I’ve been wanting to do one of these ‘day in the life’ posts for awhile now since Mary was born, but I kept waiting for an ‘average’ day. Guess what? It doesn’t exist. Not lately anyways. So here’s a day in my life, October 12, 2020, for my children to read about someday down the road…..because that’s what this blog is for anyways 😉
6:20am Ruth comes barreling into our bedroom. Mary awakens shortly after, so I feed and change her. Jeremiah gets up sometime in there and gets ready for work. 7am I start waking kids up…well the remainders anyways. G is almost always up, Ruth and Mary are both up. That leaves Lucy, Amelia and Kateri. Lucy is by far our heaviest and longest sleeper and therefore most difficult to wake up! I leave Mary laying on our bed while I get Kateri dressed and to the potty and help Ruth and Amelia pick out clothes. We like to do this the night before, but…..life. Kids make their way downstairs and finish getting ready for school. They do almost all of their tasks on their own except I usually intervene with the girls’ hair. They are currently eating breakfast AND lunch at school due to the COVID programs and can I just say that it sure is nice. 7:35am Gabriel, Lucy, Amelia and Ruth walk to school.
I then take a deep breath and go about my morning. Nursing, pumping, turning on Pinkalicious for Kateri for a bit, usually switching laundry and doing some type of dishes, all first thing. I have 2 blogs I like to read daily, plus something called ‘The Loop’ which is a Catholic news email, and I check our bank account balance every morning. I sneak a protein bar for breakfast but K always demands a bite. I do an indoor Hasfit HIIT workout because it’s raining; normally we head out for a run around 9am with me pushing Mary and Kateri in the double jogger. But not today. Once it stops raining we head to the post office but it’s closed for Columbus Day. Ahhh! I talk to the eye doctor, my Dad and my mom’s current hospital therapy department on the phone. I order prescription swim goggles for Lucy (which are almost impossible to find for what she needs/wants), empty and reload the dishwasher, add more to my to do list and encourage Kateri to tell me when she needs to go potty. We play magnet blocks for a hot minute until Ruth comes home.
11am Ruth gets off the preschool bus. She is always a pistol when she gets home. 11am-1pm may very well be the most stressful time of my day. She’s just all over the place and I really have to enforce her following directions and listening. Today she’s actually pretty well behaved. I make the girls some macaroni and cheese for lunch and I have a salad with tuna. There is a huge mess under where they eat at the island. I leave it for now because they are off. the. chain. I tell them to go out and play in their leaf pile since it has stopped raining. K comes in twice to go potty and Ruth once in the first 5 minutes. Then K comes in again and tells me ‘I a little bit chilly’. Just. go. play.! I catch a few minutes of the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings. Surprising that I like her, I know, I know.
12:40 we start reading books. I try to read to the little girls for at least 20-30 mins before naptime every day. They seem to really enjoy it and I love to read, so no surprise there. 1pm Ruth and Kateri go down for a N-A-P. It has become a non-negotiable that Ruth takes a nap every day, even at the age of 4. It normally makes a HUGE difference in her behavior and impulsiveness and my sanity. 🙂 I hear them up there chattering until at least 1:45 but I don’t care, honestly. At least I’m getting a break! HA! I take a shower and stand in the hot water way too long, but it’s all good. Mary is such a wonderful baby, she normally will nap on and off during the morning and afternoon and is usually in good spirits, and usually allows me a shower around this time so I don’t have to marinate in my post-workout sweat all day. I sort/fold 2 baskets and 1 hamper of clean laundry that I did over the weekend. That is A LOT of laundry. I stopped folding kids clothes awhile ago, they just each have a small bin in the laundry room and I sort it for them. I put away all my clothes and the heap of clean towels. I sweep the floor of the kitchen which is never, ever clean. Mary sits in her Bumbo seat and watches me and smiles. She’s such a dream. I decide to sit down for 10 mins before the kids get home from school and read and eat these amazing bars.
3:30 kids burst in the door. Snack commences, as does spelling practice and a million questions and snippets of their day. They always all have alot to tell me at this time! I have to take a phone call which is always interesting with 6 kids in the house. Usually I have to hide outside to talk on the phone. I have all 4 older kids go put away all their clean laundry. In theory, the older 3 do their own laundry, but a few of their things always seem to sneak into the regular laundry.
4:30pm I start dinner. This is always my goal if I haven’t made the dinner ahead of time (like during naptime). Today I throw this 5 ingredient white chicken chili into the Instant Pot (yes I still have big heart eyes for my IP) and get summoned outside to see the nest that Amelia made out of leaves. I take another important phone call and suddenly everyone desperately needs to talk to me, of course.
5:45 Dinner is late because I got it going late. I guess it wasn’t actually 4:30….. We have exactly 10 mins to eat before I have to leave with 4 kids to go to swimming lessons. Jeremiah has a school board meeting tonight so I’m on my own. Yeah, it gets a little hairy. I leave the older 2 at home to clean up dinner and unload/load dishwasher and put away food and wipe counters. I take the 4 younger girls and we head out at 6:08. Only 8 mins behind! 😉 We get there with plenty of time. Amelia and Ruth are in swim lessons and I try to keep Kateri busy and from falling off the bleachers while nursing Mary and watching Ruth and Amelia in their respective lessons. The multi-tasking does not end!
They finish 45 mins of lessons and we head to the locker room. This part always stresses me out. But today, it goes fine. The girls shower and then get dressed quickly and I don’t have a crying baby or a screaming toddler today, so it’s alright.
We get home at 7:40ish and everyone wants second dinner. Normally we don’t do this but dinner was really rushed tonight. PBJs it is! I make 5, then 2 more, then 1 more. Then I tell them to go brush and get ready for bed. The kitchen is quite clean, my plan worked! *win* J arrives and helps with bedtime. I have to approve a new YouTube video that Lucy recorded earlier in the evening, “Making paper squishies”. I don’t know where she comes up with these ideas! Kids are finally in bed and I hang up all the wet towels and swim suits and start the dishwasher AGAIN and check out my planner to see what tomorrow entails. I’m about done, ready for a book and chocolate and a soft pillow. 🙂
No pictures on this post because WordPress and I are having a time…. 😦
House of Costellos 