A Day in the Life #11: November 4th, 2019 (almost 6, 3.5, and 3.5 months)

11 “Day in the Life” posts! 11!

I did my first post like this when Hadley was eight months old and have continued to do two per year, and now here we are with #11. Time flies, but I love skimming through these posts and watching our kids grow up. 

I’ve been meaning to do this post for a couple of months but could never muster up the energy to do it. I was laying in bed Sunday night though and decided that the next day would be the day. I would take pictures and videos and just get ‘er done. I’m always grateful when it’s done, like it’s a gift to myself. 

In life you have good days and hard days, and I would say we’re currently sitting at about one hard day for every three good days. These are good odds considering we are in (very) thick of it with three young children (one being an infant!), but this particular day was a hard day, and it’s captured here. WELCOME TO OUR CHAOS, YOU’RE WELCOME. 🙂 🙂

I would have loved to have documented a good, “happy go lucky” day, but we don’t always have the happiest days (who does?), so this post is very much real life too. Some days we just trudge through, try to be optimistic, and know that bedtime is coming.

Notice I didn’t say that this particular day was a bad day though. Nothing bad happened at all, for which I am always grateful, but bad is different from hard. This day simply felt like hard work, but we got through it and ended it on a happy note. 

So without further adieu, here is a day in our lives with our kindergartener, our three year old, and our three month old. 

I like to start the day with a 5 a.m. Orangetheory workout, but I canceled my Monday morning class the night before because I had a feeling Jillian might be a little more restless than normal during the night due to her first significant cold. I was right and was awake with her at 2 a.m and 3:30 a.m. 

I “slept in” until around 6 a.m. and then pulled myself out of bed. Jamie had already finished his 5 a.m. garage workout, showered off, and was in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher. 

It was cool that morning, so I threw on my cozy, long “Grandma” robe (that I love!) and slippers and then made my way into the kitchen. 

Jamie already had water boiling ready to make our french press cups of coffee. 

Jamie said Hadley was in her room getting dressed, so I went in there to say good morning. 

I’d only been up a few minutes when we heard Jillian waking up. She usually doesn’t get up until around 7 a.m. (or later), but we knew she was a little off because of her snotty nose and cough. 

I noticed that Jamie had put together Jillian’s little play center the night before, so we plopped her in it after I nursed her to try it out. Of course she had to taste test it. 🙂

You can hear Jamie in the video below talking about how Sadie likely messed with our dishwasher settings again. She loves to pull on it for some reason. I so appreciate Jamie and how he unloads the dishwasher as many mornings as he can. He knows it would take me three times as long to do during the day while taking care of the girls. 

Jillian is normally so full of big, big smiles in the morning, so the fact that she’s a bit more stoic made it obvious she really didn’t feel like herself. Poor sugar. 

Since Jillian was happy in her play table and Hadley was eating breakfast (Sadie had stumbled out of her room by this point too and was laying on the couch), I took the opportunity to take a quick body shower and get ready for the day. I sprayed some dry shampoo in my hair, brushed it out (curls remained from the day prior!), and put on a little bit of makeup.

Once I was ready, Jamie and I moved our sofa out to our entryway in preparation to receive our shipment of new furniture that afternoon.I got dressed in my favorite leggings, a black nursing tank, and a comfy black cardigan. I wanted to feel pulled together for a few places we had to go that day but also be comfy since we’d mostly be at home. Getting ready took less than 15 minutes from start to finish, which is a good thing because that’s about all the time I have these days!

I then went from room to room gathering all of the dirty laundry to start a big load (I still like to do one complete load per day.) I then quickly fixed Hadley hair and made sure all of her stuff for school was ready to go. 

Jamie and Hadley gave hugs and kisses to everyone and hit the road for school and work right around 7 a.m. 

Once they were gone, I fixed Sadie her breakfast and then turned my attention to Jillian. By 7:15 she was exhausted and ready to nap (since she’d gotten up so early), so I swaddled her, turned her sound machine on, stuck a paci in her mouth, and rocked her in my arms until she was drowsy enough be put down.

Of course my coffee was cold like it is every morning (haha), so I reheated it and plopped myself in the entryway on the couch and took a breather. 

One of my best friends Meg texted me about my visit to see her this weekend, which made me laugh because she always used to be in my “day in the life” posts since she was a massive part of my life at Fort Riley. Sure enough by 7:20 a.m. she was a part of my day again. 🙂 We talk daily via text or snaps or a phone call, so it wasn’t surprising that we were already chatting this early. 

