A day in the life...

I am often asked, "So, what do you do all day?"

I don't really know how to answer that question. Life just goes by and the day is over. Some good moments, some bad moments. Some hectic moments, some relaxed moments. Some stressful moments, some boring moments. I just can't sum it all up. Or can I?

I decided to take one day and document it with photos and put it into a blog entry. So, if you really are curious as to what I do all day, you might want to set aside some reading time...this is bound to be long. Or just scroll through and look at the photos.

I didn't decide to do this until after Steve had gone to work this morning, so there are no photos of the first couple hours of our day - the waking up or the eating breakfast, which took quite a while because Anya was in a pretty whiny mood.

Today is Steve's first day back at work after being gone for almost three weeks. Today is also Steve's 30th birthday. And today is also the day when I'm supposed to be getting ready for tomorrow when we'll have ten kids here for playgroup. But this is so much more fun that that...

After breakfast, Anya wanted to do playdough. Okay, sure, this usually lasts for a while and she really likes it, so I said yes. She loves getting everything out of the cabinet and toting it into the dining room. She settled on the color blue for today's play. Good choice...we have two containers of that color and it isn't as dry as some of the rest. Evan practiced his pre-crawling on the slippery dining room wood floor while I rolled out dough and Anya cut out shapes. This "gingamen" as Anya calls him was really the starting point of today's photo documentation. He is all Anya's creation. (10:08 am)



Next came two Christmas trees, "See it IS still Christmas!" And a moon (see it above the two trees). Why? Because the moon is still one of Anya's favorite objects/shapes. And because when you cut off the top of said "gingamen's" head, it makes a moon! Who knew? (10:19 am)



After playdough, Anya asked me what we were going to do today. She always asks this question. I had wanted to make something for Steve's birthday, even though he said he didn't care. But I wanted it to be special. If not just for him, then for Anya, too. Since her birthday is coming up in five days, I think it is important that she knows that other people have birthday's too. And it gave us an excuse to bake a chocolate cake. It's funny that cake mixes were invented for convenience because for me what is convenient is making a cake from scratch because it doesn't involve getting myself and two kids ready to go to the grocery store to buy a mix that I don't already have at home.

Anya, of course, wanted to help which was fine, although I couldn't turn my back for long.
"Look mommy, my hands are all white!"
"Why yes, they are!" Pausing a moment to not get angry and taking a picture instead. (10:59 am)



Evan enjoyed part of the baking process while being carried in the ergo carrier. He was particularly fascinated by the mixer. Anya, not so much...she goes and sits on the couch in the other room when I do that part. Evan spent the rest of the time on the floor chewing on the straps of the ergo carrier and attempting to suck on the cabinet. (11:32 am)



We decided to split the cake batter into two parts - half to make a cake for Steve and half to make into cupcakes to be saved for Anya's birthday later this week. Anya seemed okay with having to wait for her part since she was assured that daddy would share his cake with all of us. She kept asking, "Will Daddy like his cake?" I'm sure he will.

While the cake was cooking, Anya and I played under her direction while Evan played independently alongside us. First Anya instructed me we were going to get in the car. Here's the car. (11:45 am)



The morning's remaining cereal was quickly gobbled up so I could use the purple bowl as the steering wheel. Anya informed me I was driving to Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Clark's house. If only the real trip was just as short. We arrived and then had to carry in all our stuff. Evan's room became G&G's house and apparently our recent trip made a big impact because we had to go back to the car at least six times to "get more stuff." Even in pretend play we don't travel lightly.

We all three played at G&G's house (Evan's room), but we had to be quiet because G&G were sleeping. Then the cake was ready to come out of the oven, so we went to get it out.

While the cake was cooling, I decided to try and get Evan to sleep. I had already tried once unsuccessfully during playdough time. So, I decided just to nurse Evan in his room since I knew he would fall asleep that way. I told Anya she could either play in there quietly with me or go out and play by herself in the couch room. Instead, she choose to quietly whimper on the couch with her blanket. After holding Evan for a couple minutes as he slept, I was able to lay him down in his crib. Success. For now.

By this time, the cake had cooled the recommended amount of time before I was supposed to be able to gently free it from the pan. Here's what happened. (12:17 pm)



Good grief! The whole top of the cake came off, but not the bottom. Nice. Guess we won't be frosting this one. Here's a shot of the dismayed look on Anya's face. (12:17 pm) Notice that she is clutching her blanket. That is a sure sign she is not happy.



"But how will we put candles on it?" my concerned little daughter asked.
"Hmmm...well, I don't know if we can." Quick! Think fast...how can we save this!?
"How about if we take half of the cupcakes and use them for daddy's birthday and save the other half for your birthday?" Please, let this idea work! She's thinking...

