Each day begins around six a.m., at least with the alarm chiming in telling me to get outta bed. After a few minutes of snoozing, I begrudgingly roll over and think about all the things I will do for the day. The first order of business is usually a shower, and depending on how often I opted to snooze will determine how leisurely that morning shower will be. By the time I'm done getting ready, it's time to wake up the two little creatures that keep my husband up at all hours of the night. Sometimes they beat me to the punch, and are awake or are bothering Josh befeore I put the final spritzes of hairspray on the funky morning do.
It's so funny to get Roo out of bed when she's sound asleep. Who would want to mess with a sleeping child? A bit of tickling of the ribs and her half-laughs allow her to just roll back to a sound sleep as if she were a teenage girl craving for just a few more minutes to finish up her enticingly good dream. When you ask her if she wants to wake up, she honestly whines the word, "no." But if you tell her that her brother needs prodding, she is all ears.
The days when she is up and at 'em, she readily stands in her crib and yells, "I'm awake!" You just can't help but love the honest nature of your little ones, even when it's only five in the morning.
If the hustle and bustle is too much for me in the a.m., I am able to convince the hubby to take care of Y. Sometimes that means stirring him from his deep sleep too...
When the two kids are packed up in the mommy-mobile, we all say our good-byes with hugs and kisses and we make the 17-minute trek into town to their school. After I drop them off, either with tears or without whines, I head to the office to begin phase two of the day. Some days phase two whirls around like a typhoon, with back-to-back meetings or conference calls, and sprinkled with many things to write, edit or plan. Never have I had a day exactly the same as another - and for that I'm grateful. But as the clock ticks down to quittin' time, I'm eager to pick up the tearful kiddies I dropped off in the morning to see what a great day they have had. There is really nothing better than seeing your beaming kids smile at you after a long day at the office, even if for a fleeting moment, the pang of guilt fills your heart.
Our journey home is almost always riddled with five o'clock traffic, with wall-to-wall vehicles just as anxious as we are to get where they need to get. Some of the funniest moments are shared within that car-ride. Roo often finds a way to make her brother laugh, especially if he's whining a bit from being over-tired or just plain bored. I catch him from time to time looking up at the DVD screen to see what's going on. I feel so bad that he has to crook and strain his neck to view what his sister so plainly sees and enjoys.
After we settle into the house and I've changed out of work wear to home wear, I start phase three of the day. This entails fighting with my mind to either turn on the television to allow them some distraction so I can get dinner started, or just sit with them and play. If dinner is already made, and it's a heat-up type of meal, then play is certainly in order. Nights when we didn't plan ahead, the television becomes my 10-minute babysitter. Inevitably, any trek I make into the kitchen is closely followed by a crawling one-tooth wonder and his sister singing and dancing shortly thereafter. They both always go to the same spot in the kitchen - where there's a little "shorty stool" that my hubby created for me so I could reach up to the cabinets. Something about that spot that they both just love to sit and bang whatever toys they may have in hand - or to get close enough to the spices that are just a door away.
After dinner and by the time we are drying off the kids from their baths, I'm thinking, there's not much left in me for any more phases. But I would think lots of parents know that after the kids are in bed, there's the entirely other "home" phase that has to begin. For us, that's dishes, bottles and planning for the next day. If I'm lucky, I will squeeze in a load or two of laundry, and sometimes a light workout before I hit the bed. The nights seem to get shorter and shorter for all of these activities, but somehow, we manage to fit it all in. I'm certainly thankful and blessed for each passing day that I get to see my children grow and learn. Every day is filled with happiness, mixed with crazy moments and stressed out times. For each minute that isn't the same as the next is another cherished moment in life.
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