Today (yes, I’m live blogging) started early with a 6:20 wake up. Kyle was already on a run (he’s training for a half marathon in Feb) so I go in to greet P by myself in the still dark house. He is in his “big boy room” now, which is heavily guarded lest he figure out an escape plan in the middle of the night that we don’t hear, so I remove the gate blocking off the outside of his door and go in to be greeted with a request for “out!” He hasn’t figured out the guard rail yet and still thinks it’s just another (weird looking) side of his new bed, which is fine by me. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time though.
We read several books at his request until Kyle gets home and pops in to say hi. He hears the front door open and yells “dada!!” in delight which is just about the best greeting a person could ask for.
After Kyle showers, I go work out in the garage. We converted a side of the two car garage to a work out space with a super old TV/DVD player so we have a decent home gym now. I kinda phone it in with Jillian because I am groggy, but it’s better than nothing.
After I shower Kyle heads to work and P and I play in his toy room while I nurse a cup of coffee. Eventually we move to the kitchen for breakfast. I set his highchair up facing the window because he loves watching the birds in the morning as they peck around on the lawn for berries or whatever.
Once he is eating (quick bread, blueberries, grapes, and a fried egg), I start making my food.
A really big pancake with sun butter.
After P’s done and cleaned up I distract him with a Thomas the Train clip while I finish eating and clean up. We play for another 30 minutes or so then get ready to go to Music Together class.
He loves music class and wants to listen to the soundtrack on the way there and home as well. Several of our friends are in the same class so we get to hang out and chat between singing and playing instruments and dancing around. I drive home as fast as safely possible while distracting P because he is so so tired by the end of class. Fortunately we live close. After a few more books to wind down in his room, I put him down for his nap and start prepping lunches for us both.
After I eat, I work on prepping dinner for the fam. Today’s dinner was lemongrass pork in lettuce cups with a Vietnamese dipping sauce. I chop everything for the meal and get the meat ready for tonight, then I make the dipping sauce. The plain pork plated on the side is for P.
After dinner’s good to go I attempt to do as many random errands around the house as possible until patty cakes wakes up (today I cleaned the bathroom sinks, filled the soap dispensers and restocked toilet paper rolls, picked chard and citrus from the garden, and did the dinner stuff). I often jot down reminders to myself throughout the day for things to get done in this nap time (quiet things that require little elbow grease). Sometimes I sit and sip coffee and browse the internet too, but today I was on a mission. There’s usually less cleaning to do in the beginning of the week after my Sunday scrub downs, but if there’s not cleaning, there’s something else. Toward the end of the week, after play dates and normal old life with a toddler, there are easily dozens of things to organize and clean and whatnot (maybe you can tell, I’m on the more anal end of the spectrum but I don’t care, I like things tidy). I digress. The point is that there are always a hundred things to do while P is napping and I never seem to get to all of them but I definitely try. Lately, I’ve been researching parks for P’s 2nd birthday in a few weeks (!!!), which inevitably leads to some random internet distractions. But for the most part I TCB while he’s down.
Silly boy.
Once he is up we read dozens more books in his room and eventually head downstairs to his toy room and play until he’s ready for lunch. By 2 pm I have to coax him to the kitchen with promises of bacon because we have a play date at 3 pm that I want to be ready for. He munches on roasted chickpeas, bacon, pumpkin seeds, carrots, cucumber slices, and home-made dried fruit bars.
After he’s full, I clean him up and let him dork around while I clean up, then we change and head out.
We meet up at a friends house for a couple of hours and P plays with his friends plus a bunch of other kids ranging 1 – 4 years old. I chat with my mama friends while he does his thing, checking back in from time to time. We head home before 5 so I can play with him in the backyard a bit before his dinner. Once we get home (and get the mail – his favorite) we go in the yard and play with his baseball tee, watering can, basketball hoop, and he snacks on chard and kumquats.
We head inside once it starts to get cold and I begin to cook dinner while P dances to music around my feet. He asks to see things and help stir from time to time so I let him. Kyle gets home and I tell P, so we race to the front door to greet him. I send pacman out to greet him and help him bring the trash cans out to the street for garbage day tomorrow morning (his even bigger favorite). Then both boys come inside and say hi to me in the kitchen. Kyle gets P set up in his high chair and I feed him his dinner (ground pork and raw lettuce from our meal, plus oatmeal with pureed sweet potatoes, applesauce, hemp, and chia seeds and grapes for dessert).
After I clean up P, he and Kyle go into the toy room and play together while I cook our dinner. This is their solo time and I know it means the world to them both. By 6:15 my stomach is growling so I go into the toy room to join them for a few minutes before we sing the clean up song and put away all the toys.
The bedtime routine is bath, teeth brushing, lotion, PJs, story time, and then bed time.
Afterwards, Kyle and I get our grub on. I always have dinner ready to go so as soon as we put him down we are plating our meals. Here are the lettuce cups in the finalized form! Super delish.
Kyle and I chill and chat and catch up and then I clean the kitchen while he hangs out with me in the kitchen.
My baking itch sets in pretty immediately and so I get to work on brownies. Kyle doesn’t mind one bit.
And now I’m sitting here typing this up while the brownies are in the oven and Kyle’s on a business call. I can tell you there’s TV and dessert in our future.
Happy Wednesday!
