A Day in My Life

Thursday, September 16, 2010

A Day in My Life

I'm a stay-at-home mom of 15 month old boy/girl twins, London and Lyla. They are the absolute loves of my life. They are a huge part of who I am as a person now and everything changed (for the better) when they entered my world.

Somebody asked me the other day "Do you ever get bored at home every day?". I think this is so funny. Bored is the last thing I'd ever say to describe my days.

So, a bit of back story, when I had the twins I went on paid maternity leave for 6 months. Then I took a one year leave of absence. Then I finally told my boss that I wasn't coming back. It was very hard to leave. It wasn't a hard decision, I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. But I LOVED my job. I loved the people I worked with, the work I was doing was exciting and innovative. My manager was the best boss I had EVER had. Everything about my job was everything I had ever wanted. Saying that, I'm living my DREAM job now. I get to stay home with my kids and watch them grow up right before my very eyes. It's amazing and I love it more than anything!

So, getting back to the question I got about if I get bored at home, I thought for fun I'd write what my typical day actually consists of:

I wake up at about 7:30 or 8:00. London is usually the one that is stirring and babbling in his crib and it wakes me up through the monitor.
I go to the kitchen and grab their sippy cups of milk and head to the nursery. I give Lyla her milk, she's usually sitting up in her crib, and then I give London his milk while I pull him out and change him.
Then I take him out to play in the front room or play room, and do the same with Lyla.
At about 8:45 is I give them breakfast in their high chairs. After breakfast I read about 3 books to them and practice some sign language. So far, they know how to sign dog, milk, mama, dada, ball, all done, more, eat, water, and some other ones that I'm forgetting right now. This is VERY helpful since they can't fully talk yet. I highly suggest baby sign language to those of you with kids or having kids in the future.
Anyway, at about 9:30 they go down for a nap that lasts until about 11 or so. During this time I check my email and play around online. I also clean, pick up, shower, or do anything else I need to do. I don't nap. I think I've taken maybe 5 naps total in the time since they've been born. I just have a hard time sleeping in short amounts during the day.
When they wake up, I follow the same procedure as the morning. Then at about noon or so they eat lunch and I do all the books and signing again.
Sometimes they take a second nap at about 2 or 3, but lately they haven't been so I think we're slowly transitioning to one nap.
During their awake play times, we'll play with toys in the house, or I'll take them on a walk, or we'll go play at the park up the street. My mom also has a swing set that I like to take them over to play on. And my sister has an awesome play area in her house and a bounce house in her back yard, so some days we go over there (she's just up the street).
I try to do new things every other day or every week so that they don't get bored with their same toys.
At about 5:45 they eat dinner. At 6 pm Nathan comes home and plays with them for about 45 minutes and then close to 7 pm he gives them each a bath. Then I get their pj's on and get them ready for bed. At 7ish we bring them out in the front room to sit on our laps for a bit more milk and bedtime stories. Then we put them down in their cribs and they sleep all the way until 7:30 or 8 am. Lyla can sleep until 9 am some days.

So at about 8 pm I have the rest of the night to myself to watch my tv shows or do whatever else I want to do. I'm usually pretty tired, but I stay up until about 10:30 or 11 anyway. Some nights I go out dancing, the past month or so I've been teaching jive every Wednesday night and that's been so fun. Nathan and I have a date night every now and then where we'll go to dinner and a movie. Sometimes I'll just go have a drink with a friend.

When Nathan is home he is very hands on and helps a lot.
But during the week day, if I ever want to go run errands by myself or anytime I need a break or some help I can just call my mom. She's retired and is always ready and available to help me. It's SO great having her. Even though I have a horrible time asking for help and I'm very independent, I try to let her help because I know it's not only good for the babies, it's good for me. And she loves to spend time with them.


Some days are harder than others. There's never a dull moment around here, but I wouldn't trade it for anything!