Once Sadie was done with breakfast, I asked her to go into her room and get dressed into the clothes we’d picked out together the night prior (she has to have a say in what she wears!) Of course she’s gotta hang with mom, so she brought her clothes to me. 

Next I went into the kitchen and made my to-do list for the day. My entire to-do list very rarely gets done, but I at least like to get tasks written down so that I can try to be as on top of things as the day will allow. 

While I loaded the dishwasher and picked up the kitchen from the mess our family had already made that morning, Sadie played with her baby dolls (her favorite). 

Around 8:15 a.m. Jillian woke up from her first nap of the day. She was in a better mood and ready to get dressed and do final things needed to get out the door to take Sadie to preschool. 

While I brushed Sadie’s hair and teeth and made her lunch, I put Jillian back in her activity center with Mickey Mouse to watch. I figured if this would buy me a few minutes of peace to focus on Sadie, it was okay!

Love love love my Sadie girl! She has been so well behaved lately (comparatively, we about hit rock bottom in August…) and such an enjoyable little buddy to have around!

Once we were all ready to go, we hit the road for preschool drop-off. By this point I was starving and realized I’d forgotten to eat breakfast, so I grabbed one of the kids’ Chewy granola bars and jumped in the car. 

I could feel my stress levels were a little high after moving around like a madwoman all morning to get everybody going, so Jesus music went on immediately. Worship music plays a huge role in my everyday life and is absolutely my go-to when I’m driving or doing laundry and just need some centering and perspective. 

Sometimes I glance back at my minivan of girls and feel my heart swell. This view never gets old. 

After dropping off Sadie, Jillian fell asleep on our 13 minute drive home. Darn. She always wakes up when I move her car seat inside, so I attempted to quickly grab her from her seat and let her snooze on our half-made up bed. She loves to sleep on her belly, so this is how we let her nap if she falls asleep somewhere spontaneously. I prayed she’d take a good, long snooze. 

My body was craving some fuel, so I made a big ham, egg, and cheese sandwich. I think it was around 9:45 at this point. 

From there, I sat down to crank out a blog post. I was craving some quiet time to unload some thoughts, jot down some Halloween memories, and simply unwind. 

I didn’t get far before Jillian woke up. I tried my best to get her back to sleep, but girlfriend was wide awake. 

I did my best to finish the post up while she hung with me, and though I was able to hit publish before we swung back to get Sadie, Jillian did some good fussin’ about it. 

After nursing Jillian at some point, she fell asleep in my arms. Preschool drop off and pick up days are just so super hard for naps. They get all whacked out, especially with her currently transitioning from randomly sleeping most of the day to taking two solid naps a day.

I tried to lay her down again on her belly on the couch so she could snooze, which was successful. She was out cold, so I ran to grab the laundry from the dryer and dumped it on my bed to fold. No less than 30 seconds after I dumped the laundry bin did I hear Jillian start moving. 

I looked out of my bedroom door and saw eyeballs. 

I got her up, changed her diaper, and the two of us hit the road to pick up our online grocery order from Walmart. As I was leaving the house, I got a text from Pottery Barn that our new living room furniture would be delivered at 1:10. I knew they’d be coming some time that afternoon but didn’t expect them this early. I don’t pick up Sadie until 1, so I knew we’d be rushing!

After grabbing our groceries and quickly scooping up Sadie, we booked it home to this beautiful site. 

I asked Sadie to play independently in the kitchen while the delivery men did their thing, and Jillian seemed content in her jumper. While they unloaded, I unpacked our groceries. 

Pottery Barn has white-glove delivery of their furniture, so they brought in all the pieces, set them up where we wanted them, took all of the plastic wrap, and were in and out in less than 15 minutes. Sadie and I broke in the new couch with some good snuggling and took a picture to send to Jamie to say how happy we were!

For the afternoon we piddled around the house doing random things while talking on Marco Polo for hours with my good friends Erin and Jenna. I love love love this app. I love that I don’t have to take the time to sit down and write a text but can walk around doing chores or whatever I’m doing and can listen and talk on my own terms and timeline. 

While bopping around with Jillian, Sadie asked if she could take some pictures (something her and Hadley have gotten really interested in doing!)

While putting away laundry in my room, Sadie helped me entertain Jillian. She often treats her like she does her baby dolls, and Jillian soaks the attention right up!

