My day doesn’t really “end” when I have a newborn who is up constantly all night long, but if I had to “start” Wednesday’s day-in-the-life post off at a specific time, I would start it with this sweet face.  Levi has been fussy around 5:30/6:00am lately and Nick gets up with Micah at 7:00, so I usually let Levi sleep with me for those last couple of hours to give Nick as much rest as possible before dealing with Micah.  Once daddy takes the boys in the morning, mom goes back for an extra hour of sleep to make up for those extra long feeds at night.

This particular morning, our contractor was also coming by to work on our yard, so I grabbed a quick “before” picture after passing off Levi to Nick and heading back to bed.

Tuesday night / Wednesday morning was a particularly rough one with multiple wake-ups and a fussy baby who took a very long time to be rocked back to sleep.  Thus, Nick stayed home from work for an extra hour to give me even more time to sleep in.  He fed Micah breakfast and minded the boys so I could also shower and start to get ready.  I was going to have a playdate this morning, but called it off last minute on account of it being such a rough night.  After daddy left for work, I went to dry and straighten my hair but had to give Micah something to do as he was following me around crying for attention.  A cup of goldfish seemed to do the trick really well!  I kept peeking down the hall to make sure Levi was still snoozing in his swing and Micah was still sitting in random places taking his fish in and out of his cup, and they were.

Since both boys were still content, I started on my usual morning chores – tidying up the toys and clothes from the morning, unloading the dishwasher and reloading it with any miscellaneous items that accumulated on the counters overnight, boiling some hot water for tea (it’s faster than coffee), and making the beds.  I “mom” so much more attentively when I start the day off with a tidy space.  I usually do all this while Micah is having breakfast in his highchair, but since daddy already took care of that, the goldfish were helping me out!  In addition to the daily morning tidy, I try to do one small household chore a day (not including laundry).  Today the most pressing need was sweeping the floors and tidying up downstairs for Life Group that evening.  In the middle of this, Levi needed to nurse so I put him on my lap at the table and grabbed my laptop as I try to keep up with correspondence and paperwork during nursing times so my evenings can be exclusively for editing.  A few minutes later, I had to set Levi aside for a minute as Micah had to go for some “quiet time”.  He decided that he desperately needed to go outside while I was nursing his brother, and completely lost it when I told him “no”.  I generally let his tantrums play themselves out after acknowledging his frustration, but today’s was especially bad, so we had a little chat (“Mommy’s not mad, and it’s okay to feel this way, but you need to go calm down”), and then went for some alone time.  I finished nursing Levi, and by the time I was done, Micah was feeling much better.

We changed into big boy clothes and went to finally enjoy mommy’s tea in the living room with baby brother.  It was all fun and games until mommy had to say “no” again when Micah tried to push the buttons on Levi’s swing.  A short cry later we cuddled it out.  However, an early nap time was warranted today!  Micah has switched to one nap a day between noon and 2:00pm, but today he went down around 11:30 instead.

Once Micah went for his nap, it was back to finishing those chores and tidying up downstairs.  Levi was wide awake so baby-wearing let me accomplish this until he fell asleep allowing me to transfer him to his swing again.

With both boys passed out, I grabbed a piece of left-over pizza and headed downstairs to do some editing since my usual time for this in the evening is occupied with Life Group on Wednesdays.  I also took out dinner to start thawing as we make a meal for everyone in the group.

I worked until I heard Levi wake up, and went to nurse him on the couch while answering emails and doing some scheduling on my phone.  Micah started to cry in the other room, also done with his nap, so I quickly finished up with baby brother and went in to fetch him.  He was still not in a very good mood unfortunately.  A little bit of food quickly remedied that and kept him occupied while I chatted with our contractor downstairs and made a plan to start the next yard project (a patio).

I saved the laundry for when Micah was done his lunch as it’s a task he seems to enjoy doing with me.  I let it slide for a few days rather than staying on top of my every-other-day routine so we had an extra large pile to put away together.  Mom and dad’s clothes take a bit more work, but all of Levi’s just go in a single drawer unfolded, and Micah’s go into their respective bins (pjs, shirts, pants) also unfolded so it keeps this task from taking up too much time – except, of course, when Micah likes to EMPTY the bins ;).

After laundry, Micah and I had some one-on-one time while Levi napped in his swing.  (Levi basically naps and eats back-and-forth all day except for 2 or 3 “awake” times during which I wear him or have him on my lap).  We played barn animals and his FAVOURITE game – chase around the ottoman.  I also contacted my mommy friend and we rescheduled our missed morning playdate for that afternoon since I was feeling more awake after the nice sleep-in Nick gave me.  She came over and we stuck the baby in the wrap and the toddlers in the wagon and walked to a local park where they mostly played with rocks and sticks but also took a bit of interest in the slides.

When we got back, we discovered that daddy came home early to fix the light that fell off the ceiling in the downstairs play area before Life Group.  After that task was finished, we went upstairs and fed Micah some left-over pizza and started cooking spaghetti for everyone else.  Micah eats at 5:00pm, so he often gets a different meal than the rest of us on Wednesdays since we wait until around 7:00 to eat together.  While Micah enjoyed his dinner, we cooked and hung out with Levi who was awake and wanted to know what was happening!  Once Micah was finished, he enjoyed a bit of time with daddy too.

Around 6:30pm, we loaded everything up to take downstairs.  We keep the upstairs as a “quiet zone” during Group for any sleeping babies that want to use it, which is right now just Micah since all the other babies have later bedtimes than he does.  Grandpa came to Group tonight to do a special talk, so Micah got to stay up 15 minutes later to see everyone before going to sleep.

After Group, mom and dad took some time to unwind with a late-night snack and Netflix.  Levi joined us since he was wide awake, but thankfully also joined us in falling asleep later – at least for a few hours 😉