A Day in the Life

Two weeks! I'm having blog withdrawls. I just haven't been able to find a spare minute to write anything lately. Not that anyone is really interested, but my schedule has been somewhat CraZY and I wanted to document it so that I can look back when the kids are teenagers and long for these "quiet" days...or so I hear.

4:30—Awakened by a hungry baby who has probably already been up at least once in the night.

5:00—Put Dixon back to bed, throw on my sneakers and (usually grudgingly) head out to the gym, where I am tempted to park, lay the seat back, and nap for the next hour—but I don’t.

6:00—Return home so the hubbers can get his workout in from 6-7. In the meantime, prepare breakfast for the kiddos & make sure they’re out of bed to eat it. Spend the next hour trying to keep them on task as they eat, brush teeth, & get themselves dressed amidst mom’s continual reminders and counting down. ( i.e. “You have two minutes left! No, you don’t have to show us how you can twirl all the way around on one foot without falling over—eat your pancakes! You can’t brush your teeth and talk at the same time—clean the toothpaste off the floor now! Stop playing with your Barbies and get dressed! FIVE MINUTES, GIRLS!)

6:45—Work feverishly to get their hair done so they don’t go to school looking like they just rolled out of bed, which is suspiciously what Mom's hair looks like.

7:00—Hubby returns from workout. Read one chapter of scripture as a family & kneel for family prayer.

7:30—Carpool arrives and we just hope no one has any "forgotten" homework, and that it's all INSIDE the backpacks, and everything is signed that needs to be signed as they head off for their day.

7:45—Feed the younger girls & hubby their breakfast and grab a bite to eat myself while I hop on the laptop and get my daily blog fix (mostly just reading, with the occasional update to mine).

8:00—Send hubby to work, hope the baby is still asleep, plop the girls in front of Dora and jump in the shower—with the door open, of course. (I can’t remember the last time I had an uninterrupted shower.) Get myself ready for the day, which may or may not include hair and makeup depending on what’s on the agenda for the day, how much time I have left, and whether or not the baby has woken up yet.

9:00—Turn off the TV, get the rest of the kids dressed and hair done. (Unless my hippie Bridget decides she's comfortable with hers forming dreads, at which point I have no energy to fight her.)

9:30—Start on chores! Throw in a load of laundry and a load of dishes. Give the girls some Magic Eraser Bars and Clorox Wipes and send them to the bathroom! (I have literally not cleaned a toilet in the last year. They actually fight over who gets to clean it. I know!) We break up the chores with a little dancing here and there, and of course, I always have to take a break to pay attention to (and feed) my little butterball.

11:00—Start lunches, which usually migrate to the car because the girls are too busy playing to finish it before we have to run out the door.

11:40—Leave to take Katie to school. (I HATE half-day Kindergarten! It makes longer daytime activities impossible!) Run errands while I’m already out & about. When we finally get home again, I fix myself some lunch & try to do some activities with Bridget. Usually the Dixon’s napping, so we get some good one-on-one together. Sometimes she’ll help me bake some bread or other goodies, and sometimes we’ll just sit and read. She loves doing “homework” when I pull out the preschool workbooks. This is also my "project" time, which lately has included lots and lots of tulle.

3:00—Bridget picks out the afternoon snack for everyone and we jump in the car to do afternoon carpool.

3:45—Finally get home, send the young ones down to the playroom or outside, start Maggie on her piano practice and help Brooke with her homework.

4:00--Send Brooke out to play with the others, put Dixon down for a nap (God willing!), and help Maggie with homework.

5:00--Start cooking dinner. If I'm on the ball, I'll have remembered to get something out of the freezer that morning. If I'm having a Wonder Woman day, I will have thrown dinner in the crockpot earlier that morning. Most likely we'll just have spaghetti. Again.

6:00--Eat dinner, hopefully without too many opinions from the peanut gallery, and hopefully before Dixon wakes up, then we clean up the kitchen.

7:00--Start getting the girls ready for bed. Having only one bathroom makes this process DRAG ON, which is why we start an hour before bedtime. We brush, floss & fluoride teeth--yes, we do this EVERY night--, wait for everyone to take a turn on the potty, find jammies and get dressed, sing a song (we've condensed to one instead of letting each child pick one), have family prayer, give momma hugs and kisses, and get a drink.

8:00--My favorite hour of the day! Dad takes the girls to bed, then we usually plop our weary bodies on the couch and zone out in front of the TV. Normally, this is where the ice cream makes its entrance, but lately, we've been really good about only eating some on the weekends.

9:00--Ahhhh--BEDTIME!!!

Exhausted yet? I am

BUT.

In Stephen R. Covey's newest book, The Eighth Habit, he quotes a man named Albert E.N. Gray who said,

"The successful person has the habit of doing things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

This is my new go-to quote when I feel like staying in bed. When I feel like skipping the squats. When I feel like putting the kids in front of the TV so I can get "my" stuff done. When I don't feel like reading my scriptures. When I don't feel like wrestling with my kids through another sacrament meeting alone. I remember the strength of my purpose, and I get out of bed.