Today

Today I spent the morning

being woken up by a kicking baby still in utero and a couple toddlers calling for daddy,

listening to Sunshine read aloud from one of her favorite books,

listening to a concert put on by the boys and their bird singing back up,

 breaking a sweat while wrestling all three into clothes, while I'm telling them it's important to wear clothes, but really in my head was thinking, "yea, I don't know what the big deal about getting dressed everyday is either."


I watched the boys watch the birds eat tiny unseen insects off our driveway and future garden plot.

I was growled out by three ferocious little ones, a tiger, a lion and a dinosaur respectively.  Scaring mommy is a favorite activity as of late.  (Uh, don't mind the one sticking a tiger tail up his nose.)

I also put slippers on this guy about 20 times, at the request of his buddy Christian.

Now everyone is napping, I'm blogging but should be doing dishes, and later tonight I'll be attending a hypnobirthing class with Chris.  I'm planning on having an entirely different delivery with this one than I did with the triplets.  Chris is a little weirded out by the whole thing.  He's not sure what to expect.  It doesn't help that I told him we'll spend the first 30 minutes of class gazing into each other's eyes and pondering our love for one another and the miracle we created between us, all the while chanting, "child birth is natural, child birth is wonderful..."

He didn't think that was very funny.

How is your day so far?

Daily Schedule During My First Trimester OR My Kids Like Cheerios

Remember this post last year about our daily schedule?

I thought I would give an update on how things are looking lately.

From late November to February (aka my first 15 weeks of being with child) our schedule went something like this:

Early morning:  Chris gets up with kids while I either
        a) moaned and groaned in bed, calling for "crakers! can you bring me a few crackers!"
        b) hit up the bathroom for a good old fashion morning heaving session
        c) took 30 minutes to do what I can usually do in 4
Chris is really good to me.

Morning through late afternoon:  I would alternate between the couch, our reading chair or my bed while the little ones ran amuck (amuck! amuck! amuck!), took a nap, brought me books to read to them or watched a show.  I would of course manage to feed and (sometimes) dress them at some point during the day.

If nothing else, this second pregnancy has introduced my first borns to cold cereal and the wonders of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  They love both.

Early evening:  Chris comes home (HALLELUJAH!) to a wife still in her pajamas, kids happy to play with someone who actually moves from time to time and cold cereal for dinner.  (Chris is really good to me.)

6:30 - 7:30 : bedtime routine.  Bath, play with daddy while mommy continues her routine of laying around.

Then I would be asleep before Conan even started most nights.

Of course there were things to go and do.  We spent time during this phase doing holiday things.  Like going to a New Year's Eve party that ended at 8:00 pm.  (That was awesome.  I had a good 2 hours of sleep before being awoken by the bombardment of fireworks.)

I had to pretend I felt great and was not pregnant since we weren't telling anyone yet.

See?  Don't I look like the opposite of wanting to lay down and close my eyes?  And my big scarf disguising my already protruding midsection.  (Love that scarf Margaret!)  Let's not forget to admire my handsome hero.  The real cogs of our ticking clock during this season of sickness.

Christian wanted to make sure the dog was having a fun party as well.  

Being past that first trimester phase feels good.  I feel like a normal person again.  I can play "run" with my kids again.  (It's pretty complicated.  We just run around the play room in circles for an unspecified amount of time.)

We have a regular routine again that consists of mom actually getting dressed AND making dinner.  So now that I'm here, in phase two, my energies can be spent on other things.  

Like wondering how it happened that I thought our mini van was the biggest car in the world, but add another car seat, and we are FULL UP.  

Which is ok.  Because so is my cup.  

Up next... or at some future post: the current schedule sans morning all day sickness.  All the mundane details you can handle.


ps - if you could not tell Chris I have been feeling waaaay better in the mornings, that would be great.  He still gets the kids moving and set up for breakfast while I snag a few extra minutes in the morning.

pps - ok, you don't have to lie for me.  If it comes up, I understand.  But try not to sway your conversation toward our morning routine.

ppss - I'm kidding.

Our Schedule

I've been wanting to do a "schedule post" for a while. It sparked a few months ago when I saw a friend I hadn't seen in a while. She mentioned our van and said she was glad to see what kind of car we drove, because she was wondering. (Kia Sedona in case you also want to know.)

So, I thought that even some friends and family don't know how things function and go on here. This, the house of triple babies. The casa de tres leches at breakfast, lunch and dinner. So, how about a run through of our day?

7:30 - awake! We start to hear the babbling and talking. Sometimes Chris stays to help with diaper changes. But most days he's out the door, to make the bucks, to keep the diapers coming. I change diapers and keep babies in their cribs until all are changed. We then head to the kitchen all together for breakfast. (Think mama duck and her ducklings waddling around her.)

