all in a day’s work

Sometimes it’s fun to write down what happens in a day. I did it several months ago and I think I want to do it again today. Even though most of our day was fairly routine and uneventful, it still amazes me how much can be packed into 24 hours – or less if you just count waking hours. And in this case we are not just counting waking hours as my day began around 1:30 a.m. when I began talking to Ryan in my sleep (a relatively common occurrence) while under the influence of a powerful dose of Benadryl:

1:30 am – Me: “Can you hand me a pen?”

Ry: “A pen? Why do you need a pen?”

Me: “Do you have a pen over there?”

Ry: “A pen?”

Me (exasperated): “Yes. A pen!” And scene.

He loves it when I do that because he just gets to giggle and watch me fall back asleep. Of course, I think I was having a particularly restless night because my only memory is a vivid dream involving me in search of a Kleenex box, and just a few hours later Ryan reports:

5:30 am – I sit up in bed, wave my hands over the space above the floor, then lay back down. You know, because I’m cool and normal like that. (Did y’all never know this about me?)

8:45 – Ryan shoots out of bed in a panic saying something about a 9:00 meeting in Cool Springs and I sleepily marvel at the power of allergy-related sleep aids. Wow, I slept a long time. And, Hazel is still sleeping, too!

8:49 –  Ryan is out the door. Darn those boys and their short hair and no make-up. He actually looked presentable. Hrmph.

8:57 – I groggily (yes, groggily) make my way upstairs because I think I hear Hazel stirring. Except when I get to her door, she’s quiet, so I go back down.

8:59 – I hear Hazel again so I go up there but when I get to the door she is quiet again. I weigh my options, greet Audrey in the hallway and make the call. “Good morning, pretty girl! Were you sleeping?” This is of course followed by a diaper change and a number of demands including breakfast and a dress.

9:05 – I am walking down the stairs with my girl when I see my Mama and Oliver knocking on the glass door, all smiles with two greek yogurts in his arms. He is back from a random weeknight-overnight with Grandma and they have clearly taken their time getting out of the house that morning. I am grateful.

9:10 – Mom darts out the door to work and breakfast time ensues. Yogurts, Cheerios, beverages, demands, messes, chatter, clean-up, and a touch of whining just to make it a regular day.

9:25 – While I clean up breakfast the kids play on the back patio. Oliver fills leftover water balloons from Hazel’s birthday party and they do a fair amount of tracking dirt in the house.

9:27 – I send a couple of texts to my cousin about kids’ shoes and we check out Zulily’s See Kai Run deal. Great deals, but the ones I like are sold out in Hazel’s size. Bummer.

9:45 – I text our lawn guy about seeding and aerating our front lawn. I estimate that he is the same age as me and yet, every response he gives includes a polite “yes, ma’am”. Even in texts! I decide not to be offended and am glad that his Mama raised him right.

9:46 – Audrey ducks out to head to a nanny gig for the day.

10:00 – Oliver (yes, our sweet Oliver) has talked back and whined to his Mama one too many times already this morning. I go to the kitchen cupboard, produce a bottle of honey and a bottle of vinegar and sit them and him down at the kitchen table for a heart to heart. I have him smell the vinegar and I give him a finger-full of the honey and we talk about the proverb, “you can catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.” (I later learn that that is a misquote – it’s actually flies. Makes sense.) We talk about what vinegar represents (fits, whining, etc.) and what honey represents (saying ‘yes ma’am’, obedience, kindness) and I see a lightbulb turn on in his little blonde head. We go on with a bit of Biblical instruction about honoring parents and the morning goes much smoother from there.

I have a feeling this won’t’ be the last time we talk about honey and vinegar.

10:30 – The kids want baths and popsicles. They’re a bit stinky, so I oblige. I do a quick deep-clean of the downstairs tub and get Hazel started down there, then set Oliver up with (his preference) a shower upstairs. They happily soak in lavender oil (Hazel) and get water all over the bathroom (Oliver) while I pull myself together for the day in the bathroom with Hazel.

11:00 – Time to get out of the house and run some errands. I dress the kids (I love that part of the day – really!) and load them up in the car (I like this part a little less) and we head to errand number one: Kindergarten Registration for Oliver.

