Day in the life (with 6 month old twins!)

Today is one of my favorite days on social media! Today on instagram people from all over the world document a typical day-in-the-life and use the tag #onedayHH.

I like to use my camera rather than my phone and write up a blog post rather than record on instagram. Its fun to look back over the years and see how my days have changed! You can check out 2013 and 2014. Last year I did not participate in #onedayHH because I was feeling terrible with morning sickness and most of my day was just my laying on the couch. This year I chose to document my day one day early because today Arie goes to his grandma's house after school and I didn't want to include a whole day without him in it!

Here's what a typical day looks like for me as a stay-at-home mom with one school age child and six-month-old twins.

My days all blur together right now but let's just start the clock at midnight:

12am- I am sleeping! Wonderful sleep, so hard to come by since my twins were born last April.

My first wake up call for November 1, 2016 comes at 2:43am.

That may seem awful but I am actually happy about this because my last wake-up was shortly before midnight which mean I slept for nearly 3 hours. I covet three hour stretches of sleep these days!

It's Roman who is awake. I nurse him, put him back to sleep and go back to bed myself.

But not for long.

3:26, Ira wakes up. I nurse him, rock him back to sleep and go back to bed myself.

BUT NOT FOR LONG.

4:08 Roman wake up again. Repeat the whole nurse/rock/sleep process. Go back to bed for a few hot minutes when...

4:41am Ira wakes up again.

One final nurse/rock/sleep routine and I get back to bed around 5am. John takes over with the twins at 6am every morning so I can get one last stretch of sleep before my day begins. They end up both waking at 6:30am and I sleep until 7am when Arie's new alarm clock goes off and he carries it into my room because he can't figure out how to turn it off.

I stay in bed until 7:30am when I hear the babies crying for their morning feed.

Downstairs they are all smiles to see me. I imagine them cheering, "THE MILK LADY!!!" when they see me in the morning.

Before I feed them I pour my coffee and pop a bagel in the toaster. Arie is sitting in front of his breakfast talking about his candy haul from trick-or-treating the night before. I start my 5,000 reminders for him to "Take a bite!" so he goes to school with something in his belly. He's wishing he could take a bite of the candy he's eyeing!

One coffee, heavy on the cream. And the sugar. I am nursing two babies after all!

Once my breakfast is ready I take it to the couch where I nurse the twins and eat at the same time. John takes his shower, gets Arie's backpack ready for school, and helps him brush his teeth.

8:10am- Arie and John are out the door on the way to school and work respectively.

8:30am The twins are rubbing their eyes so I take them up to nap.

While they nap, I get myself ready for the day.

9:15am I'm swiping my mascara when I hear Ira crying. I hurry to get him before he wakes up his brother. Roman is still fast asleep so I try rock Ira back to sleep, in hopes of keeping both babies on the same schedule. No such luck.

I'm awake Mom! Not going back to sleep! 

I take Ira downstairs and play with him for about 30 minutes until Roman wakes up.

9:45am Roman wakes up. He's all smiles when I get him from his crib which makes me all smiles too. How cute are my babies!?

10am time to feed the babies some solids! I always feed them before I change them out of pajamas and into their clothes because they are super messy eaters! Today they are having oatmeal, prunes, and banana.

10:30am I change them into clothes for the day.

10:45 I nurse them both again.

11am Play time!

11:15am Ira is getting fussy and tired. Roman is happy and wide awake. I try keep Ira happy and awake for a while so I can put them both down for a nap at the same time, but... no such luck. By 11:30am I put Roman in the baby swing and bring Ira upstairs where I nurse and rock him to sleep.

At this point my camera battery dies so I take over with my phone's camera while it charges. While Ira sleeps, I play with Roman, eat my lunch, and clean up our kitchen. Over the next two hours Ira wakes up and Roman goes down for his nap, I nurse them again, empty the dishwasher, and fold a million pounds of laundry.

3pm Time to go get Arie from school. Yay we are leaving the house! I put both babies in their carseats and buckle them up. They both poop. I unbuckle them both, change them both, buckle them both up again, and race out the door hoping I will not be late for parent-pick up!

"Let's go get Arie!!!"

I'm not late! I'm a few minutes early, even. I admire the beautiful fall leaves while I wait for the school bell to ring.

Both babies cry in the car because they are only okay with being in their carseats if we are moving. As soon as we stop, a symphony of babies cries echoes around my minivan while I practice deep breathing to not let their cries or my helplessness in the situation to get to me.

Soonish we have inched our way forward to where big brother is waiting for us. As soon as the van door pops open the babies go from crying to cooing at their beloved big brother. Arie hops into his carseat and buckles up for the drive home.

4pm We are home again. I get Arie a snack, nurse the babies, and then start cooking dinner. I had planned on making beef stroganoff but when I open to the recipe I realize it was a slow-cooker recipe. Whoops. Also I don't have any egg noodles.

So I flip through my cookbooks looking for a new recipe with ground beef and find I have almost everything I need to make "real food sloppy joes" from the new 100 Days of Real Food cookbook. Hopefully I can substitute water and tomato paste for tomato sauce (it turns out I can!).

4:40pm Ira is getting ready for a third nap and won't let me put him down so I cook dinner as fast as I can with a baby in my arms, put Roman back in the swing, and bring Ira up for a nap.

Stain on my shirt. #momlife

5:15pm I hear John come home while I'm rocking Ira to sleep. Once I get Ira in his crib, I come down to this sweet scene:

Roman loves John. He kicks and squeals when John comes home from work. I love their sweet relationship!

5:30pm We call Arie to dinner. He's been watching TV and begs us to let him just finish this one show. We give him 5 minutes and then sit down to eat. Ira wakes up from his nap so John runs up to get him. I swallow my sloppy joes whole so I can use my hands to feed the babies some yogurt, peas, and carrots for dinner.

It's my mom's birthday today so while I'm feeding the babies and we're all at the table, we call her on Skype to wish her a happy birthday.

6pm dinner is done and it is time to get the babies in the bath. Arie plays upstairs while John cleans the kitchen and I bathe the babies.

TELL ME THIS IS NOT THE MOST ADORABLE!!!

6:30pm Arie has to read three books for school so we sit on the couch all five of us- each parent with a clean and pajamaed baby- and listen to Arie read his books. He's getting so good at reading! I'm so proud of him.

7pm time to get the babies in bed. I nurse them both then put Roman down first while John carries Ira up to Arie's room and tucks in our big boy early (he's extra tired today because last night was so late trick-or-treating).

Reading Roman a book before bed. 

7:15pm Roman is sleeping and I get Ira down next.

7:30pm I peak in Arie's room to see if he's still awake, waiting for a kiss from Mom. He is. I give him a kiss and stroke his hair for a few minutes until he's sleepy.

7:45pm I put my pajamas and join John downstairs. I pour a glass of wine, pick something from Arie's Halloween candy stash, and sit down to watch an episode of The Good Wife with John.

8:15pm I finish neither the episode of The Good Wife nor my glass of wine because Ira wakes up. He does this every night- wakes up after his first sleep cycle. I rock him back to sleep and then tell John I'm going to bed myself.

8:45pm Roman wakes up. I rock him back to sleep and climb back into bed, hoping both the twins make it to midnight so I can get three hours of sleep in a row.

I almost do.

And that is a day in the life.

xo