It’s been a while! And I’m sorry about that. Truly. But if you’ve stuck around this long then you probably already know what I’m going to say – that when it comes down to it, life comes first. While I find the blog to be a great outlet for my frustrations or hopes and dreams or whatever else have you, it’s the first thing to go when my children need me. And boy have they needed me lately!
Emma’s finally cut two teeth, which has resulted in a much easier to deal with baby. Sometimes bedtime is still a struggle but I no longer have to kick Gordon out of the living room, make sure all the lights off, and then try to get her to eat a bottle before bed. That and trying to limit her naps have helped. Some days she’ll still get in two solid naps and a few cat naps, resulting in a later and more difficult bedtime but lately two naps has seemed to be the sweet spot. Which is funny – by this time last year, Henry had just settled into a solid three nap schedule. We were a long way from transitioning to two naps. His little sister does better on two naps.
Speaking of Henry, he’s still doing great with the toddler rails. Gordon commented to me last night about he was surprised – he’ll play with him a little in his room before bed, read him a story, and as soon as he turns out the light, Henry runs and climbs into bed. No fuss. Sure sometimes we’ll have to chase him back to bed because my toddler has acquired my night-owl tendencies but surprisingly everything’s still going great! Henry’s really been enjoying himself lately. Since it’s been a little cooler in the mornings, we’ve been able to stay out longer while baby sister naps (I listen on the monitor for her, don’t worry). Which means more dirt. Which means his second favorite activity – bath time. Kid loves water. And after bath is teeth brushing, after teeth brushing is nap and everyone’s happy Mom gets a few minutes to herself before little miss wakes up and the day moves on.
Yep, my kids are tag teaming naps. Isn’t life grand. Here’s a typical day for my nearly 20 month old and my nearly 7 month old:
6:30 to 7:30 – One of the kids wakes me up. Typically Henry followed closely by Emma.
7:00 – Breakfast begins with banana for Henry. I’ve finally convinced Emma baby cereal/purees aren’t the devil so she’s finally eating ‘real’ food! Yay! Coffee is started for me, bagel is given to Henry, water is started for oatmeal if it’s cool enough or a bowl of cold cereal for Henry and I to share.
9:00 to 10:00 – Emma goes down for her first nap, usually lasts about an hour to an hour and a half.
About 9:30 – Henry and I go outside. This means having to get us both dressed, grab the baby monitor from my room, walk out to the back porch, take the toy-wheelbarrow with all its accouterments outside and a folding chair for me to sit in. Lately I’ve been taking my notebook outside with us to jot a few notes down for NaNoWriMo (more about that later). Henry plays in the dirt and dew-covered grass while I monitor him.
10:00 to 10:30 – Henry helps me pick up his toys and put them back in the wheelbarrow, I take the wheelbarrow and my folding chair and place them back on the back porch, then we go inside for bath time. Bath time lasts about 20 minutes because that’s all I can stand of having to remind Henry to not drink the bath water {a million times}. After bath he brushes his teeth. We get him dressed.
11:00 – Henry generally goes down for a nap. Sometimes he needs to stay awake a little longer, sometimes we go ahead and eat lunch or just a snack depending on how hungry he is, then nap.
About 11:30 – Emma wakes up. We play together until big brother wakes up around 1:00
1:00 – Henry usually wakes up, we have a late lunch together, all three of us play.
2:00 – Emma goes down for another nap. Henry and I play quietly together. Afternoon is still a little hot here in Tennessee so I’ve been trying to coax Henry to work on art projects. He loves my watercolors but I don’t love the big mess he makes using them and he’s still not good with the whole dunk the paintbrush in water, then paint, then paper concept. So sometimes we build blocks instead.
4:00 – Gordon comes home, Emma wakes up, Henry gets a snack until supper. Gordon unpacks his bag, empties his pockets, gets out of his uniform and washes up, then fixes supper while I entertain the kids. We talk about our days.
5:00 – Supper time. Rest of the time is spent with both of us playing with the kids.
6:00 to 7:00 – Emma goes to bed if she hasn’t been cat napping.
7:00 to 8:00 – Henry goes to bed. Sometimes he’ll go to bed, we won’t hear anything out of him for thirty minutes, then’ll he’ll suddenly start going ‘uh oh’ or ‘moo’ or ‘mamamama’. A lot of times he’ll lay down next to his door and look out into the empty hallway (don’t ask me why!). A few times I’ve caught him sitting in the rocker next to his bed. This is when we usually have to remind him it’s bedtime, give him back his blanket/pacifier, then put him back to bed.
8:00 to 9:00 – Clean up from supper, wash bottles, let them dry for a bit, then make Emma’s bottles. Get Gordon’s clothes ready for the next day, I’ll sometimes go ahead and knock out a few more dishes. Lately this is when Gordon and I discuss future plans for the week – over a sink full of dishes.
9:00 to 10:00 – When Gordon and I go to bed. Yeah, we’re old, what can I say.
12:00 to 3:00 – Emma wakes up wanting to be fed. For the past few weeks while the teeth were coming in, it was more like 12:00 then again at 4:00 but now that it’s kinda settled down, we’re back to mostly sleeping through the night! Yay!
So you see, while it may not seem like a lot, my day is full. When I do get a spare moment, I try to do bills. Or look up an activity for Henry. Or attempt to write back one of my pen pals. Currently I have nine people I need to write back. Nine! Crazy. And when we go to bed, while Gordon re-reads The Hobbit, I turn my mind to NaNoWriMo. Yes, I realize next month is October but with two kids I’d better start planning now!
What’s NaNoWriMo? National Novel Writing Month happens annually every November. It’s basically a writing exercise. Try to write a 50,000 (or more) word novel in 30 days. I participated last year and got pretty close at something like 33,000 words. My personal goal since I was pregnant with Emma at the time and having to deal with my just toddling tot Henry was 25,000 words. I was thrilled to reach it and surpass it! But the story, sadly, fizzled out and I let it. While I enjoyed writing it, I didn’t feel like it had a strong direction even if the dialogue was good.
This year, though, I’m returning back to my very first NaNoWriMo attempt from 2010 – it’s been haunting me for 3 years now, rearing it’s ugly head every September as Tennessee starts to transition from summer to fall and only dying again about mid-February. I need to put this book to rest so I’ve been working on the finer/rougher details of the story, working out the kinks and trying to establish a firmer base from which to launch this year’s NaNoWriMo. There’s still a lot left to be figured out but I feel like the story as a whole is a lot stronger than it’s ever been, a lot less flighty and with the potential to actually make it to 50,000 words – maybe even more!
Anyways, I’m hoping to see more of you next month. Really I am. I miss our conversations, as one sided as they may be. I know how hectic October can be for my family in particular though so I don’t want to make any empty promises. Just know that even if I’m not writing, I’m thinking about writing and I’m thinking about you.
Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you in October 🙂
The Plucky Parent 