A day in the life

A week ago my real life and bloggy friend Leanne Penny sent me a link to another blogger who was inviting anyone and everyone to sort of photo-log an entire day in their life. It sounded like fun to me.

I learned a few things from this exercise:

1) A lot of my day is about food and I am in the kitchen a lot.
2) I absolutely love being at home with my boy. Looking back over the day in pictures, I got to see how much I actually see of his little years; I've renewed my determination not to take it for granted.

A day in the life: Wednesday, November 13 2013.

7:37am I wake up to Arie's voice carried across the hall. John is already up and in the shower. I grab my camera and fumble around, putting the newly charged battery in place before taking my first picture of the day:

I go to check on my little boy. He's wide awake and full of, "Mama you 'wake? Mama where Papa go? Papa work? I hungry!"

I'm all read these books. I need coffee.  To moms of little ones who get up before 7am: I am in awe of you. You go. You deserve Starbucks every morning.

Downstairs I look out the kitchen window and see the sun rising up into a blue sky. Perfect. Arie and I can walk to Story Hour at the library.

John's already made the coffee so I pour myself a cup, get Arie a sippy of Kefir, and carry it back up to him.

John is just leaving for the day. He kisses us both goodbye probably dies a little inside as Arie adorably asks him to stay home "play wif me!"

After John's gone, I set Arie up with a show to watch while I shower. He picks "Color Inspirations" which is like so incredibly boring. I think it was invented for infants. I try convince him to at least go with Super Why, but he doesn't budge. Color Inspirations it is.

After my shower I "turn on the radio" (open the NPR app on my phone) and search for something good to listen to while I get ready. Dianne Rehm doesn't have anything interesting... what about Science Friday? Oh good! A show about dietary supplement regulation. As I brush my hair and smooth on my foundation I am SHOCKED and DISMAYED at the lack of regulation in the world of supplements! How can this be?? SOMEONE SHOULD DO SOMETHING! They talk about how Canada does a better job and I fist pump to my homeland, mascara in hand. Take note USA! Do a better job!! Hippies all over the country are COUNTING ON YOU!

All this before 9am. Where can my day go from here?

I open Arie's drawers and pick out his clothes for the day. This is one of my favorite things to do. Arie is just beginning to show preference for wardrobe choices, but he usually goes with whatever I pick. I cherish these days!

I pick red pants and a big fall sweater to keep him warm on our cold walk to the library.

To the kitchen.

I've been big on breakfast lately. Toast, eggs, and steel cut oats cooked in milk are my new routine.

I like to eat like a farmer for breakfast, apparently. 

Arie is underwhelmed by the first course of eggs and toast.

He has never liked oats in the past, but I remember that we have a jar of backyard distilled maple syrup from our super awesome I want to grow up to be just like them new friends at church. I mean really, you guys, you know how much I love everything about maple syrup, so you can imagine how my heart leapt when- after dinner one night- these friends placed this homey mason jar of liquid gold in my hands. I may or may not have eaten a few spoonfuls, just plain.

Anyway- I remember this jar and spoon some on to our oats.

People, my son ate the whole bowl. There was much rejoicing!

At this point, we are running late for story-hour at our local library, so I leave the messy kitchen post-haste and hurry Arie into his coat, hat and mitts.

He wants to wear his rain boots. The sky is clear blue and the ground dry, but there is no time to argue. Rain boots it is!

Out the door and down the street, we make it past exactly three houses before Arie is "too tired" to walk. In between his winter coat, stuffed puppy, and sack of library books, I stuff him in the stroller.

We make it to the library at 9:57. Three minutes to spare!

I basically just speed walked a mile in my boots and winter coat so I am already hot by the time we get there and the librarians seem to be having a simultaneous cold flash because I bet it is 85 degrees inside. When we get upstairs to the children's section, I plop down in a seat beside another mom who kindly greets me and asks, "How are you?" I can only reply, "Hot!" It takes me twenty minutes of not moving and slow breathing to cool down.

Sometime during those minutes while I am having visions of getting naked in the library because I am SO HOT, Arie learns about the letter "V!" He's been pronouncing "v" like "f" for... ever, but apparently all he needed was for Miss Eileen the Librarian to say, "Put your top teeth on your bottom lip while you say it!" and BAM- he can now say "V." Thank goodness for Story Hour or my kid would be talking about hating his "fegtables" and not wanting his mom to wear a "fisor" in public until he was 30.

