My Day, The Rundown

I really enjoy it when people tell me just exactly how their day goes. I think probably because I'm nosy, but also because it's just fun to consider someone else's day. Something different from my own.

I think I enjoy it just like I enjoy it when people leave their curtains open at night, and I'm out for a walk, and I can peer in and see how my neighbors decorated and what they're watching on TV. Am I the only creepy person who enjoys that? Yes? Okay, moving on.

My day is always different. It depends on whether or not I actually get up with my alarm, or hit the snooze five hundred times. It depends on whether or not daycare comes to me, or I take the kids to daycare. It depends on whether or not I am feeling ambitious about my morning routine, or really if I'd just rather skip it all together. BUT, okay, in general my day goes like this:

5:00 AM: My alarm goes off. This does NOT mean I get up at this time. Typically it means that I use my super find-the-snooze-button-in-the-dark-and-half-asleep skills. You have those skills too, right?

5:00 AM - 5:30 AM: Depending on how many times I found that snooze button, this is when I drag myself out of bed. The next 30-45 minutes is 'me' time. Or, the only time I have to make myself look somewhat presentable.

6:00 AM - This is when I'm supposed to be heading out the door with the kids, but typically it's when I'm doing my darnedest to drag Liam out of bed and get him to go potty for dang sake.

6:20 AM - I'm fortunate enough to be able to simply get the kids out of bed, find clothing and shoes, add a jacket and put them in the car. (Ha, as if that was simple!) This is typically the time we are actually pulling away from the house, a good 20 minutes late.

7:15 AM - Usually, this is when I make it to work. Something like 15 minutes late. Most people seem to just understand that when I say my start time is 7:00, what I mean is my start time is 7:15. (Note to self: I should maybe start setting my alarm for 4:30 AM).

3:15 PM - I don't take a lunch so that I can maximize my time at home with the kids. And since I showed up late, it seems only fair I should hang around that extra 15 minutes. This is when I'm doing all I can to escape the office. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't, because of course, it's in that 15 minutes that my phone will ring or I'll get called into an inpromptu meeting.

4:15 - 5:00 PM - Time for the kids to play while I make dinner. Or, while I call Domino's, or while Nate makes dinner. You know, one of those things. We do try to eat at 5:00 PM though, and amazingly enough, we usually make that mark.

5:30 - 7:00 PM - The best part of my day. My time with the kids. We play, or maybe go to the park, or maybe it's bath night, or maybe we're having complete melt downs, but whatever is going on, this is the fleeting time a working mother like myself gets to have with my kids during the week. This hour-and-a-half is the reason I try so hard to get to work early, and skip lunch, and do my best to leave on time, because otherwise I wouldn't have this time at all.

7:00 PM - There was a time that the kids stayed up until more like 8:00 PM, but then we figured out they weren't getting enough of this little thing called sleep, so we pushed bedtimes back. This is the time we are wrangling the kids into bed. I should say wrangling Liam to bed...Quin has always been, and continues to be, a superstar sleeper. (Note to Quin: Keep that up, please.)

8:00 PM - 9:30 or 10:00 PM - Time to catch up on a book, or my favorite show, or lately, homework. Yes, this is the bit of time I've reserved each day to complete my MBA.

And that's my day. Evangelical stay-at-home mothers everywhere have just said a silent prayer for me and my misguided ways, but you know what, I wouldn't change a thing. (Well, maybe that thing about the snooze button.)