A Day in the Life

In the spirit of preserving memories for future generations and because people seem to dig these kinds of posts, I figured I'd give it a go…

(*disclaimer: this may have been the very worst day of my entire motherhood to chronicle, but journalistic integrity compels me onward.)

Let us begin…

7:09 am: someone is snorting and tugging on my shirt. I open my eyes and blink at Evie, lying in a sweaty little bundle under my arm. Oops. I don't really remember pulling her into bed with me, but I suppose it happened at some point in the night. Oblige her by nursing until she falls back asleep.

7:19 am: roll carefully out of bed and watch as Evie stretches out like a teenager, flopping her arms over her head and trying her best to take as much bed space up as possible. Blow gently on her floppy black hair and laugh before creeping out of the room to find…

7:20 am: COFFEE. My amazing husband has an espresso waiting for me on the counter and has already fed both boys. Bless him. I could never breastfeed without the tag team system we have in place, whereby I handle the nighttime parenting and he takes the 6 am - 8 am shift. If I know I have at least an hour of two of uninterrupted sleep coming my way at dawn, I can handle almost any nocturnal shenanigans. Which reminds me…

7:26 am: peek into boys' room. Whew, no fresh vom. Joey's 6 hour stomach flu seems to have run its course, and the dorm smells only faintly of puke and Dawn dish soap. Crack the window open to let in the spring air and flee the scene.

7:31 am: sit down with my egg and Arbonne protein shake. Hear my phone ringing from the other room and run to see a missed call from my little sister. Dang, it's my day for preschool carpool. Slam the shake down and run to pull on actual pants, and a shirt that is not black. I have maybe 3 shirts that are not black, so this is a sign of real effort in living.

7:45 am: breakfast is done and I really should leave, but Evie is 'wolfishly hungry' says Daddy. Dave is going in late this morning because he has a lecture series to emcee this evening, so he agrees to watch Evie and JP while I run Joey and his cousin to school. I nurse Evie for 5 minutes to abate her hunger and scan Facebook for morning news.

7:56 am: oops. We're late. I toss gently place Evie in her Rock n' Play and shout a hasty goodbye to Dave before bundling Joey into the van. He's wearing a retro thrifted Superman t, a Fargo-style fur-lined winter hat with ear flaps, a puffer vest, and his little brother's gray cargo pants. He is a legend in his own mind. After a quick blessing from Daddy, he's in the van and ready to roll.

8:01 am: a minor accident has traffic backed up. Joey is delighted by a firetruck and ambulance parade and reminds me to pray, so we say a quick Hail Mary and inspect the bumper damage as we creep by. He knows about a third of the words to the prayer now…Catholic school FTW!

8:11 am: roll up to my sister's house and grab a nephew. We're gonna be so late…

8:19 am: arrive at school, running to the preschool entrance to beat the timed lock that automatically seals at 8:20 (I think? I've never been late enough to actually miss it). Hustle the boys into their classroom, check their mailboxes, make awkward small talk with their teachers and run back to the parking lot. Remember that for once I didn't do a guilty leave-behind of any other offspring in the van and relish the temporary silence of having no additional cargo for the 17 minute drive home. Mentally recommit to Dave Ramsey's principles as I look longingly at the beautiful houses in the neighborhood surrounding our parish. Resolve to never eat out again or buy any clothing so that we can buy a house sometime before 2019.

8:39 am: Home again. Take a hungry Evie from Dave as he is one-handedly finishing the breakfast dishes. I. Married. Up. Sit down to nurse and read a couple morning blogs.

8:46 am: Dave is asking me if checks and pinstripes can work together. Nope.

8:58 am: Finish an impromptu dusting session of the main floor. Look regretfully at my 2-week-old white cami that I'm using as a dustrag before throwing it down the basement steps to the laundry. Curse our 'new' old top-loading washer that has so far shredded the spaghetti straps on five camis and an embarrassing number of other unmentionables with stringy parts. Try to remember to buy one of those stupid mesh bags to wash delicate laundry in.

9:00 am: strip protective plastic trash bag off of Joey's pillow (under the case; no suffocating allowed in this house) and decide to run through all the bedrooms and bathrooms dumping the small trash cans into it. Arrive at the front door with an entire trashbag full of dirty diapers and thank God mentally for modern conveniences and the good sense to have given away my entire stash of cloth diapers before we moved to Rome. Never again, landfills be damned.

9:01 am: Dave is ready to go and we pray a quick morning offering with John Paul sandwiched between our legs shrieking about 'his monies!' Dave takes the trash bag from my hands and heads off to work and I see that our cans already lining the curb. I have the best husband.

9:06 am: scrub the kids' bathroom down with a pair of diaper wipes. Wonder if my toilet will be any less disgusting when my boys are teenagers. Decide the answer is probably not one I want to know.