"Okay, we can do that! Can we put candles on the cupcakes?!" Anya's excitement returns.
"Sure we can, " I said.
"And can we put icing on the cupcakes?"
"Yes."
"But not on the cake?"
"No, not on the cake?"
"Maybe next time the cake will stay together, mama."
"Yes, I hope it will."
"Can we eat the cake now?"
"Sure, why not." (12:19 pm)



After we both ate probably a little too much cake (in fistfuls), I put the remaining crumbles back in the pan and said, "Maybe daddy likes crumbs."

I then decided maybe we should have some lunch since it was nearing 1 pm. Anya said, "Can we have some red pizza?" "Red pizza" is her name for the 10 for $10 Totino's frozen pizzas we get at the grocery store. Probably horrible for you, but cheap and not too bad. Plus, she usually eats three of the eight pieces herself, so it is a sign she really likes it. She also likes going out to the garage with me and getting the pizza out of the freezer drawer herself. Then she takes it inside and unwraps it and recycles the box herself. Here's our pizza. (12:52 pm)



While our pizza was cooking, we heard Evan crying. He only slept for about 25 minutes. Boo. Here's a picture of his excited face when we came in. (12:43 pm)



And here is Anya trying to hold Evan's hand to make him feel better when mommy walked away from the crib. (12:43 pm)



We went back to the kitchen to check on our pizza and while it cooled, Anya entertained Evan by running toward him and then running away and back again. Over and over. (12:45 pm)




Evan played with the vacuum hose while I finished getting his food ready for lunch. Sweet potatoes and applesauce. (12:53 pm)



We sat down to eat and is often the case when we get started with any meal, Anya said, "My belly hurts." This is code for "I need to to the bathroom." So, we all got up again and headed to the bathroom. (12: 54 pm) Check out the look on her face.



Evan became fascinated with picking up the doorstop in the bathroom. (12:56 pm)



We're back at the table and Evan is not happy about the delay. (1:04 pm)



Anya being silly at the table. (1:05 pm)



She tells me, "You save another piece of pizza for me! Yesterday you didn't save one."

She's right. Although it wasn't technically yesterday. You'd think we eat "red pizza" everyday around here or something! "Yesterday" is just Anya's generic term for sometime in the past. But she's right...last time, I only saved two pieces for her. I was extra hungry and she looked like she was slowing down and wouldn't be able to eat her usual three pieces. I was wrong. And she won't let me forget it.

Just when everyone is happily eating, Anya announces that her belly hurts again. It's back to the bathroom, although this time I leave Evan in the highchair with a few toys.

I decided not to include a photo of her on the potty, so instead you get the slightly creepy image of the water babies "hanging out" in the bathtub to dry. (1:13 pm)



I pause for a shot in the mirror as Anya and I leave the bathroom. (1:13 pm)



Back at the table, Anya finds "a little piece of something she doesn't like" on her pizza. Miraculously, this doesn't stop her from eating altogether and instead she is able to pick off the offending speck and continue eating. (1:16 pm)



I'm finished eating and am just waiting for Anya and Evan to finish when my sister calls. I tell her I can talk while they are finishing. As I'm taking, I am reminded how thankful I am that when ignored, my children can pretty much entertain themselves. :-) Here's Anya making a present out of her napkin and fork while I'm on the phone. (1:27 pm)



I end the phone call so I can put Anya down for a nap. (1:41 pm)



But wait...she informs me that she is already taking a nap...on the floor. She giggles at first and then closes her eyes and pretends to snore. (1:43 pm)




I "wake her up" and we go into her room for nap time preparations - putting on a diaper and picking out stories. She tries to stall with various tactics.

"I'll try to get the diaper out with my feet!" (1:46 pm)



"Watch me spin!" (1:50 pm)



"Being crazy on the bed." (1:50 pm)




Evan watches in amusement from the floor. (1:53 pm)



Eventually, she is ready to settle down and we read the two stories she has picked out. "A Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats and "Tools" by Taro Miura. (1:51 pm) The are the same books we read last night for bedtime. Sometimes she likes to repeat.



Stories are over and she's tucked in with her books, ice water and blanket. (2:03 pm)



Evan and I head to my bathroom so I can finally take a shower. Evan is content to play in our bathroom play area. And I am content to have a few minutes to myself where nobody needs me to do anything. (2:05 pm)



After my shower, Evan and I go out to the couch room where he continues to play on the floor while I work on this blog entry. After quite a while, he tires of entertaining himself and I realize he also needs a diaper change. This is seriously at least his 7th poopy diaper of the day. Something is going on! (3:37 pm) We change it on the dining room floor because it is farthest away from his sleeping sister. He's tired.



