Fifty-third Passage

Yesterday I thought it would be interesting to track everything I did from the moment I woke up to the time I went to bed. Just to see how my time was actually spent. Also, people always ask what I do with my time, and now I can just be lazy and direct them to this blogpost.  Haha.

So here is a day in the life of Melanie.

7:30 Alarm goes off - snooze- Pray.
7:40 Go down stairs
7:45 Greet William and Owen as they get dropped off.
8:00 Get three boys breakfast
8:15 make myself breakfast
8:30 Get Lydia up and feed her. Have boys empty dishwasher. Put Owen in timeout for repeatedly telling me no about doing chores.
8:45 Put dirty dishes in dishwasher. Send boys upstairs to clean up the school room. Go to the bathroom.
9:15 Get Lydia dressed. Take her to the bathroom.
9:20 Throw load of Lydia's clothes in washer.
9:30 Go upstairs to find new giant mess in boys bedroom.

Clean clothes all over the floor. They blame Lydia, so I clean up the mess.
9:37 Get dressed.
9:40 Gather boys for school. Start with devotional. (Song, prayer, alphabet, Article of Faith)
9:48 Spelling for older boys, letter sounds book for Owen, reading with Lydia.
9:55 Owen spills box of colored pencils on the floor.

9:59 Move on to reading comprehension with older boys.
10:16 Move on to parts of speech for older boys. (subjects and predicates) Owen does an alphabet dot to dot. Flash cards with Lydia.
10:20 Lydia goes potty in the toilet.
10:24 Owen finishes his school work and gets a sticker on his chart.
10:29 William moves to math. (beginning fractions)

10:32 I put Dragon Tales on downstairs for Lydia and Owen.

10:34 I put Lydia's clothes in the dryer, and wash her pillow pet and a bathroom mat.
10:39 Return upstairs and check Morgan's work after he'd moved on to math while I was away. Manage to read two pages in my book. (Empire, by Orson Scott Card)
10:54 Learn a new state with boys. New Hampshire.
11:03 Leave boys to color in their state binders and go get ready for the day. Hair, make-up, etc. (fortunately I showered just before bed the night before.)
11:22 Give kids a snack. Gather extra underpants for Lydia in preparation for leaving the house.
11:24 Have a twom minute phone conversation with my love.
11:27 Put all the boys on the bench for being crazy and wild.
11:28 Do Lydia's hair.
11:29 Move Morgan to the wall for being "the next one to talk" to continue his time out.
11:30 Lydia goes pee in the potty.
11:31 Let boys out of time out. Send Morgan to get socks on. Regret letting the boys out of time out.
11:36 Get everyone in socks, shoes, and coats.
11:42 Finally have everyone in the car. Lydia is still in underpants. The first time ever I didn't put a diaper or pull-up on her before leaving the house.
11:55 Arrive at library. Put shoes and socks back on Lydia's feet. Go inside.

12:03 Take Lydia to the bathroom for a false alarm.
12:17 Check out and get Morgan and William their own library cards.
12:23 Get back in the car with one book for me, and two each for Morgan and William that they can read themselves. Owen didn't want any.
12:36 Arrive home. Change Lydia out of her wet underpants.
12:38 Take picture of Moran and William with their new library cards and books.

12:43 Change out laundry. Throw David's karate uniform in washing machine.
12:46 Start lunch preparations.
12:48 Take out trash. General kitchen tidying. Sweep. Kids play loudly around the house.
12:52 Read Morgan's library book to the kids.
12:58 Have altercation with Owen over food, bad choices, and obedience.
1:04 Continue preparing lunch. Just chili-mac&cheese.
1:08 Send boys upstairs for being way too rough and loud downstairs.
1:18  Serve lunch.
1:34 Lydia goes potty in the toilet.
1:37 Clean up lunch and dishes.
1:40 Owen spills his water everywhere. Spilling water or bowls of cereal or something, is becoming a daily occurance with him.
1:47 Hang up David's wet karate uniform to dry.
1:49 play the piano with Lydia.
1:55 Put Lydia in a diaper and down for a nap.
2:02 Read The Indian in the Cupboard to Morgan and William as they draw pictures.
2:30 Clean up living room with boys.
2:38 Put wii game on for boys.
2:41 Transfer David's temple stuff to a new backback.
2:45 Tidy my bathroom.
2:52 Me time! Facebook, phone games, then reading my book. Chatting with a friend about plans to take our kids to the hotsprings the next day.
4:20 Back to real life. (Whew! Look at that break! Normally if I get to have one, it isn't so long since I have to be leaving the house at this time to take the boys to their mom's house most school days. This day was unusual since she came to pick them up.)
4:25 Save the shelf that Morgan knocked off the wall and frantically held up as he called for help.
4:30 Fixed the broken wii.
4:31 More clean up in the living room.
4:36 Pickles all around.
4:38 Owen spills another cup of water.
4:45 I start an episode of Downton Abbey and start folding three loads of laundry (two little boy loads, and one Lydia load. Some from the day before) while the boys do puzzles at the table.
5:27 William and Owen go with their mom. I send them off.
5:34 After finishing the laundry, I set Morgan up on Nick Jr website to play while I try to figure out what to make for dinner.

I lost track of things a bit here, but I called my mom, made taco soup, got Lydia out of bed, (long nap!!) talked to David on his way home from work, greeted him when he arrived around 6:00, accepted the offered Blizzard from Dairy Queen, set the table, ate the blizzard with David, then ate dinner with the family, tried a few times unsuccessfully to make Lydia go poop.
6:56 Cleaned up dinner and did dinner dishes.
7:05 Mentioned that I was gonna take the garbage can to the curb, then watched as David did it. (I really was planning on it!
7:06 Put Lydia's folded clothes away.
7:12 Cuddled with David on the couch while Morgan and Lydia played.
7:29 Played Mario Kart with David and Morgan. Lydia thought she played too.
8:15 Took Lydia upstairs to get her ready for bed.
8:20 Family prayer.
8:25 Put Lydia in her crib.
8:26 Took Lydia out of her crib on grounds that she was whining excessively about having to go "poopy". Since she hadn't gone for 3 days, I thought we should try.
8:36 Put Lydia back in bed, with no success.
8:45 Watch Downton Abbey again while folding the clothes for David and I. David plays video games with buddies.
After one episode, (which is about 1 hr and 10 mins) I had to search long and hard for a place on the internet that would stream season 2 of the show. Found it. I also ironed, which took the bulk of my time.
11:35 David joins me.
11:40 The show ends. I turn off the projector and computer, (we don't have a tv) and take the clothes upstairs and put them away.
11:55 Return downstairs. Put away kitchen towels and washrags. Bathroom. Put away pickles. Glug some water.
12:03 Back upstairs. Get in bed. Play wheel of fortune for a few minutes with David. (He on his ipad, me on my iphone.)
12:15 Go to sleep.

Whew! That was my day. It was actually a very smooth day. The kids were pretty well behaved, they were fantastic at the library, nothing major or dramatic. The library isn't actually part of my normal day. And folding and ironing clothes is only normal for one or two nights a week. But there is always something.

Many of my evenings are spent with David and I doing something together. Movie, video games, board games, etc. But this is still an accurate representation of what a day in my life is like.