9:10 am: sit down to start writing this lovely thing. JP is still screaming for 'monies,' so I dig 33 cents out of a dish on my dresser and line the coffee table with change for him to count. He squeals with delight and finds an old Trader Joe's bag to use as his 'purse.' I try not to be too disturbed.

9:40 am: look up and see John Paul lying in the Rock n Play, cackling to himself and counting his monies still. I'm a little embarrassed that all I've been doing for the past 30 minutes is recalling my day thus far, but not embarrassed enough to stop.

9:43 am: time to switch gears and start looking at headlines for Heroic News. Look at my open tabs from last night and count at least 3 bizarre headlines that apparently caught my attention before bed: "Jesus didn't care about being nice or tolerant and neither should you," "NH Teacher fired for friending students on Facebook" and "How to spot a psychopath." Decide that I probably am one, and get to work.

9:50 am: JP alerts me that "Evie doll is cwyin, mama" Find a somewhat unhappy baby in her swing and get a whiff of JP's 3rd diaper bomb this morning. Carry both offenders into the boys room and set Evie down on Joey's bed (mattress on the floor) for some dreaded tummy time while I address JP's nasty. Mentally vow to find and kill whoever keeps feeding him raisins. Wonder if it was me.

9:56 am: nurse again. Reflect in gratitude for Evie's stellar nursing abilities and my own gift of being able to type while she eats. Lovingly stare into the screen of my MacBook Air and rejoice in its small lightweightness.

9:57 am: JP is trying to put a pull-up on his stuffed monkey and is laughing hysterically. Wonder if it's time to think about potty training him, as Dave insists. Mentally slap myself across the face for even thinking this thought. Think about going to the library and/or Target before preschool pickup. Ask JP if he wants help outfitting his monkey. Help him.

10:01 am: He decides monkey would prefer a diaper.

10:02 am: Evie is no longer pleased with my multi-tasking. Shut computer.

10:20 am: Target it is.

11:16 am: Ooops, Old Navy was closer. $89 later and many spring colors later, I'm now late for preschool pickup, but I no longer look like a haggard recovering meth addict in a facility issued head-to-toe stretchy black uniform.

(School pickup, Lunch, nursing, phone calls, texts answered, bathroom trip with creepy 2-year-old observer in tow.)

1:24 pm: Ahhh, naptime/quiet time. Joey has been fighting this relentlessly since around Christmastime, but now that it's warming up he has relented to lie on a Superman sheet in the backyard with a stack of library books and a handful of roly-polies. I harvested the roly-polies for him. Vom.

1:25 pm: the remains of JP's quesadilla is hardening on a paper plate (survival mode 4ever.) I'm only semi-drawn to it, so this new eating plan must be working.

1:27 pm: they're all quiet at the same time. Evie in her swing and the boys in their respective nap zones. The second best part of my day has now begun.

1:28 pm: Joey is back. He needs a paper bag and a handful of sticks to have quiet time with. He asks me if I'd like to join him. I stare at him, wondering why God thought it would be funny to make my firstborn an extrovert.

1:30 pm: I settle down to write and check some emails. I see one from my editor at Catholic Exchange and I start thinking up ideas for another piece later this week. I never plan posts ahead of time, and I hardly ever write down ideas that come to me, but maybe I should. At this point what I write is 90% spontaneous, though I do have occasional insights in the shower.

1:31 pm: I haven't showered today…

1:37 pm: And I'm not going to. Joey is back and he is "all done with his quiet time." I break his heart by telling him he is mistaken. I wonder if i should start planning dinner, and then I remember the chicken sausages I put on the counter to defrost this morning. I move them to the fridge and, remembering that Dave has a work dinner, consider making salads for dinner for a second night in a row. Joey must have taken me seriously, because he wandered back outside with a sippy cup filled with Pellegrino. I absentmindedly finish the rest of the bottle.

1:44 pm: Retire to my room to hide from Joey for the remainder of 'quiet time.' A friend texted us an invite to come play afternaptime, and I consider waking JP up early just to get us all out of the house. Evie is crying to nurse from her swing. Flop onto the bed to nurse her while browsing for news stories with my free hand. Update the site with breaking news. I love having a baby who loves to nurse lying down.

1:59 pm: I got distracted by the internet. I look up from my reading to see Joey sitting in my doorway with his stuffed animals in his arms. He looks at me guiltily and then sits down on the hall floor and starts reading the atlas. Whatever.

2:03 pm: I can't imagine anybody is still reading at this point. I can't believe how many times each day I am interrupted. Start streaming the new Ingrid Michaelson album (free on iTunes for a week!) and Joey crawls up into my bed and announces "I just want to beeee with you." I send him to wash his ropy poly hands before letting him crawl up next to me. He covers my the back of my arm with kisses and snuggles into our bed. Now I'm a mommy sandwich.

