A Day in the Life: A Day Off

The other day I was driving in the car and started thinking about how much things have changed recently. The kids have become much more independent and Carter is in school 5 days a week now and actually loves school! I realized I hadn't written a Day in the Life post in a long time and figured it was about time! I decided I'd do one post on a day I don't work and one on a day I do work. My days off are Monday and Wednesday. I work Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I run 6 days a week with Tuesday as my day off because I'd rather my day off be a day I work. Since I don't work on Mondays and Wednesdays, I just have to be home from my run by 7:30 so Ty can leave for work. On days I work I need to be home closer to 7:00, 7:15 at the latest so I have time to get ready for work. I do speed work on Wednesday because those workouts take longer and I don't have to get up quite as early as I would on a work day. I decided to do my first Day in the Life post on a Monday. So here's how that Monday looked.

6:20 am- My alarm goes off and I turn it off and check the weather while laying in bed before I get up. It's actually warmer than the forecast showed last night so I switch out some of the clothes I laid out the night before. Once I'm dressed I take Tesla out to potty before getting on my shoes and leashing her up. She is super excited about running and won't stop jumping all over me. I'm a bit surprised because this will be the first time I've run with her 2 days in a row and she's certainly acting like she didn't run with me yesterday! We take off for an easy 5 miles and enjoy the beautiful sunrise. I keep thinking it's like we're running toward cotton candy clouds as we finish running toward the rising sun and the beautifully colored clouds.

The name on my morning alarm gets me excited each time I see it!

Beautiful sunrise this morning!

Tesla was even impressed, haha!

7:25 am- Tesla and I get home. I eat a hard boiled egg and feed Tesla. Ty gives me a kiss goodbye. Carter is sitting at the kitchen table eating his breakfast which Ty made him. I get him his clothes we laid out last night so he can get dressed for school. I wasn't a fan of uniforms until Carter started school and I now love them! Not only is it super easy to get him ready for school but there's a definite unity that comes from dressing in matching clothing and I like that I can recognize kids who go to his school by their uniforms. While Carter gets dressed I brush my teeth while reading, I'm big on reading while doing mundane tasks to make them more enjoyable. Carter decided last night he wanted a school lunch and changes his mind this morning, asking for a mommy lunch." I am normally a stickler and don't let him change his mind in the morning but I'm feeling soft this morning and I have time so I pack him a lunch really quickly. I change out of my sweaty clothes so I'm not too cold for school drop off and then I make Elise some oatmeal for breakfast, peel her some oranges, and pack her a water bottle because she's still asleep and she's not going to wake up in time to eat before we need to leave to drop Carter off at school. She's normally up with plenty of time but she skipped her nap yesterday so we could go to the zoo after church so she's pretty tired. I grab a banana to eat in the car for the rest of my breakfast.

Carter laying on the bed with Tesla while I got ready.

Hands free reading, I just use a brush or my phone or something semi-heavy to hold the pages down.

8:00 am- We wake Elise up because it's time to leave to drop Carter off at school. Elise just goes in her jammies and eats her breakfast in the car. We take Tesla along on Mondays and Wednesdays so we don't have to shut her in the laundry room while we're gone. We just open the door and she runs straight to the car. She's such a good dog! As we're driving I look back and see Carter has a serious expression on his face. I ask him what he's doing and he says, "I'm counting the poles." When we arrive at his school and are sitting in car line he is up to 100 telephone poles. That leads to a discussion about numbers and what comes after 100.

Carter ready to go to school.

Elise walking to the car in her jammies with bed head.

8:30 am- We are back home from dropping Carter off at school. Elise gets dressed and then I do my strength training in the house which includes all body weight only moves. While I do that Elise plays with Tesla on the bed and then walks around the house wearing a Power Ranger mask while turning off all the lights and shutting the doors. When I ask her what she's doing, she tells me she's turning off all the lights so she can be a ninja. I switch laundry over, start a new load, and fold the load I pulled out. When I walk into my bedroom with the laundry basket Elise's head pops up from the other side of the bed so that all I can see is the Power Rangers mask. It's hilarious and I try to get her to do it again so I can get a picture but she's a ninja and will not allow me to see her again. I get in the shower while Elise continues playing ninja. I like the way it works on Mondays and Wednesdays because I just drop Carter off sweaty and then I do strength training inside before showering. That way I can break up my strength training which makes it mentally easier for me and it's cold in the garage so I don't get sweaty doing my weight lifting out there. After my shower I wash dishes, load the dishwasher, and start the dishwasher. We normally have a playdate on Mondays with our mom's group but a bunch of kids are sick so it has been cancelled. Elise is disappointed so I tell her we can make play snow instead.

Elise playing with Tesla while I did my strength training.