Because I want to keep writing this blog entry, I manage to feed him while pecking around on the computer with my one free hand to continue typing. He quickly falls asleep and I am able to lay him down. I choose the couch because it is close and if he wakes up I can hopefully get him quickly before he wakes Anya up. In case you're wondering, that is a pink blanket on him. It was there and I didn't feel like going and finding something else. I think he'll be okay. (3:49 pm)



I take the house phone off the hook and put my cell phone on vibrate. I don't want anyone to wake up my children. I want to keep blogging. (3:50 pm)



What I really should be doing right now is cleaning up in preparation for playgroup tomorrow. Here's a shot from earlier in the day to show you our "couch room" (as Anya calls it). Our house is a wreck.



It's now 4:29 pm and Evan and Anya are still sleeping. I'm finished with the blogging up to present time, but now I'm scared to do anything. With Evan sleeping in here, I don't want to do much to risk waking him up. But they are statistically speaking sure to wake any minute, so I should be getting something done. This is the dilemma I face any time I get a moment to myself. How can I spend this time when I don't know how long I have and I don't want to do anything that could potentially wake anybody up? And usually, by the time I figure out something to do...somebody is awake again.

At 4:52 pm, Evan wakes up happy on the couch. Not a minute later Anya wakes up happy in her room. You're probably wondering what I decided to do with my "free time." I spent the last 23 minutes tiptoeing around trying to put things away quietly. I got some done, but not a lot. Unfortunately, Steve's birthday evening will probably involve a significant amount of time where he's watching the kids and I'm cleaning up the house. And he'll probably be making his own birthday dinner when he gets home from work. I've still got a cake to ice! Oops, I mean, I've still got cupcakes to ice!

I let Anya wake up a bit more in her room before going in. From the looks of her when I enter, the extra time was a good idea because she is still a little groggy. (5:36 pm)



She soon perked up and was putting her underpants on her head. (5:40 pm)



After finally getting the underpants in the right place, we went out to the couch room where she exclaimed, "You cleaned up while I was sleeping!" It's nice to get such appreciation. Anya helped me carry the remaining toys with little pieces into our bedroom in preparation for the littler kids that will be here tomorrow.

At one point, she was sniffing me and said, "I'm smelling you, mama! You smell good!" What a relief. And then she pretended to take a bite of me and said, "Yummy, you taste good, too!" But then she "spit me out" into her hand and threw the "bite of mommy" on the floor. Guess I wasn't so tasty after all.

Anya then made a birthday card for Steve. (6:04 pm)



He actually came home while she was making it, but she doesn't really understand secrets yet, so she didn't mind. Once she had finished putting a whole sheet of heart stickers on the front, she "wrote" on the inside. She told me it said, "To Daddy. Happy Birthday, Daddy. From Anya." Then she went and put it on the dining room table with the rest of his birthday cards and gifts. (6:21 pm)



Steve said he didn't feel like cooking and I didn't either. (This weekend we had planned out a bunch of meals and went shopping, but now they just seemed like too much work.) So, I made an easier favorite recipe of ours called hot-dog quiche, except we substituted sausage for the hot-dogs. While that was cooking, Anya helped me to make the icing for the cupcakes. I told her to tell me what kind of icing daddy and she wanted for their cupcakes. She said, "Daddy, I have a question for you. What kind of icing do you want?" They discussed for a while and settled on red for Steve's cupcakes and green for Anya's because apparently green is now her favorite color. She tried to ice her own cupcake, but then decided it was too messy. (6:55 pm)



I forgot to mention that when Steve came home, Anya asked him, "Daddy, do you like crumbs?" He had no idea what she was referring to, but he said yes anyhow.

Here she is stirring the two colors of icing. (6:58 pm)



Steve was hanging out with Evan during this whole process. (6:58 pm)



Here is Steve reading my blog entry so far with my permission. (7:07 pm) Whenever one of us sees that the other has started a blog entry, it is all we can do to wait until it is finished to read it. So, he got a special treat to read it mid-entry.



After the cupcakes were iced, Anya was excited to put the candles in. (7:03 pm) "Pink candles for daddy!"



