Day in the Life - Fall 2013

So excited for another Day in the Life! This time I chose a stay at home day (I work 3 days/stay home the other 2). Charlie is 3 years, 8 months (don't worry, I promise I usually just say he's 3.5 :) ). Levi is 1 year, 8 months.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013
6:45am - Erik & I wake up. Both boys are still sleeping. Charlie is naturally an early riser (6AM-ish) but the last month or so he has been pushing it back to 6:45. I am enjoying it while I can because I have a sneaking suspicion that once daylight savings rolls around he'll start getting up early again. Both of them were also feeling under the weather yesterday so I'm sure he's tired from that.

7:10- Charlie finally wanders downstairs. Levi is also babbling so I go up and get him, change his diaper and bring him down. Charlie says his tummy feels better but he doesn't want much for breakfast. Erik gets him some applesauce & starts making pancakes while I jump in the shower. Pancakes are a breakfast staple for the boys so we make a lot at a time & freeze them. I ask Erik about his schedule for the day because I would like to get a chiro appointment & he says he'd take an appt too if there were some available. My back is quite sore and I'm thinking it's from carrying around my little shadow. Thankfully our chiro rocks and offers to cut his lunch short & squeeze us in at the same time so we don't have to make 2 trips.

Being a bum on the couch is not normal.

Charlie likes to get jars from the basement & open them. I hate the basement so I let him!

7:30 - Erik heads upstairs for work (rough commute) and I continue with the pancake making. I decide to make another batch right away because when both boys are on their A game they can plow through them. This morning Levi has 3 pancakes, applesauce & a banana. Charlie retreats to the couch to watch some TV, this is how I know he's still not feeling great. I unload & reload the dishwasher and after the pancakes are done I make eggs & bacon for myself. Finally at 8:45 I eat my breakfast. The boys are playing nicely so I decide to start on the dishes since I believe every pan we own is currently dirty. At some point Levi sneaks off with his cup of milk from his highchair & dumps it into the hay wagon. Charlie is anti-mess so he doesn't appreciate this either.

Playing together!                 Stools: A toddler's BFF

More happy togetherness

My only major plans for the day (aside from cleaning up in the kitchen) was to go to the castle store (aka Menards) to buy plastic for the windows. The plan changes when Charlie mentions a couple of times that his mouth hurts. One quick look with the flashlight & I see spots :(  Call the clinic and get him an appointment for later in the afternoon. Decide to skip Menards & potentially spreading our germs. They also get dressed for the day.

Levi's "hold me mama" look. I get it a lot.

Things start to get a little out of hand. Charlie is trying to play nicely and Levi just wants to be all up in his business. Since Charlie doesn't feel great he's not quite as patient. Charlie also LOVES asking Levi if he wants something but then Levi gets really mad when I say no. Things like "Do you want to get out of the carseat?" or "Do you want (insert food)?"

I decide it's time to do some Halloween crafting. I get Charlie going on a candy corn picture & Levi is interested for a couple of minutes and then goes back to tearing things out.  We also paint some plates orange for a fun hand print spider craft for later. After that Charlie gets out his elevator and spends a long time trying to move Cheerios up the elevator. When he gets the cereal out, it's a green light for Levi (that cupboard is locked) so he gets cereal out too. With that said, I have to sweep the kitchen floor!

Charlie crafts. And as he would say, "Levi is curious like George." yes, yes he is.

The "why doesn't mom have 7 more hands" look

Trusty lunchtime assistant; playing elevator; the meal prep special "mama hold me"look

I throw some chicken on the stove & start making lunch. The boys have chicken wraps & a pear. I have a salad with chicken  & apples in it. Erik warms up leftover tomato & butternut squash soup. Charlie eats great. Levi picks the chicken out of his wrap but eats the tortilla, cheese & pear. Charlie exclaims, "that's not soup, that's barf" at Erik's soup, which is a semi accurate statement because he's just calling it like he sees it & the soup does not look very appetizing.

After lunch Erik takes a shower and we get ready to head to town for our chiro appts. I go first, then Erik & we're heading back for home. Family fun day at it's finest right there.  charlie watched a movie on the phone most of the time, Levi tried to find things to destroy.

1:30 Erik heads back to work & I put the boys down for their naps, reading to Levi first, then to Charlie. Charlie is acting much better & tells me his mouth doesn't hurt anymore so I consider cancelling the appointment but Erik thinks we should have him checked just to be sure.

Still drooling.

upside down baby. So happy at nap time.

I take the next 45 minutes to lay on an ice pack & watch some TMZ Live. Then I get up determined to be semi productive. I take a pail of stuff out to the compost pile, bring the garbage can back & get the mail. Then productivity goes out the window & I read the paper instead. Shortly after, Levi is up (with stinky diaper #3 of the day??) . He is always up first and if I'm not careful he'll bust in and wake Charlie up. Charlie wakes up crying & is a hot mess. I give them each a cracker, thankful I didn't cancel his appointment based on how he's acting now. Erik says he would like to keep working so I say I can take Levi with too. That way he's available if they want to look in his mouth (he had a fever recently, too and then had absolutely insane amounts of drool for 2 days). However, as we're heading out the door Charlie is just having a hard time keeping it together & I tell Erik I can't deal with both of them. So Levi stays home.

We get to the appointment, he has a small fever but is cooperative. When they tried to do the strep test he was not a fan. He's had it done once before so now he's onto them & he kept pulling away. Eventually they did get it. The rapid test came back negative so we are going with a virus unless we hear differently in a couple of days. I was so happy to not have Levi as we were in the small exam room and had to wait a bit for the rapid test to come back.

Post nap.

20 minutes later...Practicing saying "ahhh"

While we were gone, Erik & Levi went for a walk, made supper & brought in Charlie's new nightstand that Erik made. We got home just as supper was going on the table. We made a spaghetti squash for the first time ever & had spaghetti. It was much better than either of us had planned. Even Levi ate it once we hid the grapes. After supper we took Charlie's nightstand up to his room & put all of his books on it. Hooray for not having books all over the place anymore!

Erik says it's supposed to be cold, possibly freeze & rain for the next few days so we decide we should pick our pumpkins & squash. Everyone gets bundled up & we head back for our last evening in the garden for the year! We run over to the neighbors to check out her indoor chicken coop she just built and then go to the garden. There are a lot more than we were anticipating.

Levi hasn't given up on the strawberries yet. We suspect some pumpkin/squash crossbreeding occurred

This is what planting 2 hills of pumpkins & 2 hills of squash will get you...

It's getting dark so early :( The boys stand at the end of the driveway to watch a combine in the field & play catch with the dog. It's now 7pm so we head in & Levi goes up for a bath. Charlie wants to take a shower so I help him clean up the toys. I also vacuum (it is DITL afterall :). Levi comes down & Charlie goes up to get a bath. I catch Levi & put his jammies on, give him his vitamins & brush his teeth. Repeat with Charlie. Erik takes Levi up to read & put him down. I take Charlie up & read to him & he crashes immediately. We're done parenting for the day by 8pm.

Really ticked off about not getting his vitamins.  Also, someone is feeling much better hence the sommersaults.

Charlie's fave book of the moment. We have to find everything & then say how it works. Some of them are very hard. Can't wait to take this one back to the library!

We watch Law & Order SVU & then decide to call it a day. Erik has a few books he needs to read for work so he starts doing that. I play on pinterest for about 15 minutes before I just give up and go to sleep. We're still trying to catch up on sleep from the weekend :)