2:30 pm: naps are a bust. Wake a sleepy John Paul and toss all 3 kids in the car for a trip to a friend's house and some magical Vitamin D time in her stay cation of a backyard. Pick up a nephew on the way because YOLO, and my sister has to take somebody else to the doctor.

4:05 pm: Why do I bring them anywhere? Oh yes, socialization…

4:43 pm: cooking dinner. Way too early. Trader Joe's chicken sausages on the barbecue with asparagus and baked potatoes.

4:50 pm: everybody is yelling for something, but I'm happily sweeping through the house and flinging dirty laundry/errant toys/random books down the basement stairs. All our toys and books now live in the basement, and my favorite part of the day is pitching things down the stairwell one by one. Clean house = happy mommy.

4:52 pm: dinner is served.

4:59 pm: dinner is over. Dammit, I've overplayed my hand. I run a bath for the boys and they run screaming towards the bathroom, shedding clothes as they go. The floor is littered with asparagus, but I did make them 'mop' the spilled milk under the table.

5:15-5:46: books are read, diapers are applied, teeth are brushed, and then I sort of lie there on Joey's bed, letting them both jump on me while they yell "fight fight fight!" and proclaim it wrestling time. Wish for the hundredth time today that Dave was home for bedtime.

5:50: prayers. A quick, incoherent story about some pigeons, a penguin, Lightening McQueen and Mater flying to Rome for JPII's canonization. Lots of random words in Italian. Ends with a trip to Old Bridge for gelato. Joey is satisfied. Hit the lights and head to my room to nurse Evie.

5:58: brag on Facebook about having put my kids to bed 2 hours before sunset. Hear banging and shouting from the back bedroom,

6:35 pm: Both boys are watching a double episode of Curious George on a laptop propped on their dresser. Eating granola bars. I'm a sucker.

6:40 pm: fine, one more episode. Evie is asleep in her swing, so I unload and load the dishwasher and spray down the counters and table. Check for new headlines and get briefly immersed in a stupid post on Facebook. Wonder why I came crawling back to my social media habit for the umpteenth time.

6:46 pm: because the internet.

6:50 pm: bedtime for real this time. Good night, sleep tight.

7:00 pm - 8:00 pm: Sit at computer. Think about doing a couple waiting loads of laundry.

8:05 pm: is it too late to take a shower? Evie wakes up and wants to nurse. I don't feel so hot...

8:25 pm: oh, the stomach flu. Now it's my turn. Spend the rest of the night in a prone position on the bathroom floor, returning occasionally to bed to lie there moaning. Please, God, don't let the baby get this.

11:54 pm: PLEASE GOD don't let the baby get this. Dave offers her a bottle and she refuses. Violently. I attempt nursing in between bouts of vomiting. Joey wakes up screaming that he's hungry and Dave goes to comfort him.

Maaaaaybe this was not the greatest day to chronicle…but it's certainly not one I'll forget.

Snow Day

We got 4 big inches overnight, which are mostly melted by now, but which nevertheless sufficed to turn my kids batshit crazy for the morning, so, rest of the country? I (somewhat) feel your pain. But not really, because it will be 52 tomorrow and we're going sunbathing.

I call this image: "What up, that's my dead Christmas tree on our front porch."

Today at Chipotle, my male cashier confided to me that he is going to have kids someday just so he can  "wear them like that," pointing at my Ergo-strapped load. In potentially related news, the entire strip mall in which said Chipotle resides reeked of (legal) marijuana. Hail, Colorado.

Last night was date night, and we had a real sitter lined up and everything…okay, it was my little sister, who lives in our basement for 29 more days until her wedding (WOOT WOOT), but still, she was willing to sit on babies for free. And yet somehow, by 7:19 pm with both boys in bed, I couldn't summon the energy to put on real pants. So we improvised with a stowed away bottle of Malbec and an amazon prime gem about Beatrix Potter's love life. Gentlemen, you wish your wives treated you this good…

(Wine was a bad choice.)

After reading one too many posts about children light-years younger than Joey this week, I made a snap decision and announced to him that he had outgrown pull-ups and was now a man who could use the facilities at night. He excitedly asked if this meant I could take the lock off of his bedroom door knob and then proceeded to use his newfound freedom to visit the bathroom 9 times last night (that we know of).

Whatever. He woke up with dry sheets this morning. Now onto my next project, teaching him to pull a decent shot of espresso.

Tonight is not date night, but it is "Mommy flees the house with a sister and/or girl friend for one drink, one trip to the thrift store and maaaaaybe a pit stop at Target, if she's lucky." The real question being: to pump or not to pump. I think if I do go the pumping route, I might get myself 4 whole hours of freedom. Not that I could stay out that late. But still, the thought of being able to is tantalizing.

