Daily Life

Well, here I am again.  Up.  Been up since about 4am lying in bed trying with all my might to go back to sleep.  I really do try so hard for wonderful sleep to overtake me, but sometimes it is just impossible.  It's thundering and lightening right now and I so wish that Scott didn't have to work at 7am on a Saturday, that the kids would magically just keep sleeping late into the morning and then we could all leisurely wake up together and have waffles and strawberries in bed together.   Wouldn't that be wonderful.  No crying, no leaving, no dirty diapers and nothing we have to do.

Chick's favorite pose with Bro.

Emily loves to help me with Ray.  In all ways, all shapes, and all forms.

This week seems to have flown by, but also crept by with the speed of a really slow snail.  Scott has been working so much.  He has been gone all week and I feel like we haven't spent much time with him.  He will come home and we will eat dinner, take showers and go to bed around 9pm so he can wake up around 6am and do it all over again.  If he's lucky he can sleep until 8am.  The kids and I have kept a pretty regular schedule and I'm worn out. 

We usually go for a long walk in the morning with Sue.  It takes at least 15 minutes to get everyone ready to go and finally get out the door.  I've told many people we see along our walk that I feel like a circus act with my toddler, my newborn and my dog.  I love it so much and almost never want the walks to end, but oh the freedom when Scott stays home with the kids for 20 minutes or so.  I feel as though I could fly if it's just me and Sue.  The absence of the gigantic stroller and my precious baby attached to my chest leaves me feeling a tad bit naked, but also really skinny and light.  Almost like I could possibly, maybe even run...a little bit...but I don't.  Shin splints.

After our walk it's breakfast time.  The dog.  The cat. The babe.  Emily and...oh...me.  Sometimes when I eat first before everyone else does, I feel somewhat guilty.  Like my enjoyment of my breakfast burrito is a bad thing.  Especially if I haven't fed Emily.  I hope she will one day eat on her own.  I swear if I didn't intentionally feed her Cream of Wheat and her Chunky Monkey shake she would just go on living life as skinny as can be never experiencing the pang of hunger that I seem to have every 15 minutes.  Ray is a great eater and I don't worry about him at all.  The dog and the cat will never let me sit down to my breakfast burrito until they have been fed.  Oh man, it is quite the circus at our house.  At least I don't have a snake who I have to feed little pinkies to.
  

Emily makes dinner in the sand box.

and then she eats it.

 Later in the day, after cleaning the house up, endless laundry, about 20 diaper changes, 6 or 10 or 4 nursing sessions, 7 books read, 3 naps, cooking food, putting together puzzles, coloring 100 sharks, watching Cats for the 3rd time, and teaching a piano lesson or two, we head out on the bike to the sand box.  There is a sand box at the park and also at the Middle School a few blocks from our home and Emily would marry a sand box.  She leaves this earthly existence and basks in the sand, literally.  She lays down on her stomach and rubs her cheek and face and hair and hands in the sand like the sand is hugging her back.  She could play for hours and hours and hours in the sand box and never wants to leave.  I like taking her and pretending we are at the beach.  I like taking her to the Middle School sand box if the sun is setting because I can pretend I'm standing on the Giant.  I love giving Emily something she loves that is so simple.