Aside: I haven’t mentioned this yet on here – we think we have made a decision about Kindergarten for Oliver next year. We are on a waiting list for our first-choice private school but it doesn’t look promising, and we are currently leaning away from homeschooling for the time being, and have decided to at least get him enrolled in the public school for now. The school is 2 years old and it’s so, so nice! (Our neighborhood is actually the lowest income neighborhood that is zoned for this school.) And besides the facilities, the principal is a wonderful Christian woman and she has carefully chosen great teachers for her staff. We have learned more about parental-involvement opportunities at the school and have decided – for now – to give the free option a try. We shall see. But I do have to say, Oliver was so adorably geeked to get to visit yesterday.

11:45 – I load the kids back into the car and take a quick phone call to iron out the deals of a cool gig for Nourish and we are on our way.

12:00 – We pull into Chick-fil-a (Oliver’s choice) and it is so busy we can’t get our car into the parking lot. We find a lucky spot and head into the restaurant. A thousand more “yes, ma’am’s” and a good number of “my pleasure’s” and I am just grateful that folks are so kind and helpful. Two men carry our things to our table, take our trash, refill our drinks and layout the kids’ placemats. This may be Oliver’s choice, but you seriously can’t beat the service!

12:45 – We decide to skip the garden store (our other errand) in favor of a nap for Miss Hazel. It is clearly time. We talk more honey and vinegar in the car and sing a little Seeds music at Oliver’s request.

1:17 – Hazel begins her nap, I work on some more important internal Nourish business.

1:30 – I grab the roll (yes, roll) of gum I let Oliver pick out at the store the night before and I suggest that he and I work on learning to blow a bubble. It goes about as well as could be expected – that is to say, we’ve still got some work to do.

3:00 – Oliver and I gather a few supplies and decide to make a bird feeder that I saw my friend Melissa make last week. Just an empty toilet paper roll, some peanut butter and roll it in birdseed. He felt amazing. Hazel woke up for the occasion and was caught licking the knife. A shining parenting moment, eh?

3:30 – More water balloons, more Nourish business, a big snack for the kids of strawberries, Cheerios, cheese and drinks. I text Ryan and ask him if he can come  home at 4 to start the weekend early. He says yes and that he’s on his way!

3:45 – The kids play in the backyard and I try to bring order to the house.

4:00 – Daddy’s home! He takes over with the kids by instigating a game of baseball in the backyard. As much as I’d like to join them, I tuck away to try to knock out a bit more Nourish business.

5:00 – I decide to shut it down for the day as much as I can and we decide to load the kids in the car (yes, again) to take them on a hunt for a new wooden play set for the backyard (ours was here and old-ish when we moved in almost five years ago, it’s time). In the car as we’re driving I look through the packet I got at Kindergarten Registration and ask questions from the pre-Kindergarten skills assessment page. He blows it out of the water and he feels proud of himself. I give him the list of sight words and a pen and let him circle them as he reads them. Again, he feels awesome.

6:00 – We strike out at every turn in the play set search. It’s March, after all, and the selling season must not be in full swing. We decide to go home for dinner and to continue our hunt online.

6:15 – Dinner for the kids. Nothing fancy at all. They eat leftover Chick-fil-a plus a few supplementary food pyramid items, Ryan makes a steak sandwich from the leftover Porterhouses we grilled last night and I make a spinach salad with (microwaved) steak on the side. Microwaved steak is a little depressing, but the spinach salad was delicious!

7:15 – Bedtime for Hazel. She is so tired because she missed a nap today. She welcomes her bed and I start to miss her already.

7:30 – Nourish again. But this time, it’s the final time. Olivia and I come to an agreement on terms and with a few final emails and a phone call, I sell my half of the company to her. I will miss the company and the fun work, but I have made a decision in favor of spending as much time with my kids as possible while they still want to be with me. I don’t want to miss this. A difficult decision, and yet, a very simple one.

8:00 – Bedtime for Oliver. He is not quite as compliant, but Ryan and I have a nice talk with him about the importance of rest and while we come dangerously close to pulling a Cliff Huxtable with him (wherein we let him set his own bedtime and stay up all night watching tv until he learns for himself the importance of rest and structure), we are tired and we decide to keep that in our back pockets for another time, perhaps.

8:30 – Ryan builds a fire in the fireplace on our back patio and we sit out there and talk and laugh together and talk some more and rebuild the fire two more times because we want to stay out there longer.

10:00 – we head to bed and wind down by catching up on a few of our favorite shows on our new fancy Roku player (my new best friend!). I can’t breathe through my nose, so I take another Benadryl (this time half the dose I took last night) and by…

11:00 – I am off to sleep! (and no funny sleep-talking that I know of!)

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