So I guess either lunch at Chipotle or pumping breast milk is my one thing today…bit of a reach, but it's that kind of day.

And since these kinds of posts are clearly the reason I was nominated for a Sheenazing award in the categories of best mom blog (okay) funniest blogger (well…) coolest blogger (not even close) and smartest blog (I'm sorry, I'm competing with Simcha, is that even real? No.) why not hop over to Bonnie's and cast your vote. 

Perhaps I've Been Overthinking This...

Joey is potty trained. Like, 7 months of dabbling and coaching and coaxing and then boom, yesterday, he went 24 hours sans diaper because I was feeling, oh, I don't know, lazy? Stupid? Adventurous? And he surprised me. Blew my expectations out of the water. And speaking of water...not a single accident. Not one!

My friend Mary suggested a 100% all-or-nothing potty training blitz which, truthfully, sounded terrifying and fraught with puddles of urine. Or perhaps public displays of soggy cheeks. Her point was this: if diapers are still around some of the time, then the kid isn't going to 'get' it fully. Or at least, there will be confusion and laziness because half the day it's okay to pee in your pants, and the other half of the day it's not.

Made perfect sense to me. Also sounded completely ridiculous because this kid still wakes up with a soggy diaper in the a.m. (probably due in no small part to the gallons of acqua frizzante he begs at bedtime), and who wants to be laundering sheets all day without a dryer? Who, I ask you?

But, partly because I have nothing better to do (read: no car to worry about getting peed in, no pressing appointments to angst over being soiled, no social life for 6 out of 7 days in the week...) we went for it. And he stepped up big time. Seriously I feel like I have a little man now instead of a toddler. And I'm so proud of him I could burst. It's an amazing thing to have your kids surprise you with their competence. Parenting: we're doing it.

Here's how it broke down:

Month 1-7: picked out big boy undies, dolled out chocolate for successful performances, occassionally busted out the undies at home, but always reverted to a diaper for leaving the house/naps/bedtime/whenever mommy felt like it. Basically I felt like Joey in undies was a loaded gun. And I'm guessing that didn't inspire a huge amount of confidence on his part.

This week we decided to get serious. I don't really know why, except that I'm eating carbs again so my brain fog is dissipating, and I couldn't find his size of store brand diapers on Monday, so I pulled the trigger.

Day 1: undies for long periods of the day, treats or money (we're shameless) whenever he had a successful performance.

Day 2: Screw it. Took off the diaper in the morning and never looked back.

-Undies all day, frequent offerings of milk and water, and even 2 trips out of the house sans diaper where he informed me he had to go and then did so, in an unfamiliar and slightly disgusting Euro bathroom, no less. (Granted, I dangled his buns over the toilet and didn't let him touch a thing...but it was still traumatic for me. Not for him. He acted like he's been doing it for ages.)

-Undies at naptime. Now this was scary. I relish the heck out of those 2 hours of peaceful afternoon respite, but he was feeling SO confidant from his successful morning that it really didn't make any sense to undo that confidence with a diaper. And I really felt like it would have done just that. So, we had a very serious discussion about the 'just-in-case-big-boy-pee-towel which I doubled over his sheet, and he used the potty twice before naptime. And then I held my breath. At the two hour mark, he yelled for me "I'm peeing Mommy!" which I guess translates to "I've gotta go!" because he was still dry and wanting an escort to the bathroom. I couldn't believe how much he had held in that little bladder of his when we got him in there!

-Undies all the rest of the day. And a trip to the store to pick out anything he wanted, because honestly, I would have bought him a pony. He settled on a 1 lb. bag of faux peanut M&Ms. Get after it, son.

- Bedtime. This was the part I'd been dreading. Per Mary's instructions, I'd cut off liquids at 6pm and he had gone at least 3 times between then and 8pm, when he finally went down. Deep breath, explanation of how he could call for help if he needed to go, and ... lights out.

- 10 pm dream pee (I don't know what else to call this): It was also recommended that I lift him out of bed for one final bathroom trip about an hour into his nighttime sleep, which we acted on after much debate. This kid is not the world's greatest sleeper, so the thought of waking him on purpose was...not pleasant. But he didn't really fully wake up. He just kind of drunkenly giggled and watched me through slitted eyes while he performed yet another stunning potty session, and then he went right back to sleep when I lied him down. Damn, this is too good to be true.

- Morning time. I'm not gonna lie, I had a fitfull, restless night of sleep filled with dreams about urine. It was bizarre. And I woke up numerous times to listen for him and imagined he would be floating on his mattress by morning. But... 7:30 came, Dave went in at the sounds of restless natives, and there we found a dry, happy 2.5 year old waiting to be escorted to potty town.

Amazed, encouraged, enthusiastic about possibly teaching him how to read by the week's end, etc.

And there you have it. My kid is a dry genius with a serious M&M habit. And I couldn't be more proud.