10:00 am- We make play snow and play with it for a while. I thought it might be something that would last so we made it in a sensory bin. I was hoping Carter could play with it when he gets home but it dissolves away just like shaving foam. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since it's just shaving foam and baking soda, so I just made it harder to clean up. After we clean up Elise wants to read books so we sit and end up reading all the library books in our library bag. Once we've read all the books Elise lays on me and pulls the blanket over her head. I can tell she's still tired! While we are sitting there Tesla starts growling and we figure she hears the post officer. Elise wants to go check on our mail so we go out and it turns out a friend dropped off a special display shelf for my race medals and trophies as a surprise. I'm super excited so I start running around collecting my random medals and trophies I have stuffed different places and arrange them on it to send her a picture of what it looks like. It needs stained and hung up still so it's just for fun. Elise yells out, "Mommy I love you so much and you have so many medals! You won so many races!" It was a sweet moment.

Making snow.

Playing in the snow. Elise was disappointed it didn't make better snowballs but we ran out of baking soda.

Elise laying under the blanket.

Tesla and Elise inspecting the medal display.

Playing around with it, Elise thought it was pretty awesome!

12:00 pm- I start making our lunches. While I make our lunches I pack lunches for school tomorrow because it's just easier to do it all at once while I have the food out. After lunch I wash dishes and Elise sees me wiping the table and wants to so I let her finish wiping the table.

1:15 pm- It's naptime. We lay in Elise's bed and read a couple books. Then I lay with her to help her fall asleep. She doesn't necessarily need me to do that but it's only a couple days a week and I absolutely love the snuggle time so I do it! She rolls around a lot and really struggles to fall asleep. She finally falls asleep around 2:00 but I can tell she's still a bit restless so I wait a little bit to get up so I don't wake her up. I lay and read my book while I'm in bed with her.

Tesla likes to rest with us too.

2:15 pm- I get up and head out to the garage to do my weight lifting. I'm almost done with my first set when Elise comes running into the garage. She never wakes up early. I always wake her up to go pick Carter up from school. I figure this means she's going to be a bit grumpy this afternoon. I get her set up with some coloring pages while I finish out my weight lifting. I fold the rest of the laundry in between sets of weight lifting.

3:15 pm- We leave the house to pick Carter up with Tesla in tow. While we wait in car line Elise gets to have my phone for her 15 minutes of screen time since she stayed in bed and stayed quiet last night. I set a timer, turn off the internet, and pass it to her. In the past she has accidentally deleted apps but that hasn't happened in a long time. When Carter gets in the car if he ended the day on verde (green), azul (blue), or morado (purple), he gets to have 15 minutes of screen time when Elise's timer goes off. He gets in the car and he ended the day on azul so when Elise's timer goes off she passes it to me and I set a new timer and pass it to Carter.

We get home a little bit before 4:00 pm. Carter carries in his backpack and brings his lunchbox into the kitchen. I get the containers out and wash them. Then I pack his lunchbox with the food I packed into containers earlier in the day. The kids play in the backyard for a little bit while I do these chores. Then I unload the dishwasher and reload it with dishes from lunch. When I'm done the kids come in ready for snacks. Carter wants to have one of the mini bananas they picked out at the grocery store this weekend with Ty and he cracks me up pretending it's a tiny phone. After snacks we start right in on Carter's homework. Normally we do that after dinner but he has a Boy Scout meeting tonight so we are getting it done early. We practice his sight words and vocabulary and then he picks two of his books he brings home from school to read. He wants to read some library books before we do his Raz Kids reading on the computer so we read some books. Then he's ready to play so we decide we'll do Raz Kids later. He and Elise are playing nicely together so I work on our weekly budget while they play, taking a break to put together their My Little Pony castle for them. I was planning on a crock pot meal for dinner but at lunch time realized I forgot to get the chicken out to thaw the night before so I preheat the oven for a pizza from Aldi we picked up since they were on special this week. Then I have the kids pick up toys while I start their bath which we're doing early due to Boy Scouts.

Practicing his vocabulary words for the week.

6:15 pm- Ty gets home. He finishes up baths while I set the table and get out our fruits and vegetables to go with the pizza. We eat and Elise tells Carter and Ty all about how her friends were sick so we didn't get to do our playdate this morning. Then Ty makes pinwheels for my potluck at work tomorrow while I do Raz Kids with Carter.

Supreme pizza, carrots, pineapple, and cottage cheese for dinner.

Carter reading on Raz Kids.

7:10 pm- Carter and Ty leave for their Boy Scout meeting. Elise wants me to sit with her while she draws in her notebook. She draws a picture of a dog and I tell her she's such a good artist. She says, "Daddy said that to me today too! You are the 2 person to tell me that. I'm such a artist!" After a while I tell her I need to clean up from dinner and she keeps drawing in her notebook. I clean up the table and save the leftover pizza. Then I wash Ty's containers from his lunch. I go back in the living room and watch Elise draw some more. Then I ask her if she wants to do Raz Kids and she does. She loves reading the aa level books and does a really good job with it! Then she picks a couple song books to listen to. We read a book and I help her brush her teeth and then carry her to bed. I sit down to work on this post and about 15 minutes later Carter and Ty get home. I help Carter get jammies on and brush his teeth, then we read one book, and I take him in to kiss Elise since she's still awake and carry him to bed.

Elise drew an awesome dog!

Carter ready to talk in front of everyone at his meeting.

9:00 pm- I finish up this post and Ty comes in. We watch an episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix before getting ready for bed. I read for a while before going to sleep and that's a wrap.