A Day in the Life - Fall 2014

Time for A Day in the Life! We are 3 weeks into life as a family of 5. So crazy to go back and read about our former days. Life sure does change with a baby back in the house :) I even used a real camera for much of the day since my phone camera has seen it's better days.

Wednesday, October 29
Charlie - 4.5
Levi - 2.5
Nora - 3 weeks

Nora is stirring around 1:45am. I bring her out of her bassinet (impressed she slept in there for a couple of hours, she's not a huge fan...) and feed her.  She eats quickly and according to the app on the ole phone she was done by 2:10 and went back to sleep right away on her side of the bed. Erik has been sleeping on the couch since before she was born because it's the best way for everyone to maximize their sleep. 

She is back up at 5:50am so it was a pretty good night I'd say. It's not bad as long as she falls back to sleep right away! As I am feeding her I hear the boys come down at exactly 6:00. This is not good. Charlie is an early riser but this is early for him (lately) and for sure way to early for Levi. I can tell they are up too early because they are just obnoxious & loud. Usually if Erik is home I would go back to sleep for a bit longer but they are just so loud that it's a lost cause. Nora has no problem passing back out. Erik gets up and makes cinnamon rolls with the boys and feeds them breakfast (pancakes from the freezer and yogurt). Shortly after 7am he comes in to tell me he has a call at 7:30 he needs to be on. I thought he was taking PTO all day so ugh....drag myself out of bed and go out to crazy town.  

 If you are not a morning person and you live with someone who is, this picture makes perfect sense to you and sums up my mornings until about 8am...

Charlie has school today so he gets dressed and I help him brush his teeth. He is being so goofy and I am definitely very crabby.  I write a note for the van driver with Charlie's schedule for next week (get picked up at home or daycare) and that after next week we will be done with daycare and this confusing pick up/drop off schedule.  Transportation is a service offered through our district and to me it is worth every penny to not have to drive to town (10 miles) two times in the mornings with 2 other kids. I also email his teacher while I'm thinking of it to let her know the plan. The boys play tractors for awhile and then Charlie gets his shoes & jacket on to wait for the van. Charlie goes out to the end of the driveway and gets the garbage can and then when he gets closer to the house Levi goes out and helps him pull it into the garage.  

We wave Charlie off and I eat some breakfast. Levi plays nicely by himself, enjoying having all of the skidloaders/tractors/wagons/bales/elevator to himself and being able to do it how he wants instead of having Charlie boss him around. He also spends a lot of time in his little kitchen bringing me lots of sandwiches and food. I clean up breakfast, start the dishwasher and do the dishes. Levi asks to watch the "funny Shake it Off" video which is the parody featuring the Big10 mascots. We watch it several times a day. I question if we are half of the views it has had on YouTube, but it's better than having them watch the actual music video.  I have to check on Nora quite frequently because our dishwasher is so loud I would never hear her wake up.  She is up around 9, which is pretty normal for her.  We change her diaper & I feed her.  Erik has an appointment to get the oil changed in his car for 11am so he says he will pick Charlie up and then they can walk to DQ while they wait for the car to be done. He is planning to take the afternoon off to help with fieldwork.

Making sure to cover the entire floor.

 We play an exciting few rounds of "Guess what's under my bucket?" ("Nope, guess again!")

He was sure he needed more cereal for his elevator.

Since we won't have to be here waiting for Charlie, I decide to run to the grocery store. Normally I would put Nora in the moby, but we don't need a ton of stuff today and I am feeling brave so I put her seat in the cart (which leaves no room for any groceries) and convince Levi to push a little cart. He only rams into the back of my legs four times :) Overall, he does well and listens much better than when it's him & Charlie. In general he is much better behaved when Charlie is not around. We stop at the deli to get turkey and Levi gets a free cookie from the bakery. Nora sleeps through the whole thing. Lots of old ladies oogle over how adorable she is & comment on her super cute cow hat.

"I need more round bales!" Yeah, TP is a popular toy around here.

We get back in the car and it's now 11:15 so I make an executive decision to crash Erik & Charlie's lunch date. We get to DQ and they have just gotten their food. I order a chicken strip basket to share with Levi. We all eat our lunch and then I head home with the 2 little ones while Erik & Charlie walk back to get the car. On the way home there is a very brief moment of silence and when I glance back Levi is nodding off. NOOOOO!!! I ask him to look for combines, windmills, ANYTHING to keep him awake for the last 2 miles.  He starts singing his favorite songs, "Old McDonald had a farm and Bingo was his name-o" and "The Charlie's on the bus go wah, wah, wah!" haha.  Levi and I unload the groceries and Erik texts to say that they are going to put new tires on the car quick. Ugh, that will be a spendy oil change.  Now I wish that I would have brought Charlie with me because nap is going to be late & Levi clearly needs a nap now.  Nora finally wakes up around 12:15 so I feed her. Levi shocks me by sitting on the couch and watching Jake on the Kindle for 4 whole minutes. That's progress.  After she's done, Levi picks out 2 pieces of candy for his jar.  In the last few weeks he kept getting out of bed repeatedly and it was super annoying. I knew he was highly motivated by rewards so we started putting 2 pieces of candy (starburst & a tootsie roll) in a jar that he can't get open and then if he gets out of his bed we take one way. So far, it has worked perfectly. He wants that candy soooooo bad and we have only taken away a piece one time (which went over about as well as I had pictured in my head). 

