Hubby and I are 28, Josie is 4.25, Audrey is 2.9, and Amelia is 8 months (today!).
1:03 AM Get up with Amelia, feed her, get her back to sleep, immediately fall back to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
3:15 AM Repeat above.
6:00 AM Hit hubby to go change Amelia and maybe get her back to sleep. This is laughable when I look back at it because she never goes back to sleep upon waking enough for us to hear her. Ever. So he brings her back to our bed where I nurse her and half sleep. She seems really awake but once I get her back in her crib, she's asleep within minutes. So glad I can (usually) lay her down awake and she will go to sleep.
7:36 AM Hear movement from the living room. Josie is up and watching cartoons. We've had to bribe her to leave Audrey sleeping in the mornings with a cartoon. I don't like her watching tv so early but it's worth it if she lets Audrey get that last hour of sleep.
I remember that I wanted to do this post today, so I hop up, make the bed (really trying to start the day on a good note), and hear Amelia waking up.
7:40 Grab Amelia and immediately head to the kitchen for my coffee. Yuck. The kitchen is a huge disaster thanks to me not feeling great last night therefore leaving it a mess from supper. I'll have to deal with it eventually but this is not the time. I still don't feel good. I can tell that I am coming down with the cold that the girls have. Great Monday gift to me!
 |
| Too early for this kind of energy, clearly |
 |
| Pumpkin pie creamer with a little whipped topping and pumpkin spice sprinkled on top .Every single morning. |
 |
| This actually looks better than how it really was. |
Try to nurse Amelia but she's more interested in what the big girls are doing. I grab a few toys to entertain her and sneak away to go to the bathroom. Most mornings, I have a little mental list of things I need to do before getting her up because she is so clingy in the mornings. I'm not on my game today, so she gets to cry while I quickly brush my teeth too.
I come back to find that Josie has poured herself cereal and milk. I'm not sure I like this new skill since it's a huge mess every time and I hate wasting so much milk. She always pours way more than she needs and then wants to dump it out. Audrey has dry cereal so I add milk to her bowl and put Amelia in her high chair with cheerios. With her cold, she's not interested in this at all and just wants to nurse nurse nurse.
I start cleaning up a bit and then remember that I also need to eat something. Kodiak pancakes with pumpkin greek yogurt sounds great to me today, so I make that while alternating cleaning up the messiness.
 |
| They taste so much better than they look. |
Breakfast is served! I eat fast because Amelia is d-o-n-e with sitting in the high chair. Back to the living room to break up an argument about legos and get Amelia nursing again. We are off to a rocky start with play time. Sometimes we do school right after breakfast but I am not feeling good at all and don't have it in me. I send the girls to get dressed one at a time hoping that they will forget why they are mad at each other. It doesn't work.
 |
| She seems so sweet and innocent, right? |
Amelia is done nursing (well, kind of. She isn't staying latched on so she obviously isn't really hungry but she loves the comfort so she'd do this all day if I let her) so I lay her down. It's going to be a fight for naps with her today, I can already tell.
9:00 AM The girls are finally playing together nicely and I am writing up the beginnings of this post. Amelia is fussing in her crib, not full on crying but definitely not sleeping. I hate wasting time on this but she is sick and needs sleep. Plus, she's not exactly pleasant to be around right now... clearly tired, but she won't sleep.
9:20 Nurse Amelia for like 30 seconds, lay her down and she's OUT. I finish getting ready for the day, separate the girls for a bit because they are getting way too loud, and sit down again. My mom calls so I talk to her for at least a half hour. Before Amelia wakes up, I am able to sneak in 10 minutes of office work and am pleasantly surprised to see that I am farther ahead than I remember.
11:15 Audrey asks if we're going to eat lunch. Amelia just woke up, so I finish nursing her (again!) and get her playing on the floor. She must be feeling better because she tolerates this for long enough that I am able to throw together a couple of sandwiches for lunch. After she sees me (mistake, never go back in her line of sight after she's content playing) she needs to be with me in the kitchen, so I set her up with her lunch earlier than the older two. Amelia eats ripped up cheese, meat and a handful of cheerios. The big girls and I have turkey, ham, and cheese sandwiches with strawberries and pretzels for them.
11:30 Throw together crock pot meal (last one from when Millie was born! Pineapple chicken, thank you to Becky and Grant!) and am so glad I don't have to prepare a big meal tonight.
12:10 With lunch being done already and Amelia being happy, I know this is my chance to get out of the house. I give lessons this afternoon, but only half of my students are coming so it's okay for us to have a later schedule. Usually on Mondays, I have to have Millie's nap super early to get her up and fed before we head to Grandma's.
We head to the bank to make a deposit and Target to make a return. I'm redoing the accent colors in the living room, hoping for more of a winter/autumn feel, but struck out with these oversized dark red pillows from Target. They are just too big. What colors should I use? Dark red feels so right but I'm afraid to commit. I ordered a sheep wool rug for the floor that looks so soft and fluffy. I can't wait to see how that feels in the room. After Target we head to JoAnn Fabric and Gordman's for gloves and hats for the big girls. Who knew we'd find both Josie and Audrey a set that doesn't have characters and matches their off the wall colored coats? This day has really turned around. We also pick up a few outdoor Fall decorations. I look at pillows but just can't commit.
 |
| In the car at the bank, waiting for our receipt. |
2:05 We're home and I nurse Amelia before laying her down. She fell right asleep which I'm so thankful for. I write up some more of this post before helping the girls finish a puzzle they've been working on all day.
