The Day to Day

My blog is not generally my journal of thoughts (I would drive you people MAD if it were), it is first and foremost a journal of our family happenings.  But I feel like I post a lot of pictures but I don't tell what's really going on day-to-day very well.

Our days have quite a consistent pattern right now.  We wake up with the sun, and somehow, sometimes a little before.  It is rare that there is a "6" on the clock when I wake up - it is much more often a "5."  It leaves me craving that dark basement room all the kids slept in at Grandma Brunson's house.  You know, the one where they slept in until "8" some mornings?!  Yeah, that one.  It used to be that the boys would crash into our bedroom, climb into bed and dump the train basket out and we'd officially be up for the day.  Over the last few weeks, it's morphed into me getting up at the first cry or cracking of our door open to try to spare Jaron an extra half hour's sleep.  I help Eli potty then feed Gracen while lying in the boys' double bed, steadfastly hoping we all might fall back to sleep.  Doesn't happen. Ever.

Then we make breakfast.  With milk a whopping $11 A GALLON here and cereal ranging from $4-$7 PER BOX, we rarely have my favorite pasttime breakfast.  Instead, we have branched out to good ole' fashioned home cookin' for breakfast.  Yummy but I'll be honest, I don't enjoy having to make 3 meals a day.   However, I have discovered some great recipes.  Here is the BEST syrup you've ever tasted - buttery and with just a hint of cinnamon.  Goes GREAT with french toast.  Before we (meaning the kids) are done eating, we send Jaron out to catch the bus at 7:10.  He is armed with breakfast, lunch and dinner to go, 'cause that boy ain't coming home until the last bus, at 9:00.

After breakfast, the kids watch a little TV while I pull myself together.  I feed Gracen again and put her down for a nap at 9:00.  After Gracen's hour-long nap, we are pretty predictable: I bust out the kid craft box or one of my "Things To Do With Preschoolers/Toddlers" books or we escape the house.  If it's a Wednesday, you'll find us at the grocery store because Wednesdays are the only day fresh anything comes to the island.  Other days, we hit the park, the cove, Donna's yard full of trucks, Kayla's trampoline across the street or Megan's house.

After lunch is the best time of day, aka naptime.  Sometimes, it happens just right and ALL THREE go down for a nap at once.  Alden is in this tricky kinda "needs a nap but not really" phase.  If he doesn't nap, he is one grouchy monster by bedtime.  If he does nap, he is one perky eyed little thing come bedtime and doesn't go down until 9ish.  It's a lose-lose cycle.  If he naps, he stays up late.  If he stays up late, he naps the next day.  But this too shall pass!  Eli and Gracen have lately been napping a glorious 2 hours plus AT THE SAME TIME lately.

After naps, we soon find ourselves in what Julie B. Beck calls "the swing shift."  It is our craziest time of day.  Between the hours of 4-7, we prepare dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, clean up the house and prepare for bed.  The kids are tired and ornery and ALWAYS FIGHTING and Gracen is finally growing weary of getting her needs always met last (BLESS that child and her good temperment!).  After dinner is also when I also get Jaron's breakfast, lunch and dinner together for the next day.

Other things we spend time doing on a regular basis are: hanging laundry, sweeping the floor MANY times a day to discourage ants, having other SOSers come over to chat, and baking together.  Alden has two little neighborhood buddies, Dillon and Shaliq, and he likes to run around outside with them.

Jaron is crazy-busy this semester.  We see him usually for a few hours Saturday evenings and then Sunday mornings and evenings.  He's really enjoying his pathology and pharmacology classes, even if they are a ton of work.  There is not much going on in Jaron's life outside of school right now.

And that is our day-to-day as we head into summer 2010.

Oh, and I couldn't help but post a couple of pictures.

When Alden was 1 1/2- 2 he went through this walking on his tip toes phase.  Eli has taken it one step further - he walks on the top of his feet!  I can't imagine how this is comfortable.  He especially walks like this anytime there are even drops of water on the floor - to avoid slipping, of course!

And Alden has officially been ousted from the "bathtub."  He and Eli are just too big to both squeeze into the storage bin anymore.  But, have no fear!  Gracen has graduated!  I can count on one hand the number of times poor little Eli has bathed alone in his whole 2 1/2 years!