Since the last two day in the life posts I’ve shared have been odd and childless days, I wanted to be sure and share a more typical day for this month’s link up. It still had its atypical moments, but I think that might be par for the course as a parent, right?! Let’s take a peek inside Tuesday, August 8th.
The girls started school last week and I managed to capture the first day antics on film. This is a very typical look at a school day morning: Sophie making weird faces while eating gluten free oats for breakfast, Ella debating the necessity of breakfast while filming musical.ly videos on her iPad (looking thirteen), and me attempting to make something pass as a respectable lunch when I haven’t been to the grocery store in well over a week. The red bin is our designated GF bin, so we were seeing what in the world we could pull together for Soph with no deli meat (ugh) and no gluten free tortillas (double ugh).
Since we moved in the fall, we haven’t had to take a first day of school photo at the new house. We have an arbor over the brick path to the pool and I love taking photos there, so we elected it our new spot. Sure, it was raining and I’m zoomed in too far for you to see the actual arbor, but the picture still turned out cute. Yes, our world is actually that green!
I skipped out on back to school shopping this year because the girls needed nothing. Ella spent all of her birthday money on new clothes in the spring and Sophie inherits all of Ella’s castoffs, plus has a ridiculous Matilda Jane collection. We just didn’t need to waste our money. I did have to pick up some new sneakers for Sophie the night before school (typical procrastinator), so I grabbed them each a new top for the first day. These also perfectly reflect their personalities.
Starting this school year, I’ve adopted a new work schedule because Ella’s dance calendar lives to make my life difficult. I was trying so hard not to add additional responsibilities for Josh or my mom and the only way to make that happen was for me to man the Tuesday afternoon classes. Unfortunately, that meant cutting a huge chunk out of my work day, with no other day left to make up those hours. My bosses were so kind to let me try working from home on Tuesdays, so the first day of school seemed like a great dry run. I was able to get a few hours worth of work in before school, deliver the girls to their classrooms and pick up groceries (and biscuits for breakfast) before Josh’s day got too busy. It’s too bad it was flooding when I came out of grocery store number two and I then proceeded to knock myself in the head with my trunk. Words were said. All of them, in fact.
Once I got back home, I set up shop in the dining room and hammered out several more hours of a work project while the dog was asleep. She might be massive at the moment (25+ pounds at 12 weeks), but she’s still a baby and takes very regular naps. Josh puts her in the crate around 8 o’clock every morning and on Tuesday she slept until 12:30?! Yes, that is the hallelujah chorus you hear. I got major work done, ate a delicious bacon biscuit, and took some photographs while my computer was updating.
While I do take post-specific photos at various points during the week, I try to spend some time taking stock-ish photos during the month, too. These work great for Instagram, coffee date / little letter posts, and for various other blog related things I need during the month. I often write out outlines of my posts and save them as drafts well in advance, just to keep my brain and dashboard organized. My reading post is one that I set up immediately after publishing the previous one and since I was out of town last week, I hadn’t worked on August’s yet. These are some of the books on tap for this month!
I took a break from working in the middle of the day because Scoop needed some exercise. It sprinkled on and off for most of the day, so I just put on a sweatshirt, brought my computer outside (after my break), and let her run wild and be muddy for the entire afternoon. She’s an expert sitter at this point, but we did a little reinforcing in the rain. She is not an expert at being potty trained, though, so I will gladly accept any and all advice.
Also, let’s talk about those super sexy socks.
The next four hours looked much like the previous ones: wash dishes, work, switch out laundry, work, play with the dog, work, clean up an accident, work.
My sister in law (Josh’s brother’s wife) was due to have a baby on Tuesday and the girls absolutely hated that it was a school day. Ella wanted to sit in the waiting room all day, so she was livid when she realized we couldn’t go immediately after school. Once Josh finished up his work projects for the day, I bathed the dog (because: rain) and got us all ready to head out the door towards the hospital. We finally got our hands on Memphis Maverick a little after 7 o’clock and these two were smitten!
See also: I was smitten with their daddy the baby stealer, but I did not get baby fever. We joked that we can love on a baby so hard and hand them back over to their mamas and feel footloose and fancy free with our big girls at home. The days of tiny babies at our house are long gone. Even if Sophie did make a baby request on our way out to the car!
This little nugget is the big sister, Hayven. We all joke about how much she and Ella look alike, but it’s hard to really tell in this photo. Y’all, Josh and I cannot get over how much it’s like looking at a dark headed, three year old Ella. I need to do side by side photos of them at the same age because the resemblance is uncanny! They have the same curls, same face shape, same body type, same expressions — it is so weird and so cool all at the same time.
Let’s all agree to ignore how awesome I look in this photo. I had a major meltdown before we left home and didn’t get to fix my hair or apply makeup. The girls were in trouble for something, I was irritated that Josh was still working (not even his fault), and the dog peed on my bedroom curtains. Thankfully, baby snuggles made all of that go away (at least until I saw this photograph).
That’s where the pretty, photographed portion of our day goes to hell in a handbasket. When we left the hospital, we made a swing by Chick-fil-A for a late night (almost 9 p.m.) dinner on a school night, only to be hit by another car at a red light. The driver backed into us and decimated my front bumper with their bike rack, so Josh spent another hour in the parking lot dealing with logistics while I walked the girls to CFA for dinner. My car will be fine and aside from a few 7 and 10 year old tears, it was relatively drama free. The dog ended up in the crate a little longer than anticipated, which made for an <sarcasm font> amazing </sarcasm font> night’s sleep. But on the upside, our children talked for two solid hours without taking a breath, all about their first day of school. Solidarity, mamas!
