either way, come 1:30, a slight smile stretches across my face, the heavens part, the birds sing, and I say the words that mean so much, “Kids, it’s nap time.” Ahhh… oh yeah, and we eat lunch sometime in there, too.
1:30-2:15 p.m. I enter my daughter’s room, on average 3 times, threatening to “get her” each time if she does not close her eyes, and be quiet.
2:16-4:00ish p.m. I pass out. I mean, I sit at my computer and hopefully write an entire post, but more likely a partial post. I tweet. I Facebook. I respond to comments. I visit J. Crew online. I read other blogs. Then I pass out.
4:05ish-5:30ish p.m. I hear coming from my son’s room, once again, “Mama! Mama!” I retrieve my children from their rooms. They wake up either cranky or splendid. I never know what I’m going to get. Cranky kids watch cartoons. Splendid kids play outside. After an infusion of peanut butter and graham crackers, we do crafts, or color, or play games. We read books. Dance. Act goofy. I probably check this here blog thingy and tweet once or twice, too. I also pull out a recipe and stare at it for a while, deciding if it is worth making, or if ordering a pizza would be just the ticket.
5:30ish p.m. This is my second favorite part of the day (besides nap time, obviously). My husband walks in the door. “Honey, I’m home,” he says. We proceed to have a very 1950’s era kiss hello, at the door. We gaze into each others’ eyes, he puts his hands around my waste, and then I hear… “Mom! I pooped! Wipe me!” Romance never looked (or smelled) so sweet.
5:30ish-7:20ish p.m. Jonathan and I try and catch up on the day, over toddlers crying, screaming, singing, or whatever else they are doing, while I simultaneously finish cooking dinner (all the while thinking that Domino’s really would have been nice). We then enjoy a fabulous gourmet dinner together as a family, complete with wine and candles (nope, wrong again. that’s some other family’s life). We enjoy a hopefully yummy dinner I cooked, while wiping up spilled milk and faces.
7:20ish- 7:45ish p.m. Jonathan and I then proceed to muster up every last bit of energy we have to clean up the kitchen, wash dishes, bathe kids, put jammies on, brush our kids’ teeth, read stories, pray with them, and, finally(!), put kids to bed. Kids are so high-maintenance, but I highly recommend having a few.
7:30ish-we are too tired to hang out anymore. Some nights are different. Some nights, I meet with one of my disciples. We talk, pray, discuss scripture. I help hold them accountable. I leave thankful that God ever bothers to use a person like me, as needy and undeserving as I am. Some nights, we have a couple over for dinner and we spend the night talking about church, ministry, family, and life. Some nights we spend with family, watching movies, laughing, enjoying God’s blessing. Other nights–most nights, in fact–Jonathan and I curl up on the couch and watch some non-edifying secular television show. Yeah, we’re those people.
Then, I return to the computer to finish my post for the next day, stressing myself out that it’s not already done. Jonathan graciously edits my post and proceeds to insert and remove, on average, 18 commas. (Commas and I don’t get along.) On nights when the mood is right, meaning I’m not totally exhausted and no child has peed the bed, we participate in the act of marriage, also know as getting “freaky deaky.” Following that, we might even watch a late night movie on a weekend night, and then kick ourselves in the morning when the boy wakes up.
Way past our bedtime, whatever that is. My third favorite part of the day. Jonathan and I lay in bed and talk. We dream about our future. We talk about the church and where it is headed. We share funny stories from the day. We laugh. We unwind. We connect. We pray. We pass out. And the next day, I do it all over again.
What’s a day in the life of YOU look like? What parts of your day do you dread? What parts do you absolutely love? What does a dream day look like?
That’s awesome Nicole…love it!! And the pics, they are great! I hear you on all of that, being that our kids are very close in age. You do a great job, are a great mom and I have always admired that you disciple other women, etc. And now keeping up with a blog, that’s a lot. I do know how you feel, in that I was working a 40 hour a week job from home too, while taking care of the kids. Of course they did go to preschool a couple mornings a week, but only about 8 hours a week.
However, I don’t think I told you…I just quit my job a few weeks ago! Which is why I have suddenly emerged from a very dark dark pit and into the real world of Facebook, reading and commenting on blogs, and actually making dinner on a daily basis. Hallelujah!
