A day at our house

Here's a little slice of our life, today.


7:00 am - Daddy gets Elijah up and changes his diaper. This morning Elijah's new overnight diapers leaked for the first time, but just his pajama pants were wet instead of the whole bed. We had been struggling with two issues this summer - 1) a chronic heat rash that got worse every night that he wore a cloth diaper, so then we tried disposables and 2) he was leaking through his regular disposables and waking up with a soaking wet bed most mornings. I was tired of changing and washing the whole bed, and Elijah and I were both done with the diaper rash. My solution was to try extra-absorbent overnight disposables. They have worked pretty well - two weeks of dry mornings, until today. I think that is much better. I have to wash the sheets sometimes anyway. =) And the rash is gone, too. Maybe we can use cloth diapers at night again now that it's cooler - we'll see. For now I'm just thankful for something that works.

7:30 - Daddy wakes me and leaves for work. Elijah and I play and read books, and we share a bowl of cereal.

7:45 - Molly wakes up. I feed Molly and change her diaper. Elijah brings all of his "friends" (his favorite stuffed animals) from his bed and lines them up in front of the couch, telling me what each one says. "Horse. Neigh." "Pig says oink." Then, "Hi, giant panda." I guess I don't know what a panda says, either. Then, "Elephant. Hup, two, three, four." Elephants march, as anyone who has seen The Jungle Book knows.

[Don't Molly's eyes look green?]


8:00 - Elijah has breakfast: pancakes with cream cheese, breakfast sausage and milk. He decides not to have any applesauce. Elijah has been using a regular (open) cup at meal times and is doing very well with it. We still use the sippy cups when he is not sitting at the table, or when we run out of clean plastic cups.

After breakfast, Molly chills on her boppy for a while and Elijah plays while I put some laundry away. I smell something funky, so I change Molly again and get her dressed. Molly and I go through Elijah's sock drawer and put away all the socks that are getting too small while Elijah plays with trucks and does some puzzles. We sing some songs and play with Elijah until Molly fusses. I get Elijah some clean clothes to wear and a fresh blanket for Molly.

9:15 - Molly goes down for a nap. Elijah and I go over and get a load of clean laundry out of the dryer. When I'm sure that Molly is asleep and not going to need her pacifier again, Elijah and I start on our secret project of the day: Patrick's birthday cake (peanut butter silk cake with chocolate icing). We get out the ingredients and Elijah's stool, wash our hands (Elijah loves to wash his hands at the sink), and he helps me pour everything into the mixing bowl. Elijah thinks the mixer is cool (so do I). We put the cakes into the oven and Elijah sets the timer.

I help Elijah get dressed for the day and we play for a while. We read Elijah's new book about using the potty. He's not sure what to think about that. He plays with his new construction trucks and his train for a while. He watches the video of himself singing, and sings along. He plays next to me while I type for a little while, and then I smell something funky again, and change his diaper. The timer goes off and we get the cake out of the oven. It looks great - hooray! Elijah decides to color, so I do a little more typing.

Our cake, cooling.

Coloring

11:00 - Molly wakes up and I feed her. Elijah tells me what he's been coloring. "Coloring dump truck black. Coloring tanker truck green." Everything is black or green or brown today. Yesterday everything was blue. He decides that he is done with the trucks and trades it for the Cars coloring book. "What number, Mama?"

"How about 2?"

"OK."

I don't know what I am choosing numbers for, but he seems to be pleased by my choice and goes back to coloring his car green. Elijah decides to get down and play for a while before lunch, but he really just walks around brushing his teeth. He shows Molly his toothbrush and how he brushes his teeth. ("No, Elijah, do not brush Molly's teeth with your toothbrush!")

Cute girl, talking

Eating lunch

11:30 - Elijah eats lunch: milk, tomatoes, leftover shepherd's pie, and blueberries. Part way through lunch I smell something funky again and change Molly. Sheesh, what's with the poop this morning? She got poop on her clothes, so we change outfits as well. She still looks cute, but now her socks don't match. Oh, well!


After a while, Molly starts to fuss and since Elijah is too lazy to feed himself today, I put Miss Molly in her swing. She continues to fuss off and on through the blueberry course. I get Elijah cleaned up and Molly starts really crying while I change his diaper and get him down for nap. Apparently the batteries in the swing are dead. Molly and I cuddle for a bit and I apologize for the lifeless swing and for being busy when she needed me. I remind her that sometimes its Elijah's turn to cry while I help her, but I think she ignores that last bit. We chat for a few more minutes, and then it's her turn to get ready for nap.

12:30 - Molly goes down for a nap. I start cleaning up the kitchen and get myself some lunch. I wash the mixer and put the cake in the freezer to get ready to make the filling and assemble it. I put together the picture frame of the kids for Patrick's birthday present. The frame project takes a lot longer than I thought it would, so I hope I still have time to finish the cake.

1:55 - Molly wakes up. It's a little early - she often sleeps until 2:30 or so - but she's up, so I feed her. Elijah wakes up while we're nursing, so we go in and get him. The first thing he says to me is, "Stinky diaper, Mama." Yep, poopy again. I change them both and then clean up Elijah's diaper - the cover is poopy, too. Great.

2:30 - Elijah has a snack: animal crackers and milk. He takes his time and eats a lot. We chill out for a while. Elijah tells me the various Sesame Street characters who appear on his diapers. Molly talks happily with us for a while, and then starts to act tired.

3:15 - Molly goes down for a nap. It takes me all five verses of Psalm 23B to get her settled, what with Elijah running in and out of the room and occasionally yelling or slamming the door. After I go in and give her the pacifier a couple of times she finally goes to sleep. Elijah and I get the cake out of the freezer, and he watches a short video while I make the filling and put the cake together.

[At some point here, I lost track of what time everything was happening ...]

When the cake is all ready to go, Elijah and I play for a while and practice singing "Happy Birthday." We wrap the framed pictures and hide the present.

4:45 - Molly wakes up. She is poopy again. (This is poopy diaper #5 for us today. Seriously.) We have a little chat and I ask her if she is up for wearing a dress this evening for Daddy's birthday. She promises not to poop on her dress, so we take her clothes off and change her diaper, then I feed her and get her dressed again. Elijah picks a nice shirt out of the choices I give him and we change his clothes. Elijah and I start picking up the toys so we can be ready for serious birthday celebrations when Daddy gets home.

Molly in her birthday party dress

Elijah in his birthday party outfit

5:30 - Daddy comes home! We all give hugs and kisses, and then Daddy takes over clean-up supervision while I get dinner going. When Elijah is all done with his toys, we give Daddy his present and the Happy Birthday picture Elijah colored for him. He loves it! Well done, us.


5:50 - We have Daddy's birthday dinner: chicken and sesame noodles. Elijah starts with green beans while his noodles cool off. During dinner, Molly decides she is too tired to make it through and we change her into her PJs and put her down. Usually she gets a bath with Elijah and goes to bed around 7:30, but there was no keeping her up today. After Molly goes to bed, Elijah and I get the cake and sing to Daddy. We all have some cake and ice cream. It is really good cake. Elijah likes it, but when he is done he says, "All done cake. More green beans, please?" We give him more green beans.

6:35 - Daddy gives Elijah a bath, then helps him put on PJs and brush his teeth. We all read a bible story, sing and pray together.

7:00 - Good night, Elijah!

So, that was our day. We made it through without any major meltdowns, injuries, or other catastrophies. Of course, we had some fussing and some disobedience, but it was a pretty good day. Now I just want a shower!