I'm going to share an excrutiatingly detailed account of my day from the moment I woke up until bedtime. You'll be privvy to everything, you lucky dog. No, not really, don't worry. I don't generally make people suffer agony like that for no reason. My days are pretty boring so I'll just hit the highlights. (Oh, and the times that you see on the lefthand side of the events are fictitious. I mean, they're based in reality, but I didn't actually write down the minute that stuff was happening. I'm just guessing. Blogging is an art.)
5:56 Benjamin wakes up fussing for the third time since 11:00 when I went to bed. I roll over and pull the pillow over my head.
5:58 Andrew appears in the doorway holding Ben and translating his babbles. "Where's mom? Can we find her? Mooooom, I need some breakfast. Mom, are you under that pillow?" I poke my head out, Ben smiles and divebombs my boobs. Andrew leaves to keep getting ready for work.
6:05 Benjamin is done eating and I put him back to bed. I go back to bed. I lay in bed and remember my plans to get up and get ready before Ben is up for the day because when I do that everything goes a lot more smoothly, I don't know why. I also have to take Andrew to work so even if Ben decided to sleep late we'd still have to get up.
6:30 Andrew comes in and wakes me up because this is when I would get up and get ready on a motivated morning. This is not a motivated morning. I can hear Ben babbling in his bed which means that he didn't go back to sleep. Strange because he almost always sleeps in the morning till at least 7 even if he does wake up to eat. Andrew heads to the bathroom and takes a shower. I listen carefully because if Ben hears us moving around too much then he'll decide that he needs to join the party. He doesn't start fussing, but I decide not to tempt him too much so I stay in bed. :)
7:00 I'm dozing in and out. I know I really need to get up because we have to leave with Andrew at 7:30. I can hear Andrew chopping carrots on the cutting board for his lunch. When you wish you were sleeping it's a very annoying sound.
7:15 Andrew comes clomping up the steps in his boots (a sure sign that he's almost ready to leave) comes in and none too gently says, "Jamey, we have to leave in fifteen minutes." I reply, "I know. I'm wide awake." The wide-awake part was a bit of an exaggeration. He says, "Get up." And clomps back downstairs. I give serious thought to getting up at this time.
7:20. I get up. Throw on some clothes and go get Ben up. He's standing at the end of his crib, pacifier in his mouth, blanket clutched in one hand, and holding on to the rail with the other. He looks like he's waiting for the train or something. He sees me and starts to happily freak out. We go downstairs and I pass him off to Andrew and drink some much needed coffee.
7:25 It takes two of us to wrestle Ben to the ground, try and keep him remotely entertained while still enough that we can change his diaper. He screams like we're killing him slowly. I zip his pajamas back up and tell him "all done" and he's all smiles again as we turn him loose to crawl around and check to see if all his toys are still here.
7:28 Nobody shut the baby gate and Benjamin makes a bee-line for the steps. He's headed off by Andrew and starts to scream again. :)
7:30 We head out the door. Andrew's in uniform from his cover (hat) to his boots. Benjamin's got his travelling accessories: muffle and blanket. His feelings are still hurt that we didn't let him climb the steps. I look like I've been up for ten minutes and I have my coffee mug in hand.
7:40 I resist the temptation of driving through BurgerKing on the way back home, but only because I know I've got Starbucks on my schedule for the day.
7:45 I see all the moms walkign their little ones to school and try to picture what Ben will look like when he's big. I see a mom walking with a mug of coffee wearing boxer shorts and an Army sweatshirt her hair in a badly done ponytail. I decide that she's only been up for ten minutes and that this is a premonition of what I will look like unless I get in the habit of waking up earlier. I vow (again) to start getting up before Ben so that I can start looking more like a person and less like Chewbaca.
So, we get home Ben has breakfast, I check my email. We play for awhile, we nurse, we play some more.
8:30 I put Ben to bed. We have playgroup later on this morning and since he was up early I was hoping that he'd sleep a little bit and therefore be a better companion until his late afternoon nap. So I lay him down and come downstairs and do some boring wifey things. I talk to Andrew's sister on the computer for a little bit.
9:00 I head upstairs to take an overdue shower. I think Ben is asleep, but I want to be sure before I take my shower because if he starts to cry I'll never hear him. I peek in the door and see Ben sitting up at the end of the crib, muffle and blankey in their usual places. He has his legs through the slats of his crib and is swinging his feet just watching them. Very funny. I get him up and we stop and pet the elephant picture from Africa on the way out the door.
9:05 We brush our teeth. Ben will eat the soap if I don't pay attention, but today he's happy with his toothbrush and chews it for awhile and then starts waving it around flinging ungodly amounts of drool around the bathroom. We hop in the shower. Ben plays with ducks and I wash my hair.
9:30 We're both clean with hair washed and fresh clothes on. I pack the diaper bag and then check my email again while Ben eats baby goldfish crackers, his new favorite food.
9:45 Off we go. This is an extra playgroup date and I'm not exactly excited about it because I have a lot of stuff to do before we leave on Sunday. Right now our playgroup is down to one other mother and her two kids because another couple left the church, and the other couple doesn't have a car right now so they're stranded at home.
10:10 We get to Starbucks. I order a Grande Caramel Apple Spice Cider (my new favorite drink) and a creamcheese danish. Ben says he's full from the crackers. The barista says that they're out of cinnamon of all things and ask if Cinnamon Dulce is an okay substitute. I have NO idea what that is, but hey if my barista thinks it would taste good who am I to argue? (It turned out to be delicious, by the way.)