We love listening to iTunes radio and letting the girls play DJ. For my laundry folding session, Sadie requested the Hokey Pokey. 🙂

I got most of the laundry folded, and before I knew it, it was time to throw our shoes on and race out the door to grab Hadley from the bus stop. While we were walking to the bus stop, my mom called on her way home from work and asked if she could swing by and see our new furniture. She met us at the bus stop and walked home with us, which was a treat for us all!

She could see I was a little hell bent after an already long, unpredictable day with Jillian, so she hung around for about an hour occupying her while I had a snack (can’t remember what it was), got the girls a snack, unpacked school bags, folded the last little bit of laundry, and loaded the dishwasher. Mom tried a few times to get her to take a nap, but she wasn’t having it. By this point, she was beyond overtired. 

It was unbelievably gorgeous out, so the girls did what they usually do on pretty afternoons and spent it outside. 

I took this picture around 4:30 while nursing Jillian but was feeling like toast. I had meat thawed in the refrigerator to start cooking for dinner soon, but I knew Little Miss wasn’t going to let me put her down. I tried to wear her in the carrier on my chest, but she wasn’t feeling that either. By this point I was sure she was teething or just didn’t feel good, but our thermometer showed zero temp. 

By 5 p.m. I got a text from Jamie that he was on his way home, so I put Jillian on her play mat and hoped that I could start dinner. I was smoked though, so I ended up putting chicken nuggets in the air fryer for the big girls and served them with a side of baby carrots and ranch and called it good. 

Jamie and I agreed that we’d figure out our own dinner plans once we got all of the girls settled down. 

By 5:30 though we decided we needed to get out of the house. We don’t do bath time until 6:30 and shoot for 7 p.m. bedtime, and I knew this witching hour might kill us. Usually on rough days we combat witching hour by going for a long walk around the neighborhood, but it was pitch black outside by this point due to the time change the day prior. So we decided to throw the kids in the car, pray that Jillian (and Sadie) would take short naps, and that we could have some peaceful conversation time over a fancy dine-in-our-car Chick-fil-A meal. 

We knew Hadley wouldn’t sleep of course, so she grabbed some books and read in the backseat while also requesting to listen to Old Town Road. Why does every kid seem to love this song? We don’t even know where she started listening to it, but listening to her sing along was pretty amusing. 

We used the Chick-fil-A app to order our food and included a couple of chocolate chip cookies for Hadley and Sadie. 

Even Teddy got to come along for the ride!

We parked in a quiet stop, turned off the car, and actually got to talk in peace while we ate. Hadley was occupied, the littlest girls were out cold, and we realized that getting out of the house like this was just what we needed to get to bedtime. We were pooped, but this lifted our spirits. 

Everybody was in much better moods when we got home. Jamie took charge of getting the big girls cleaned up and I took care of Jillian. 

Around 7:15 we all snuggled up on the new couch to watch Dancing With the Stars. I nursed Jillian until around 7:30, and then she knocked out super fast. 

Around 8, we disappointed the big girls by telling them that we’d watch the rest tomorrow, but that it was time for bed. Jamie read them a book in Hadley’s bed, said prayers, and we kissed them goodnight.

From there, Jamie went into the garage to work out (since he wouldn’t be able to the next morning since he knew I was planning to go to the gym) while I watched the rest of DWTS and baked. I threw my best friend Amberlee a baby sprinkle the next evening and had some cupcakes to make! I whipped together the frosting, made the reduced strawberry puree that I’d add to the batter the next morning, and dipped these strawberries as a garnish.

By 9:30 I was in Dreamland! What a day that kept me more than on my toes.

While every day isn’t nearly as unpredictable (and somewhat tense) as this one was, I do think this post serves as a pretty accurate depiction of what life looks like right now: juggling a million things, dividing and conquering with Jamie, running kids around who are in three very different stages, intentionally trying to have some quiet time with my husband, and a whole heck of a lot of family love. I love these people so much, it hurts. I am so incredibly proud of my family, but whew – this season of parenting three little girls is nothing short of WILD and hard, hard work. 

Here’s a WHOLE big list of previous “Day in the Life” posts, if you’d like to go back and read about certain seasons with our babes!

Let’s chat!

Are you in a season of life that is mega fulfilling but that’s already physically kicking your butt? What season of parenting has been the “easier” (if that’s such a thing) for you so far?