As I mentioned in this post, my goal for the month of March is to get more of a routine going in our home. As part of meeting this goal, I kept track of how we spent the past three days. Here’s what I got:
Monday:
- Ate breakfast with Emma
- Let Emma watch Word World while I showered
- Johnny woke up (love that he sleeps in even if it means he stays up late too), fed him breakfast
- “Disneyland” tea party on the kitchen floor hosted by Emma with dishes and play food from her kitchen (near-daily event)
- Webcam with family members in Europe
- Slide time (I brought a Little Tikes slide in the house since winter lasts FOREVER around here)
- Letter play (the kids use foam letters to do whatever they want)
- Lunch
- Kids watch Signing Time while I clean and talk to one of my five sisters on the phone
- Emma naps while Johnny helps me make this fridge
- Quality time with Emma while Johnny naps
- Active indoor free play with both kids
- Story time
- Friend calls; kids occupy themselves while I talk and make dinner
- Mike gets home – dinner and family time until bed time – also webcam with their US-residing Gramma
Tuesday:
- Shower before Mike leaves on a business trip
- Breakfast
- Empty dishwasher while both kids eat breakfast
- Trip to the library for craft time, then an hour of playing in the children’s room before Emma’s French class (taught for this month only by four seniors from our local high school)
- Home for lunch
- Free play while I clean up the house
- Story time
- Walk
- Naps – not quite overlapping
- Baking time with Emma (to make these muffins) while Johnny naps
- Free play/cleanup
- Bedtime (Johnny stays up super late waiting in vain for Mike to get home)
- clean up/catch up on email
Wednesday:
- Shower
- Breakfast with Emma followed by cuddle time until Johnny wakes up
- Johnny’s breakfast
- Free play
- Kids go outside to play in the rain (no snow, for once!)
- Kids goof around on the piano
- Free play
- Story time
- Dinner
- Singing time
- Free play – I talk to a different sister and Mike on the phone
- Bedtime – again, Johnny stays up super late (in spite of no nap today) waiting for Dad. Thank goodness Mike gets back tomorrow!
You’ll notice that I didn’t write down times – that would have been nice, but I wasn’t that organized. I also left out a lot of details – for example, free play often includes art time, dancing to music, etc – but you get the general idea. This week was unusual in that we only left the house once – however, you may have noticed that we’re getting outside a lot more, if only to hang out in our yard/walk around the neighborhood! We were supposed to go shopping today, but Emma didn’t want to and I didn’t feel like dragging her out in the rain. We also would normally have a play date on at least one of these days, but Johnny’s been really sick for the past two weeks and today was the first day I was confident that he wouldn’t get a friend sick. My social butterfly Emma has been begging to see a friend for the past week or so; luckily she has play dates set up for today and Friday.
We got no naps on Wednesday – Johnny did sleep for maybe half an hour, but it was only long enough for him to wake up grumpier than he was when he fells asleep. I was hoping that would help him fall asleep at a more decent hour, but he stayed up having his own personal party until 11PM! Emma used to do the same thing, but she’s old enough now to understand the concept of a business trip – including the value of guilt tripping Daddy into bringing back a treat for her. She got on the phone with him Tuesday and the first words out of her mouth were, “Dada, you going bring me a green treat?” How many toddlers love winterfresh tic tacs so much that they request them as their special consolation prize when Dad goes out of town?
What does your day look like?