8:00 - breakfast. The kids (like most) are ravenous when they wake up. So the moments before they are actually served substance of any kind are a little tense. I fill 3 sippy cups of milk. We say a quick blessing over breakfast and three heads tip back to guzzle their morning milk. Then, I either make eggs and toast, waffles, pancakes or french toast. I usually load up on the butter with any of these options. Two of the three barely made the growth charts last check up (1 percentile) so we are still calorie packing where we can. They love breakfast. Mom always includes some kind of fruit. Their favorite.

Good morning mommy!

8:30-9:30 - clean faces, get dressed, play. I'm going to leave this sentence short. Although the actual events are full of chasing, wrangling, sweating, and STINKY bums. I call them their morning bombs. Whew. Stay away from our house during this hour.

Just a little morning playtime while waiting their turn to get dressed.

9:30-11:30 - nap. My babies are so good at going down. It's a tender mercy I'm grateful for. During their morning nap, there is plenty for me to do. I clean up breakfast and get their seats, trays and cups ready for lunch. Then, depending on the day, I will either, run a quick 3 miles downstairs on the treadmill if I didn't do it before they woke up, get ready, laundry, (THERE'S ALWAYS LAUNDRY!) pick an area of the house that has not been cleaned in a while and do my best to make it look like I care. Or I might watch a DVR'd Parks and Recreation. Or read an overdue library book. Or, on a glorious day, I might even sneak in a nap with them. I have to be honest, I wish this was a more regular occurrence. There is some stupid mechanism inside me that can't really fall asleep if my regular morning stuff isn't done . Maybe I can get it surgically removed.

11:30 - awake! Diaper changes and play time.

12:00 - lunch. Our lunches are pretty standard and usually the same from day to day. We rotate between a black bean quesadilla, mac and cheese, sandwiches or if they liked a dinner from the night before, we'll have that again. Then some kind of vegetable. Carrots, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potatoes, yams, something.

12:30 - clean up faces and play. I usually let the babies play in the play room with their gate up while I clean up lunch. Then we'll play together until nap time.

1:30 or 2:00 - second nap of the day. This nap time is a little more lax for me. Especially if I was a super good girl and did the majority of my domestic duties during their morning nap. For example, I'm typing this blog post during an afternoon nap.

3:30 - awake! Diaper changes, snack time and walk. Now that the weather is warming up, we like to take a walk during this block of the day. But I'm sure as the summer gets going, we will switch it up and take our walk in the morning. (Aren't you just loving all these boring details?)

Out for a stroll. We love our new triple wide.

5:00 - I start dinner while babies play around me. They get into a drawer they think they shouldn't and play with laundry I haven't folded yet. Gabe loves to listen to a special cd of songs, over and over again.

5:30 - quiet time in their room. This has been a lifesaver for me. I put all the babies in their crib with the blinds up. I give everyone a stuffed toy and 3-4 board books. During the next 30 min, I finish up dinner, give the house a quick straighten and see if I can make myself somewhat presentable to my handsome husband.

6:00 - Daddy's home! Hooray! We ALL do a little dance and clap. Chris helps me get babies into their seats, pours their milk and sets the table. We eat dinner together and tell dad about our day. The babies either throw their dinner on the floor or gobble it up. They are fickle critics at dinnertime.

6:30-7:30 - baths, pajamas, play with dad, more milk before bed, chaos, stories, family prayer, brush teeth, sing a song, bedtime prayers, kisses, blown kisses at the door and lights out.

7:30 - 8:00 - clean up dinner, dishes, straighten toy room and bathroom.

8:00 - mom and dad time. Sighs, snuggling and none of your business. Dreyers real fruit bars have been a favorite of late. We love to sneak in a post-bedtime treat.

So there is a rough outline. Of course not everyday goes exactly like this. This post took me two days to write because one little monkey decided he wasn't going to take an afternoon nap. Some nights one or two might decide they are NOT going to bed and stay up. And the weekends are a bit crazy. Anything goes on the weekends. We try to stick to a nap and play schedule, but when you have a mom happily letting dad take over on a Saturday and 3 hours of church starting at 11:00 am on Sunday, our weekends get a bits nutso.

Common scene on a Sunday morning. We all love our daddy time.

There is our day! Don't you feel informed? It's fun to peep via blogs, huh?

Questions? Am I still leaving out details you would like to know about our schedule and daily logistics? Just ask! I'll answer. I'd be curious.

(If you're shy about not wanting fellow readers to know who asked the question, my email is to the right. )