10:31 We arrive at the church for playgroup. Opps, one minute late. I note with suspicious that Susanna's van is not in the parking lot. I unlock the door (you couldn't have done without that detail, could you?) and we go in to the nursery. Ben zooms off to play with his favorite toy this ball-drop-tower-thing. I find a check from the pastor for the nursery supplies that I paid for. So that's excellently good. I sit and drink my coffee while Ben plays with everything. I watch the clock I already "know" that Susanna isn't coming. I had this vague sense that she wasn't going to be there when I left the house. I don't really care. I'm drinking my starbucks in peace, Ben is playing with toys that we don't have at home, and I got a check, which I will shortly cash and spend.
11:00 We go home. Ben needs a nap anyway. I think about going to Target since I'm halfway there, but we just go home. I pass Zaxby's (this great little chicken sandwich store) without stopping for lunch. I don't normally have all these options to eat out in a day and so I'm a little heady with all my choices. I could get lunch for me and take some to Andrew too. They have delicious french fries. I don't though. I'm going to have soup at home. My stomach looks about three months pregnant and doesn't need french fries.
11:15 We're home. I nurse Ben and put him down for a nap. I have lunch while I watch an episode of Criminal Minds. I call home and ask mom a question about breastfeeding. I talk to Gram for a few minutes. I'm exhausted from being up with Ben last night. I think about making a pot of coffee, but decide I'll take a nap. My house is way too messy for me to take a nap though so I compromise. I pick stuff up for about 30 more minutes and then I sleep.
1:30 Ben wakes me up from my nap fussing. I slept for close to an hour. I feed him some lunch. This is always an adventure lately because foods that he used to love he's suddenly refusing to eat. I also don't have very much food frozen for him so I end up using the cans that I bought for traveling. He eats organic Pasta Primavera and organic Pears and Raspberries. And of course, goldfish crackers. Goldfish crackers are an appetizer, entree, and dessert in this house. So we finish lunch, we play this, we play that, we read books, we climb the steps, we do it all.
During this time I debate what I'm going to do with the rest of the afternoon. I have the car, which means that I need to go SOMEWHERE. I have to pick Andrew up at 4. I could go to the library and return our books before they're overdue (I'm a progressive thinker...always on top of new ideas). I need a birthday present for Ericka, a happy-to-see-you present for Bonnie's boys, and some foundation. This is where it would have been useful for me to have NOT gone to the non-existent playgroup because I could have gone to Target and got that stuff. I don't want to drive back out that way now though. The car needs washed and vacuumed. I could go to the carwash, but I wouldn't be able to vacuum it because Ben doesn't like the noise and I don't want to make two trips there so I'll have to go when I can leave Ben with Andrew.
3:00 I've decided that we'll try to do our shopping on post, it's faster that way and the store just expanded the toy section for Christmas and I've wanted to see if they have anything good anyway. So we go there, on the way in I see this awesome Step Two swing set/slide playground thing that I would love to have for Ben. It costs a mere $519.00. We keep walking. Inside the toy department really is rather a disappointment. There was a Diego counting game that I thought the boys might like, but I wasn't sure if they were into games or not. There were a few cute things, but nothing that really struck me. So twenty minutes later, we've seen all the toys, but found nothing to buy and we have another 40 minutes to kill before I need to go get Andrew. It was then I remembered the check in my pocket.
3:30 We go to the other store on post where I can cash the check. They don't really have toys here, but I might be able to find a discounted Xbox game for Ericka. Plus, Ben needs some clothes and they do have those here. He's desperately low at this point and I haven't liked most of what I've seen in the stores. Well, it was a wash on the Xbox games. They only had new ones and there was no way I was shelling out $40.00 for a game for her birthday. I did find a pair of pajamas for Ben. Our new requirement for pajams is that if they have feet they have to be grippy-feet and zippers beat buttons hands-down. I also found a cute pair of pants and a longsleeve shirt. He also really needs a pair of shoes, but I'm having a hard time finding some. He has one pair that's too big and I bought a pair that were too small. I need, of course, to go to Target. :) The highlight of this trip was that I found an Iris Johansen book that I hadn't read and so I bought it. Ostensibly for the trip, but knowing full well that I'd start it and probably finish it before then. It's okay though because I'll just give it to Mom to read. I think she reads those.
4:00 This is when I should be putting bed down for a nap, but instead we're in the parking lot waiting for Andrew. I hope that he's ready to go when we get there, but we have to wait for fifteen minutes. They've been crazy busy at work and he's responsible for way more than he should be so he's pretty stressed out these days. He says that he's probably going to have to work 12 hour shifts over the weekend. Big bummer. I decide against hasseling him.
4:30 We're home, I've nursed Ben, Andrew set up the pack and play upstairs so he can get used to sleeping in it for traveling. I'm trying to convince Ben that this is okay. He is screaming his head off. Shrieking. Wailing. Screeching. Not a good sign. So I drape myself over the edge of the pack and play and try to make him feel better, this works...briefly. The child is exhausted, but screaming like a banshee. We tried every form of comforting, but as soon as we lay him back down he starts up again.
5:30 We give up trying. Andrew brings Ben back downstairs where he happily resumes playing, but his little eyes are all red now.
6:00 Our friends come over and we order pizza. Andrew feeds Ben dinner. We put his pajamas on him and he plays some more. We put in a DVD about these crazy far-right-anti-abortion people that bomb clinics and shoot doctors. Ben crawls over to the TV and pulls up to inspect the DVD player. He moves his hands over the buttons. I say, "Ben, not for you." He moves his hand away, laughs hysterically, and moves his hand back without actually pushing the buttons. We all pretend like we're not laughing. I say, "Not for you" and again he moves his hand and laughs hysterically. This time we move him away and engage him in something else.
*** HEY! I was just looking at this blog and noticed that the last half of my night disappeared. Now you'll never know about the cookies we made, how late I was up, what I did before I went to bed, any of it. You're not really missing out, but I know that I typed it which makes me wonder where it went....