Finally around 1, everyone is back home so we start nap time.  I read them books & we sing songs while Erik hangs out with Nora downstairs. Charlie asks what time he needs to stop looking at his books and I say it doesn't matter because I am POSITIVE he's so tired he will fall asleep right away. I do tell him he can get up at three-zero-zero.  I measure Nora's noggin & order some headbands off of Etsy  (obsessed with headbands!), getting a bigger size and hoping I can put a little stitch in or tie a knot to make them fit for longer. I also start trying to make a collage to match the boys' newborn photo collages. Erik's sister stops over with her baby, Travis. Erik tells me his plans (finish plowing a field and then hopefully combine around 4:30 so the boys can come have a ride) before he leaves and Brenda & I visit for awhile. Around 2:15, Charlie shows up at the top of the stairs and I can't believe he didn't fall asleep. Within the last few weeks he has started to not nap every day and I try not to be annoyed with it because he will be 5 in a few months and I know we're extremely lucky that he has napped for so long. But, he definitely can't go every day without one and I was just sure he would be exhausted after getting up so early & then having school.  I tell him he can lay in my bed for awhile because I just need more quiet time. I feed Nora again and Charlie is still talking in my room. Charlie eventually comes out and watches Jake on the Kindle until Levi gets up.

Levi wakes up a little after 3 and he is a cranky bear. Charlie had seen the papa murphey's commercial with the pumpkin pizza and I told him we could make on. Based on what Erik had told me for his timeline, I figured if we started the dough now, we could go for a combine ride and then come back home and make the pizza. So we mix up some dough and leave it to rise. The boys have some animal crackers & goldfish for a snack. I have to do some forms for Farm Bureau and I'm super annoyed that I can't type into the pdf so I have to print the forms, fill them out and then rescan them to email to board members for signatures. We all trek up to the office to do this and it's just a disaster. Levi is trying to get into everything, the printer will only scan one page at a time instead of putting it all into one document, Nora is in the moby and crabby, the files won't attach to the emails, etc etc.  

We have 2 big baskets of clothes to put away so the boys help put their stuff away.  Then I change Nora & start a load of her cloth diapers. I have enough newborn diapers to get her through 1 day but I don't want to put her in one size diapers yet, I'm sure they'd be really bulky.  While I'm starting the washer, Charlie holds Nora.  We also all trek out to get the mail.

We call Erik to check in as he requested and he reports that plowing is taking longer than expected and it will probably 5:30-6 before he starts combining. Of course that really doesn't work with my supper plans. I decide maybe we can sneak supper in first and then go for a ride. Even though I'm not thrilled at the idea of leaving the house at a time we would typically be getting ready for bed, they have been begging to ride in the combine for days and for one reason or another it has rarely worked out. So I decide to stop being a brat and just go with it because I know they will love it.  Since the dough isn't ready yet, I find some package mix pizza dough in the cupboard and we make that instead. The boys help "decorate" the pizza and eat their fair share of pepperonis. While it's baking, we unload the dishwasher and the boys set the table. I also put the dough we made into the freezer for another day.  Then they watch "funny Shake it Off" a few more times just for good measure.  Nora is still refusing to be put down so she spends some more quality time in the Moby.

We eat our pizza and the boys each have a cup of Greek yogurt. They both pick off all of the pepperonis and tell me they only like them before the pizza is made. Go figure. Nora squaks when I sit down to eat so I just eat standing up. Then we load everyone up and head down to find the combine, only 10 minutes away. We pack into the combine with me on the buddy seat & Nora in the moby, Erik driving, one boy in the corner and one boy in my lap. It's very crowded.  We ride for maybe 40 minutes and Nora sleeps through the whole thing. The combine is low on fuel and I'm kind of glad, because that means there will be no battle over leaving since Erik has to go fill up.  I am also thrilled when he says he'll probably just come home now instead of staying since he has to get up early and go into the office tomorrow for work. I really was not looking forward to getting home late and then doing bedtime alone/dealing with Nora who would need to be fed, etc. 

As we are driving home, Nora is varying degrees of pissed off the entire way. Charlie is being so sweet and trying to sing to her. He says, "Whenever Nora is mad I just sing baa, baa black sheep to her and she settles right down!" Well, tonight she is definitely hungry (going on 5 hours now) so his singing doesn't really work, but usually it's pretty effective.  Charlie requests for me to play "Shake it Off" and can't seem to understand why I can't make the radio just play it. Will the concept of a radio be totally null by the time our kids are adults? We get home and head right upstairs. The boys took baths last night so we head right for pajamas. Charlie picks out his clothes for Thursday (another school day) and throws them downstairs. Then I remember we forgot vitamins, Levi's treats for his jar & a cup for Levi. Erik comes home and helps get everyone settled and reads & sings to them while I feed Nora. Levi is sad that he doesn't get to hold Nora during songs but she is over anything that doesn't involve milk.

Nora eats on and off for the next couple of hours. Around 10pm I try to put her in the bassinet and get ready for bed. She wakes up within minutes. I put her back to sleep and put her back down and she wakes up again. After the 3rd time of putting her in the bassinet I just give up and let her sleep with me because I want to go to bed! She sleeps until 3:45am and I am super excited about that long (hahaha) stretch of sleep but then the little stinker refuses to go back to sleep and it's well after 5 before I get back to sleep. Erik was just getting up to head to work as she went back down. At least the big boys slept until 6:30 that morning.  Later in the morning I realize I must have slept hard because when I go to change the laundry all of Levi's sheets are in the bathroom. Apparently he coughed and threw up at some point during the night and I slept through the whole ordeal.