Summer Days

We’ve settled into a little rhythm, here.  I am supposed to be working, but my professor has yet to respond to my messages and emails, so I’m taking the time for what it is – a break from work, and immersion in my children.  It’s fun to dip into their all-day lives, like slipping into a spa.  Except, you know, the opposite of that – instead of being relaxed and scrubbed clean with bubbles and massaged and chilled out, I’m perpetually dirty and sticky, am perpetually sore from lifting them, and have never felt less relaxed.  But this is not a complaining post.  As non-spa-like as caring for them is, I am, excluding a few dark moments of exhaustion, (and times when I *need* to talk to an adult) really really enjoying it.

Our days:

Liam wakes at 6:30.  He is usually sitting up in bed, making sweet “come get me” noises, and once he sees me, he gives me a “wild man” shake of the head and leaps to his feet.  He has a bottle.  He runs wild for a while.  I make coffee, and try to sip it while giving chase.

Jack wakes around 8:00.  He calls my name, and Liam and I go in there.  Liam dives for the bed, and they wrestle for a few minutes, giggling.  Then Jack says “Mama, I’m a Good Morning!” (“I’m a” is a big connecting phrase right now, for some reason.)  We go have breakfast – Jack some yogurt, or jelly toast, and Liam some applesauce, a half a banana, some baby oatmeal, some chunks of cantaloupe, some graham crackers, a few peas . . . you get the idea.  Liam is an eater.  I have a breakfast from my Mediterranean diet plan, as-torn-from-a-Good-Housekeeping-magazine at work (five pounds gone, by the way!  The easiest five pounds, i.e. the ones I just put on a few weeks ago . . .)

After breakfast, we do something active – either I jog with them to the park, where we play a while, or I put them in the bike trailer and we ride a while.  This is my daily exercise.  Then we come home and have popsicles, which Jack calls bicycles.  Liam LOVES bicycles.  Jack does, too.  After that, Liam has a nap, and I usually let Jack watch some tv while I do chores around the house and shower.  Then, after Liam wakes up and has his bottle, we all have lunch and then go for an afternoon activity.  Today we went to see the sharks at the aquarium.  Some days we do more boring things, like the grocery store or other errands.  We come back between 2 and 4, and that’s when I put the boys down for afternoon naps.  I usually collapse on the couch at this point, til one of them wakes up, usually because my fracking dog barks, God help me.

After nap, we have dinner, and then go for another evening walk sometimes, or sometimes we tool around the house, reading books, playing with toys.  Seven o’clock means bathtime, and then we play some more in their room til it’s time for Liam to have his bottle and go down.  Jack stays up a bit later, sometimes reading, sometimes watching tv with me, and then he goes down.  Then I sit on the couch with a beer and some 30 Rock, and fall asleep literally within minutes.  A few hours later, I’ll wake up, take the dog out, turn off the tv, and then go to bed.

And at 6:30, we do it all over again.

*I have called my family members a zillion times over these past few days.  I just have to say something other than “No, Jack, I don’t see Mater” or “Good job going poopy on the potty!” or “Please stop ___________(FILL IN THE BLANK)” or “Don’t hit your brother.”

**After being at the aquarium today, Liam can say “fish.”