The final product. Anya's green cupcakes were put in the freezer for Friday. (7:04 pm)



Anya got a rag to clean her hands in the kitchen, but it just didn't quite do the job to her satisfaction, so we headed to the bathroom for some heavy duty hand washing. Here she is making some faces at herself. (7:05 pm)




We were still waiting for our dinner to finish cooking in the oven when Steve got a call from Kevin for his birthday. (7:13 pm)



Anya waited for dinner by getting out her train set. It is amazing how cleaning up the room made her see all kinds of things she hasn't played with for a while. (7:14 pm)



Anya freaked out when the train tracks didn't make a complete circuit. There is actually only one configuration using all the tracks that actually works and you have to study a picture to figure it out and she never wants help. But yet she gets mad when she doesn't like the result. I told her that if she wanted it to join up, she would have to have daddy help her some other time. Yes, I was trying to get out of the situation. Instead, she began playing "birthday." This is something she has been doing off and on all day in bits and pieces, but I finally captured it. Here she is bouncing her baby and singing "Happy Birthday." (7:20 pm)



Evan was playing next to me the whole time and wanted desperately to wreck Anya's train tracks until he became fascinated with the chair next to him and did everything in his power to try and tip it over, but never succeeded. (7:22 pm)



Dinner was finally ready and it took some convincing to get Anya into the dining room. She had this elaborate plan of pushing three babies in her stroller. One in the regular seat, one hanging in a bag from the handles and one in the carseat perched on top of the stroller. Quite ingenious. But it's time for dinner! (7:41 pm) Yes, they came along to the dining room.



Evan loved his squash and peaches and Steve joined in on the picture taking. (7:55 pm)



Near the end of dinner, Anya had a meltdown as she finally came to the realization that we weren't doing anything for her birthday tonight. I had feared this happening all day, but she seemed fine until she wasn't. But Steve held her and calmed her down and assured her she would have her special day soon, but that tonight was his birthday celebration. She eventually was convinced to finish her yogurt and eat one more bite of sausage before we could get on with the cupcake eating.

Preparing for the candle lighting and singing. (8:12 pm) I sang "Happy Birthday" solo.



Anya wanted to help blow out the candles. (8:14 pm)



Anya enjoyed eating her cupcake, but it was a bit messy for her taste. (8:16 pm)



While eating our cupcakes, Steve got a birthday call from Tanino. (8:17 pm) I can't stop taking pictures!



We finished our cupcakes and went into the couch room for Steve to open up his cards. Anya wanted to help. This is her being excited over opening up a box of chocolate from my parents. (8:31 pm)



Steve got a fryer from his parents. This photo is of me telling Anya that it is in fact okay for Evan to play with the fryer box even though it is not a toy. (8:37 pm)



Steve, Anya and Evan checking out the fryer. (8:43 pm)



Anya wanted to go to the basement and bring up some of her pretend food so she could "fryer it." Steve obliged and then took this photo of it. (8:51 pm)



After a little more "fryering," Anya was told it was time for bed. I didn't have the camera for any of this part. Bedtime for Anya involves going to the bathroom and then putting on a diaper and pajamas. As I'm sure you noticed in the pictures, she never actually made it out of her pajamas today, so she was already set for bedtime. Then she brushes her teeth, makes sure to have fresh ice water and her blanket, and then picks out two stories. One for mommy and one for daddy. We all sit up on her bed and read together and then it is "kiss, hug" and she gets tucked in with her books, water and blanket, just like for nap time. It is wonderful to have one child who is a good sleeper.

I did take this photo of Evan after we had finished with Anya's bedtime so I would know what time it was. (9:24 pm)



Evan didn't last much longer. Steve got him to sleep soon after this picture. And then for the next hour and a half we worked on getting the house ready for tomorrow. The main problem area left was the kitchen. We emptied the dishwasher and filled it all up again and still had a whole counter full of dishes to wash. At least this meant we have been doing some cooking. I had made the quiche, cake, cupcakes, and icing today. And this weekend, Steve made a couple meals and homemade bread and pizza with homemade crust. So, we had a bit of a mess going on. I also cleaned the bathroom on the main floor and looked at the bathroom in the basement and decided it was clean enough. Steve put up the baby gates on the stairs and carried the Christmas tree - ornaments and all - into our room for safe keeping. I got out all the food for tomorrow and did some preparations. We are having a three hour drop-off where one other mom and I are watching all the other kids. It will be ten kids total! And we are feeding them a snack and lunch! But I think we're as ready as we're going to be.

At 11:00 pm, I sat down to finish this blog entry. At 11:30, Evan woke up again. Boo. Steve brought him out of his crib and held him while he was finishing something on the computer. Now it is 11:51 pm and Evan is back in his crib and Steve went to bed. I will soon be there, too.

I can't do anything else or I would have blog about it. Just kidding.

I hope that a few of you got through this entire entry. But I wrote it more for myself than for you, so it's okay if you didn't. Obviously there are elements of today that don't happen every day. Some days are more chaotic and some are less busy. But now maybe you know a little bit more about what I do all day long.

Good night.