Speaking of vegetables and visors- looks what we made!

A visor! With vegetables! Attached with Velcro! How clever.

Arie picks out four new library books and then follows me downstairs to get a new book on making your own bread in only "five minutes a day," which I am checking out because the Maple Syrup Family makes their own bread every day and I wasn't kidding when I said I want to grow up to be just like them.

After we check our books out, I bundle both of us up in our winter clothes again and head out for our walk home. Our trip home is much slower than the jog here, mostly because Arie picks up every single leaf and stick along the way and wants to be the only one to push the stroller.

We pass by two churches with bell towers on the way home. It's 11:30 and I make a mental note to spend a little more time at the library next week so we can hear the bells ring on our walk home.

I notice berries on the holly bushes! Christmas is coming! 

Soon we are at our front door again.

I tell Arie to play in the playroom while I make lunch. He come into the kitchen every 15 seconds to remind me how hungry he is. I suggest that he go make his own lunch in his play kitchen! What a good idea! He scowls.

Minutes later, he is in his chair eating lunch.

Once he's eaten all his yogurt and sucked the juice out of his orange slices, leaving behind a mess of pulp all over my kitchen table, it's time for nap.

He needs "puppy." We get puppy. He needs "ewa-phant too!" He get elephant. He needs "a ball!" We get a ball.

He barely makes it up the stairs alive.

In bed, he trades the ball for his little monkey (same one we left with him in Russia!) and snuggles up to go to sleep.

Bye Mama! 

He sleeps for two hours while I clean, work on my blog, and have a cup of tea.

Remember how messy my kitchen was this morning?

Boo ya.

I hear Arie's wake-up cry over the baby monitor and I am in his room 2.7 seconds later, but he still looks like this:

I thought you would never come!!

Don't worry I gave him lots of love. He was playing happily with his Christmas tent only minutes later.

While I snapped a few photos of him playing with his tent, I heard a big crash from the kitchen area. Arie gasps, "What dat Mom???"

It was our cat Jasper, knocking over a bag of empty bottles I had set out to return.

As punishment, Arie sits in front of Jasper's kitty door and refuses to let Jasper hide from his shame.

Their punisher-punishee relationship is resolved during snack with a game of peek-a-boo. Arie is squealing and giggling with delight while Jasper retains his ever-present what? expression.

After lunch we run upstairs for a quick change into a cooler shirt. We're going to church tonight and the children's ministry classrooms are always so hot! I learned my lesson at the library this morning.

John pulls up while we change and we run down to greet him at the door. This is the best part of both Arie's and my day!

Out to the car we go.

It is dusk now. Arie points out the moon as it grows brighter in the evening sky.

We pass through our downtown area and Arie exclaims from the back seat, "CHRISTMAS BALLS!" He's pointing out the seasonal decor, newly adorning shops and lampposts. It is amazing what kids notice!

In the parking lot at church John picks up his little boy and Arie waves goodbye to the sky, "Night moon! See you 'morrow!"

Inside, we grab a quick dinner. On the menu is fettichini alfredo. Arie eats a cookie instead.

We learn about Moses and the burning bush during children's ministry. One little girl in Arie's class will only listen to my reminders to sit on her bottom and listen to the story if I address her as "Mom." In turn, she calls me "Honey." I think it's a fair trade.

It's nearly 8pm by the time we're ready to head back out to our car and Arie is so tired he's loopy. He runs through the long church hallways squealing and falling in equal measures.

Arie plays "Papa" while we get our coats on.

At home, John gets Arie's teeth brushed and pajamas on. I sneak upstairs as John tucks Arie into bed to snap a few pictures. This is an accurate representation of how it's going:

Even John's "I'm going to sleep too!" fake-out yields no results.

I kiss my little boy goodnight and wish John luck, happy to be escaping the chaos.

I turn the kettle on for some tea, open my laptop and begin the process of writing this post.

8:30pm- my day is done. I do some quick tidying before I head to bed at 11pm and I go to sleep, ready to do it all again, tomorrow.

A day in the life.

xo