Snuggling Awake
6:30am-Slowly drift into consciousness as I ‘feel’ something looking at me. Could be one of the dogs wanting to go outside or my son. Don’t hear panting so open eyes, see a three year old face in red snowman pjs staring at me. Snuggle together before alarm goes off. Remind son to use a whispering voice to not wake up the whole house. Doesn’t work for more than a second.
6:40am-Daughter calls from her doorway, “can I get up now?” Invite her to join us. Kids argue about who is going to snuggle on what side of Mommy.
7:00am- Get up to have a shower. Son wants to follow me, send him back to bed to snuggle with Daddy and his sister. I get dressed and ready for the day. Head downstairs to the kitchen
7:35am-Kids are finishing breakfast with Daddy. Husband has finished unloading the dishwasher and heads upstairs to shower. I clean up breakfast dishes, give older dog her daily meds, give kids vitamin D drops (don’t confuse the two!). Feed dogs and vacuum dog hair off front area mat before daycare children arrive.
8:10am-Debate whether to get kids dressed now before clients arrive or later. Don’t have the energy now. Getting the kids dressed before 8:15am makes for a better day but I only actually do it 60% of the time.
8:13am- Check my email as I’m blending a green smoothie. Get to eat one spoonful of yogurt before first daycare child arrives.
Day Care Kids Arrive & Home school Starts
8:15am- Chat with parents about child’s night and help with separation anxiety as parent leaves.
8:25am- Bring breakfast into playroom to check on child, eat standing up. Husband leaves for work. Kids play with toys.
8:30am- Second daycare family arrives and drops off children.
8:40am-Daughter wants to paint, help her get set-up.
8:45am-Younger kids are upset over sharing toys, help them work out a solution. Once everyone is playing happily, find a tea biscuit recipe I pinned from Pinterest months ago. Search through cookie cutters for heart shaped cutter.
9:00am-Make a cup of coffee and verbally bargain with daughter to get her to practice her reading (we homeschool). We reach an agreement; I have to read her 2 books and she will read me one.
9:10am- Other children decide to play musical instruments now. Daughter can’t concentrate. Redirect children. Continue reading. Son decides to climb all over my lap. Redirect son.
9:25am- Have a short circle time activity. Story and action song.
Baking Tea Biscuits together
9:30am- Get the kids set up in the kitchen to help make heart shaped tea biscuits. Realize I don’t have much flour left. Be thankful that I JUST have enough for the recipe. Write it down on the grocery list.
10:00am-Make tea biscuits, juggle helping everyone, containing the mess, taking pictures for my blog and monthly picture album for my daycare clients.
10:30am-Serve snack late because of the baking. Kids dive in because they are hungry. Put on some French preschool songs as our French home school lesson for today.
11:00am- Clean up snack and baking. Check the weather, debate going outside or not, (-25 with the windchill). Let the dogs out to the backyard, the air feels freezing, decide to stay inside.
11:10am and I finally get my kids dressed for the day!
Go through the usual resistance routine about teeth brushing, hair brushing and pants that don’t feel right. Decide to take daughter shopping for new pants tonight after dinner and son needs a haircut. Realize I forgot the dogs outside when I hear a ‘woof’ from the back door. Let the dogs in.
11:40am- Play a Bingo games with kids. Afterwards children get involved in a pretend princess game. Daughter helps them all into dress up clothes.
Lunch Time
12:10pm-Heat lentils and rice casserole from last night’s dinner for myself and daycare children. My kids only ate a few bites last night so don’t’ even try to serve it again to them. Instead reheat beans for them. I need to serve the same food to all the kids or chaos happens so I give everyone a bowl with either beans or lentils and rice casserole, a small wrap with almond butter spread, banana slices, apple slices,cucumber slices and carrot sticks. The plates LOOK the same, no one will notice.
12:40pm-Clean kitchen while children clean up toys in the playroom. I go into the playroom for the last few minutes of clean-up to announce what an outstanding job they have done. They are good cleaners and can do it independently now, (it took
time to get to this point though).
Nap/Quiet Time = Blog time
1:00pm- Put toddlers down for their nap, put older children down for their ‘rest time’. Notice dog hair on floor, make mental note to add ‘brush dogs’ to my To Do list. The children play quietly in their rooms for an hour at rest time. This is my time
to work on my blog.
1:05pm-Debate whether to make a cup of coffee or cup of tea. Feeling tired, so I go for the coffee. Check my e-mail while I wait for the coffee.
1:20pm- Son calls, he needs help in the washroom. I call back to use a step stool to turn on the light. Son calls back, he can’t find the step stool. I respond, look in your room. He calls back, he still can’t find it. Get up reluctantly and go find step stool that was in plain sight but apparently well camouflaged for a 3 year old.
2:05pm- Son calls out and asks is rest time over? I call back a few more minutes. It really is over but I want to finish what I’m doing. Son keeps calling out every five minutes until I give up and leave what I’m working on until tonight.
Structure Homeschool Time
2:30pm-Sit down at the kitchen table for a structured homeschool lesson. Notice the plants look like they need to be watered, get up and write it down on my ToDo list. Remember that I wanted to write something else down on the list but
have trouble recalling what it was. Snack & Play Outside
3:10pm- Snack time
4:00pm- Help children get dressed in snowsuits. This can be chaotic.
4:20pm- Children play in the front yard as daycare parents arrive for pick up.
Day Care Kids Leave
4:45pm-Walk dogs and answer the constant stream of questions from son and daughter. “What animal do you think made those tracks?” “Come see this hole in the snow, do you think it’s an animal den?” “Who’s den?”
6:00pm- We sit down to dinner. The kids tell their father about their day and ask him his opinion about the tracks in the snow, the den, etc.
6:35pm- My husband and son leave for the haircut, my daughter and I go out to find her some new pants.
8:00pm- Bedtime for kids.
9:00pm- Sit down to finish working on the blog I started today beside husband on the couch.
10:20pm- Call it a day and close lap top for the night. Do my nightly clean up, sweep and vacuum main level, clean kitchen, take out garbage.
10:30pm-Turn out light and remember that I never added ‘brush dogs’ to my To Do list. Fall asleep in one minute flat.
~ Jana from How to Run a Home Daycare
What is your day like?
Would you like to contribute to A Day in the Life of Another Mom? We’d love to read about your day! This series will be ongoing as long as there are people willing to give us all a glimpse into their lives. If you would like to share A Day in Your Life please email me your day to livinglifeintentionallyblog (at) gmail.com. Feel free to include picture (s). I will let you know promptly when it will be posted. (If you have a blog please let me know as I will include a link to your blog in the post.)