3:00 The girls are rowdy and it's supposed to be quiet time. If they are playing well I often let them hang out together but it inevitably ends up getting too loud. I send Josie off to her room and decide that I could use a nap. Laughable, because about 10 minutes in, Josie starts screaming from her room in excitement. Apparently, she successfully wrote the letter B on her Leap Frog game, and I just needed to know. Nap done! Josie quieted! Try to resume napping, doesn't happen. Josie does fall asleep, which is a weird bonus.
 |
| 10 minute nap is better than no nap. |
 |
| Completed puzzle, content 2 year old |
 |
| I don't know what is going on here. This hardly ever happens. |
 |
| Waiting for big sister to emerge from her room before heading to Grandma's. |
3:45 Amelia wakes up just in time. I feed her, then we head over to Grandma's. She seems somewhat content with Grandma so I try to sneak out. Of course, she starts crying as soon as I'm out of sight. Praying she calms down before too long.
 |
| Flash makes her too bright, but I love those blue eyes. |
4:20 Put up the Fall decorations we bought this afternoon and discover one of the cheaper ones is already broken. I fix it with some tape, but I'm sure it won't last.
4:30 Begin piano lessons. First student hasn't practiced at all, so that's great. Second student obviously practiced a lot and is rocking her lesson. It's so encouraging when they seem to enjoy it too!
5:35 Go pick up the girls and end up going through a couple of clothes bins from my sis-in-law. They just so happened to be the sizes that Amelia is wearing now, so it was fun to pick out potential outfits for now instead of guessing for later. Bonus: She gets to wear the clothes we gifted to my niece since they are 4 months apart and very different sizes... that worked out nicely.
 |
| Grandma has pretty sweet Halloween decorations. |
6:10 Get home, nurse Amelia quickly to keep her from losing it, get her playing with toys on the floor, throw some water in two kettles to boil and dig around for the frozen green beans in the too full deep freezer. Cook the rice, shred the chicken, set the table, call the girls, supper time!
 |
| I snuck a picture while they prayed. So sincere and sweet! |
6:48 Supper is finally done and all three girls are fed and happy. Daddy isn't home yet, so I send the big girls to their rooms to get jammies on and they come running out happily, hoping to stay up later than each other. Josie keeps asking for a movie, which is both annoying and humorous. We very rarely watch tv before bed but it doesn't stop her from asking. Amelia goes from being super happy to super grumpy so I get her in bed (her bedtime routine is record fast) and come back out to read Audrey her bedtime story.
7:10 Read "Bella's Rules" by Elissa Haden Guest upon request. Josie perks up and joins us to hear the story. I make the mistake of telling Audrey she can look at the pictures at the end. She takes advantage of this and won't "finish" so I have to be the mean mom and take it away. She gets over it quickly, typical Audrey style. Audrey grabs her baby doll and blanket and happily goes to bed. Yay! Usually hubby does bedtime so I dread it greatly when he isn't home. If it goes smoothly, the day doesn't seem so neverending.
7:20 Start Josie's "100 Easy Lessons..." lesson praying that she isn't so squirmy and goofy. We've had a rough couple of days with this and I'm hoping she isn't burning out on it already. Thankfully, she totally gets into it and we get to celebrate together when she does well which makes it fun for both of us. She completed lesson 18.
7:50 I'm stuck with a headache so Josie is reading to me this time (adorable) and hubby gets home. He grabs supper and sits with her in the living room. Soon, she's off to bed. We watch the end of Dancing with the Stars but neither of us have seen any of this season so we don't really know what is going on. I try to read the book I've been reading off and on the last couple of months, "All That I Am" by Anna Funder, but I'm too tired and it's making me uneasy with the similarities between our government these days with Nazi government. Eerie, really. We both fall asleep in the living room. We are both sick with what the girls had, that is obvious now, so we take all the sleep we can get.
 |
| Proof that he was here today. :) |
 |
| Aftermath of sleeping on the couch. Every morning, I come out to a mostly cleaned up room with the remains of someone sleeping on the couch. It's the norm around here. |
10:00 Amelia is crying so I go get her to nurse her again. She only nurses a tiny bit. I have a flash fear that she isn't getting enough food, but I think more likely she just wasn't truly hungry because she goes right back to sleep when I put her to bed.
10:15 Hubby is in bed, I'm getting my water and phone and turning off lights. Just as I get in bed, Amelia squacks again. Try nursing again but she's asleep before she really even eats. What is going on!! Get her some medicine since she's been coughing more when she's laying down, lay her back down and have trouble falling asleep myself. This rarely happens so I'm frustrated.
1:00 AM Amelia's crying. I must have fallen asleep because it's startling to wake up now. Feed her, fall back asleep. Repeat at 3:00 AM, 5:00 AM, and up for the day at 6:15 AM. She's obviously feeling better! I'm obviously not.
The end.