My decision to quit came(obviously after much prayer and discussions with my husband) after Dillon decided to make “pudding” with 4 raw eggs on the carpet, just a couple hours after he hosed down Caiden in the backyard until he was completly drenched, 2 days after he poured a whole BIG bottle of cooking oil ALL over the upstairs bathroom floor and I found Caiden playing in it covered from hair to toes in cooking oil, also they decided their favorite game was to throw every single toy they owned over the half-sized wall in the loft and down the stairs, until the stairs were coverd with zillions of toys (that’s when I decided they had WAY too many toys and filled two trash bags with toys for goodwill), and we now have crayon and marker drawings all over the walls….just to name a few things! It didn’t matter how many things I thought I locked up or how many punishments there were…it turned into a different thing everyday!
I think the Lord was telling me something…it’s time to be a mother, and a wife, and a homemaker!! Yay! And now I actually LOVE meal planning, searching for grocery deals, making homemade granola bars, cleaning the kitchen, (well maybe I don’t love that part, but I am so happy to actually HAVE a clean kitchen on a daily basis), playing with my boys, and being able to give my husband a kiss when he comes home, with the semll of dinner in the air, instead of staring out blankly from vacant eyes, while still in my pajamas and hair a mess, not to mention the rest of the house, and thinking is it dinner time already? I wonder what we have in the cupboard?
And those are what my days are filled with now! Yippee!
Jill, my mouth was literally hanging open as I read your boy disasters! I can’t believe it, but strangely, I can.
I am so glad that the Lord sent you that message loud and clear (and dirty) and more than that, that you are able to be home and not working! What a complete and total blessing and joy.
I still wonder some days how I ended up being a stay home mom who cooks dinner and mops the floors but I am so thankful for it at the same time. May your days be filled with more peace, more love, more structure, and more of God’s presence at home. I am so excited for you and your family! Moms rock and so does God!
1. Yes, you need to get a Mac.
2. Since I decided to blog regularly, like you, things have been rushed. I have much more free time than you too, but that’s been sucked up this month with my goal of trying to write a novel with the NaNoWriMo competition. It’s been busy. Wake up at 5:30, blog/write/Internet for a while, shower, go to work at 6:30. Get home at 3pm. Take a small nap, work out or grocery shop for a while, and then the evening becomes a mash of TV, writing, hanging out with my girl, writing, girl, blogging, writing, and sometimes sleep.
But, to make a long story short, since I’ve started really doing what I’ve always wanted to be doing–writing–my days have gotten better and I look forward to coming to my computer each time with something new to say. It’s given me motivation and joy. I love my job, but wish I was teaching, and not just training and working with teachers. I miss the interaction with the kids.
I’d write more, but I’ve got a novel and a blog to get to! :)
Cheers.
I’m so glad to know that you are waking each day feeling more excited because you are loving what you are doing!
I will be praying that the Lord blesses your efforts and writing tremendously! Including the NaNoWriMo competition. So cool!
great post! I think we all can relate. I used to look forward to naptime too. I can’t believe Riley still naps! I always said Jonas would nap until he went to kindergarten but he had other plans. You are a lucky mama.
I am so protective of naptime. Riley doesn’t nap every single day but about 5 out of 7, thankfully. I guess I am lucky she still naps! I’ll take it!
I like your day!!
Mine is much less entertaining.
I get up at 5:45am, and try to make my fibromyalgia muscles move towards the coffee pot. I get two kids up, attempting desperately to keep the other two asleep. I feed them,hand them lunch and a bookbag –hopefully theirs — and shove them onto two waiting buses. Or stand in the doorway and yell, run faster, the bus has to stop sometime. Kidding.
On good days (the days preschoolers sleep in) I lay back down or grab my shower. On bad, I attempt to shower with a 4 yr old slamming the bathroom door against the shower stall. Then I start the daily chores that occupy my time. Dishes, laundry, supper prep, bill paying, grocery buying, clothes mending, more laundry. I check my email and my facebook pages 32 times. I sit down (usually in a poptart) and watch some dvd with the kids for a few minutes. At noon I make lunch, and at 1 I wish that my kids still take a nap. At 3:30 backup arrives (aka, the bus containing the schoolaged kids) and I usually try to spend 20 minutes hiding in the bathroom sitting on the floor destressing, with a towel shoved in the crack yelling MOMS BUSY every time one of them bangs or screams.
