A Day In The Life Of – SAHM of two toddlers

Today’s “Day In The Life” comes from Jenny, whose two toddlers are less than 16 months apart in age. She works part time as a Lagree Fitness Instructor, blogs as a contributor for Dallas Moms Blog and her own blog, and keeps up with the kids!
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5:00am – If it’s a Monday or Tuesday morning, I am teaching at Ultimate Pilates, so my alarm goes off and I put on my pre-laid-out workout clothes, wash my face, and grab my refrigerator oatmeal and coffee from the Keurig. My husband is still asleep. On the road by 5:20am to Plano from my house in Richardson.

6:30am – If it’s not a teaching day, this is when my alarm goes off. I have half an hour before my 2 year old son’s magical clock tells him he can come into our room. If we look at the monitor video, we can see him anxiously staring at it already, just waiting to pounce. The wise thing to do is get up now and take a shower. If I don’t, I am probably not going to get a shower until nap time later today.

7:15am – My son’s clock “turns green” so he is in our room, wanting the iPad, wanting a story, wanting to get into the bed. On the days when I’m home, I finish up my hair/makeup/getting dressed and take him back to his room to put on his underwear and clothes (he sleeps in Pull-Ups). We go together into my 18 month old daughter’s room. If she is up, she is yelling, “Momma! Daddy! Up!”.

7:30ish – We’re usually downstairs by now, with or without Daddy depending on whether he has a morning meeting that day. If he’s home, we work together to get oatmeal, cereal, yogurt, waffles, eggs, and juice in front of the kids who are yelling out random requests. I am frantically attempting to find enough time between demands to make coffee for myself.

8ish – The kids are finished eating, while I still haven’t had time to make my own food or sit down at all. I let them down to run around and I start cleaning up the mess from breakfast.

8:30am – If I was teaching, this is when I arrive home, my husband having done all the breakfast preparation and cleanup by himself. I’ll arrive all sweaty and gross but it’s time for him to leave, so my chance for a shower is past. Several options here depending on the day. If it’s a preschool day for my son, we are leaving now in our wagon to walk to school.

9:00am – If it’s a preschool day, my son has been dropped off. If it’s not, we are either preparing to head out for a play date or bible study or some other activity. This is one of the times the kids might get to watch TV while I pack us up.

10:00am-noon – If it’s not a preschool day, we are headed to a playdate, an activity, or bible study. We pretty much always leave the house to go somewhere, or host a playdate at our house. At the very least we walk to our neighborhood park or play in our backyard.

12:30pm – Lunch! If it was a preschool day, we just picked up my son and have arrived back home. Sometimes if we’re out, I’ll have packed a lunch.

1:30pm – Everyone is going down for naps. My daughter is fairly easy, I just change her diaper and give her a sippy of milk, then into the crib where she can’t escape (bwahahaha!). My son requires an entire routine involving training pants in case he wets, 2 storybooks, and tucking in.

2pm – My son is still in his room goofing off. I go in and put him back into his bed. Usually my daughter is asleep by now, which is both good and bad. The worst-case scenario is that my son might actually goof off and refuse to nap for 2 hours so that by the time he finally does go to sleep, my daughter is already finishing her nap and getting up. Then, no work time for me! Those are the days I don’t really get to blog much.

2:30pm – If all went well, everyone should be asleep and I should have anywhere from 1.5-2 hours to get some things done. These things include: laundry (we cloth diaper), washing the dishes from breakfast and lunch, feeding our backyard chickens and collecting their eggs, blogging for one of my 3 blogs, returning emails, baking my own bread or snacks, and participating in one of several Facebook groups I belong to which are also related to blogging. Recently, I have also attempted to cram some kind of additional exercise into this time on the days I’m not teaching. Sometimes I nap, but not very frequently anymore. Oh, and if I want to have a “real” dinner, I have to prepare it now

4:30pm – Someone is definitely up by now, if not both kids. If only one child is up, we have some sweet one-on-one time before the sibling wakes up. This also begins what I secretly refer to as “the crazy time” because the kids are often grumpy and we are basically just waiting for Daddy to come home. The kids like to start squabbling, arguing over things, hitting each other, and demanding TV. I like to have a glass of wine right at about 5pm on the really rough days.

5:30pm – I have to give in to the constant demands and serve the kids dinner despite my desire to wait until Daddy gets home. We sit at the table together, with me cutting up fruit and other things to add to what’s already on their plate. My daughter usually eats whatever I cooked but my son almost always completely starves himself because he hates everything.

6:00pm – They are finished with dinner. Most often, this is the time of day when they get to watch TV because I just need to them to stop hitting each other and whining for 30 more minutes. Wine, I tell you. Wine.

6:30-6:45pm – Daddy’s home! I show him what I made for dinner and we both attempt to eat it while the kids run around the house like crazy people, shrieking and trying to spill whatever we are stuffing into our mouths. They have lost interest in the TV.

7:30pm – We’re usually finished eating or we have given up on eating. Two options here: 1) I leave for an evening event like Book Club or a blogger meetup or time with the Community Group Girls, or 2) I stay home. I try to be gone no more than 2 nights a week.

My daughter walks to the bottom of the stairs and says something like “bath! bath!”. Everyone goes upstairs and both kids are thrown into the bath together. Daddy watches the kids in the bath tub. I get to grab some time on the computer or finish up laundry.

8:00-8:30pm – After bath, my son goes with Daddy and my daughter goes with me to be dried, into PJ’s, read stories, and go night-night. My daughter’s routine is pretty fast so I’m finished before my husband and I get another few minutes on the computer or getting things done.

9:00pm – The kids are in bed, even if they’re not sleeping. My son rarely falls asleep before 9:30pm, but we just let him run around in his room singing songs, jumping, talking, reading books, and doing whatever. We used to try to stop him but that was a lot of stress for us and never accomplished anything so we just let him wear himself out.

My husband and I check in with each other, to see what we are planning for the evening. Sometimes we’ll split up and each get our own work done, sometimes we’ll have a night that we spend together.

10:00pm – If I went out that evening, I’m back by now. I make the kids’ lunches for the next day if it’s a preschool day.

10:30pm – I really try to get into bed by 10:30pm if I’m teaching the next day, or even if I’m not. It’s really difficult because the internet is calling my name, but I do it most nights!