My Real Life

When you are sitting outside, reading a book, listening to the cheerful sounds of your children playing in the backyard and a mosquito lands on your ecru capri pants, you don’t necessarily have to slap it.  If it’s not biting you at the moment, perhaps you could just let it rest for a moment before it flies off on its merry way.

Because, sometimes, when you slap a mosquito, the cosmos slap you right back.

The biggest lesson I took away from 9/11/01 is that you should never miss an opportunity to tell the people you care about how you feel.  I try to be good about it, but I know that I fail, quite often.

So, every year, on the anniversary of 9/11/01, I try to re-commit to making sure that the people I love and care about know how much they mean to me. 

I think it’s something we should all try to do every day.

People often ask me, “What does your day look like? What’s the schedule around your house?”

So, I figured, let’s give the people what they want.

Here’s a look at a typical weekday around the Real Home.

5:45 am – Alarm goes off. I start nudging Real Man to turn it off. If he doesn’t respond, I start violently shaking him with all my strength, which barely budges him, until he hits snooze.

5:53 am – Alarm goes off for the second time and I climb over Real Man and slam it off myself. I get out of bed and blindly fumble for the bathroom, as I don’t ever remember to put my glasses on first, despite the fact that I’m legally blind without them.

5:54 am – Shower. If I’ve been quick enough in turning off the alarm, then I have 15 minutes, all to myself. I can think about what I’ll be doing that day, figure out what I’ll wear, and just enjoy the quiet. If I was a second too late in turning off the alarm, I can very easily have three monkeys in the bathroom, just outside the shower door saying “Mom??? What can we have for breakfast?” Two very different ways to get acclimated to the day.

6:09 am – I’m out of the shower. I get dressed and as I walk to the kitchen, I give Real Man a big shake, by grabbing his foot as I pass the bed. “You gotta get up!” I say as I stumble by, grabbing my glasses as I go and the world comes into focus.

6:20 am – The monkeys and I have eaten our breakfast and I’ve updated the blog. I then start getting the monkeys dressed one by one. Baby Monkey is first. Monkey in the Middle can dress himself but needs help finding what to wear. Monkey Girl certainly chooses her clothes and dresses herself but I do her hair.

7:00 am – I’m out the door and headed to work. Real Man takes Baby Monkey to daycare and either my Dad or Real Man’s Dad takes the big monkeys to school.

7:05 am (yes, it only takes me 5 minutes to get to work…I’m VERY lucky) –4:00-ish pm – Work (see how quickly 9 hours just went by?

4:00-ish – I’m usually out by 4. Some days I’m out a little earlier, some days a little later. It depends on what the teachers need from me and what project I happen to be working on. Also, it depends on whether or not I have a meeting which I usually do.

But, I digress.

4:00-ish – I come home. Two days a week the big monkeys are in after care and I pick them up after getting Baby Monkey at daycare. The other 3 days, my Dad or Real Man’s Dad is here when they get home. When the monkeys get home, they get a snack and then do homework.

Here’s Monkey Girl, hard at work.

After that, it’s outside if the weather permits. They love to ride bikes and scooters.

If it is raining or snowing, they’ll play a game or something. Right now, Monkey Girl and Monkey in the Middle are completely into chess. Who’s gonna argue that???

Sometimes we also do things like bake during this time. The monkeys LOVE to bake. This was yesterdays project.

Monkey Girl and Baby Monkey are not big chocolate fans. Monkey in the Middle is not a vanilla fan. If I want a cupcake, the diabetes prevents the icing from crossing the threshold of my lips. Real Man likes cupcakes. So, we cater to everyone.

5:00 – I usually start dinner around now. If the monkeys are outside, they keep playing outside, however, if they were riding bikes, they need to put them away and come into the yard. It’s a quiet neighborhood, but I don’t want them in the road with me inside. We have a stream in our yard. There is MUCH adventure to be found in the stream and the woods.

While dinner is cooking, I make the lunches for the next day. Doing it now makes it possible for me to hit snooze in the morning. I put the lunches in the fridge and then in the morning, just take them out and pop them in the lunchboxes and backpacks.

6:00 – Dinner. Yum.

Real Man is usually home by now. If not, we try to wait because eating as a family is something that Real Man and I have always agreed is incredibly important. Studies show that kids who eat dinner with their parents, as a family, do better in school, have better self-esteem, are better equipped to fight peer pressure, and grow up to be happier adults. So, yeah…it’s important to us. Besides, we all kinda like each other.

6:45 – Bath and shower time. The Monkey Boys get a bath and Monkey Girl takes her shower.

7:15 – Book time. Everyone picks one book and we all sit on the couch and read the books, one at a time. We hit the library weekly, so there are always plenty to choose from. Also, my partner at work, Susan, taught elementary school for many years and is now a literacy coach and instructional leader for language arts. There are a LOT of children’s books in my office and we borrow and bring back frequently. Plus, we have bookcases full of children’s books in the house. Books. Books. Books. Love them.

7:30-ish pm – The boys go to bed. We sing songs with them and then they go to sleep. Monkey Girl gets to read in bed until 8:15. Then, we put her to bed, as well. We’ve always been very lucky with bed time. With a few exceptions when the boys first started sharing a room, they pretty much go right to sleep.

8:15 pm – I hop on the computer and write my blog post for the next day. After that, if there is laundry or ironing to be done, I do it now, as well.

After that, Real Man and I hang out and get to chat and spend time together.

So, that’s it. That’s what we do around here on a typical day. Some days are a bit different than others, but this would be the average day. Take it for what it is. It works for us.

We’re happy. What more could we want?

First of all, I just wanted to thank you all for the well-wishes for Baby Monkey.  He’s doing fine.  As I said in the original post, he’s incredibly resilient, as are most kids.  He’s told everyone at daycare his story and is enjoying the attention.  Normally, I’d dissuade that behavior.  Right now, I’m a little too nervous to really worry about that.

Real Man and I figure we’ll sleep again after he sees the neurologist next week.  Until then, we run up the stairs in shifts as he tosses and turns in his crib at night.

Still, wouldn’t trade being his Mommy for the world.