After that I usually attempt to coerce some homework out of the kids, and stomp around trying to remember why I didn’t start dinner in the crockpot like the carefully thought out menu said to do. I nuke or bake something around 5pm, and try to shovel the homework brigade along so I can put it on the table. Then I throw them outside if at all possible (it went from 90 to 32 here in ONE WEEK so outside time is precious) and once again hide to destress. After they play somewhere — punctuated with the BE NICE yells others mentioned — I try to shower at least 2 of them, and maybe spit and babywipe a third. I hand out cups and a snack and herd them towards their bed, while listening to prayers and i’m not tireds. I blissfully shut their doors, one and all, and count to 5 before it pops back open like Susie Sleepy’s eyes when you pick her up.
After 3 hours when they’re all asleep I lay in my room and count the hours until morning when I can be useful again, or I sit at this desk and wonder where my charmed life went and who’s going to watch the kids tomorrow since I will be too tired.
Ade, I like your day too. You seem like you so enjoy being a mom. That is something I need to pray for more of in my own mothering. I have more good days than I used to, but still, more bad days than I’d like.
I love that you call the bus, “back up.” Cracks me up. And I so sympathize with locking yourself in the bathroom for some peace and semi-quiet.
Mothering is a tiring, demanding, (sometimes) thankless job. But we were chosen to be mothers and that alone sets us apart from those not blessed in this way. God is with us all day, every day, He knows our struggles and rejoices in the little triumphs with us. Go to Him for strength, replenishment, and energy. I always found when I did that — remembered He was there with me, ha! — that all-of-a-sudden a certain peace would settle upon me as I allowed the Holy Spirit in. We are so privileged to have these children and I think it’s key that we don’t forget that. Many times when my oldest was 2, 3, 4. . .whatever. . .and he was making me crazy or, just to let you know it wasn’t all “me”, my friends would say “I don’t know how you do it with R” I would thank the Lord again and again for giving him to me. . . what if He would have been so-and-so’s child? Would they love him as much? Tolerate and try to work through the issues? Or write him off? Or get frustrated and ignore him? So my thankfulness was that *I* was the chosen one. I really do think changing our perspective sometimes really *does* change our lives!
Hope I’m not “preachy”. . .I want to inspire with the truth as I see it as a very inexperienced, imperfect mom of 4 and child of God.
I remember those days of naptime so well!!! I have to honestly say, though, I *don’t* miss having toddlers at home. I birthed four children in five years so I had a lot of tiny people around for many years and was lucky, blessed, enough to stay at home with them. Now they are in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th grades. At this season of my life, I don’t have any schedule. . .when I woke up this morning at 5:30 or so I didn’t know what the day would bring. At 6:30 someone from the YMCA texted and said she had a sick kid at home, could I work for her from 8:30-11:30. No problem. While I was working that shift, the school secretary at my kids’ school called and asked if I could come in and sub that afternoon for a teacher who had to leave. Again, because the timing worked, I could. My kids love having me at school with them so everyone was happy :) A friend and I arranged to play tennis at 4 p.m. so we did that and I came home to my husband grilling chicken for dinner. Although I’m a *very* scheduled person, this is the life the Lord has given me right now so I’m rolling with it! I have time to blog on-and-off and check in w/ FB once in awhile. I don’t necessarily like not knowing what is going on from day-to-day (tomorrow, as of right now, I have a blank calendar) but I also think it’s a way God is challenging me too…be still and allow Him to fill my days….
I’m so glad I’ve found your blog (been reading and going through the achieves for about a week now) and this was a fun way to get to know you and your family a little bit. Keep those naptimes sacred!!! My husband and I are big on bedtimes too…the younger two go to bed at 8, the older two at 8:30. The nighttime is OUR time!!!
Jenni, I dream of having elementary aged children so I can have a less scheduled day but I am quick to remind myself to not miss what they are doing right now. I am getting better at practicing being thankful for toddlers, which is a feat in and of itself.
I love that you have gone from scheduled to more relaxed and are just rolling with it! I’m only scheduled because life would fall apart otherwise. I’m a free spirit!
Thanks for reading and commenting. I’m glad you found my blog too. I look forward to more comments from you!