Adjusting

I realize I haven't posted about life recently and that is mostly because we are all in a mode I like to call Adjusting.

But, we've been Adjusting for a few weeks now (the girls and I have, at least), and it is probably worth taking a few minutes to clue you in on the Happenings here.

So… to start, I'll give you a typical Day in the Life.

5:00 AM – Erin gets up; gets ready for work. Tries to remember to pack her lunch.
6:00 AM – Erin leaves for work.
6:01 AM – Girls wake up; wake Adam up.*

* Herein lies the description of the last week. I say "6:01 AM" because generally the girls have woken after I've left for work, but one day Julia was up before I left, another day Raven was up before I left, and at least one day, they slept in until about 7 AM. So, who really knows, other than that generally the girls wake up soon after I leave. And that maybe Adam should be writing this post instead of me. Ha!

And now I will break off into a tangent about how awesome blackout curtains really are. THEY ARE AWESOME. The one day the girls slept in was the day that it was severely overcast and thus their room stayed darker longer. We had blackout curtains in our last home and the girls slept until 7:30 AM routinely. Based on the crabbiness of our children in the evening, I believe that they would in fact sleep longer if their room stayed darker longer. And that they truly do need that extra bit of sleep.. Putting them to bed earlier is not an option because, again, their room isn't dark very early. That, and I wouldn't see them in the evening much. And we really don't want them getting up at 6:01 AM. Especially on Saturday and Sunday.

6:30 AM – 4:00 PM – Erin works. This, of course, is dependent on project work, etc., but these are my standard hours.

5:00 PM – Erin gets home.

So that is me. In that same timeframe, Adam is responsible for readying the children for daycare, taking them to daycare, taking care of various things at home and for himself throughout the day, etc. He has also been picking up the kids and we generally all descend on our apartment around 5 PM.

Usually we're eating dinner by 6 PM, we are done and cleaned up around 6:30 – 6:45 PM, and then dependent on the tasks to be done yet that night, we might wash dishes (all plastics need to be washed by hand because our dishwasher is demonic), give baths, watch a show/movie, etc. Mainly, we cuddle and snuggle with the kids as much as we can until bedtime. Especially Mommy. 'Cause at 5 PM it has been 21 hours since I have last seen the children awake.

After the girls go to bed, we finish whatever might have yet to be finished be it laundry or picking up the kitchen, etc., and we might talk or peruse realty online or watch a show. By about 9:15 PM I am complete toast and I might read my book for 15 – 30 minutes before falling asleep, only to wake up numerous times during the night because we are still adjusting to sharing a double bed after 9 years of king-sized bed.

Not a lot of time for hobbies or… much of anything else, really. Somehow in the next few days I need to talk myself into getting up earlier yet to get in a short workout before the day begins … we'll see how that goes. At this point I'm not really sure why buying a house larger than our apartment is even necessary as I don't see how I'll have time to do anything other than what I'm already doing, but I know that with time I'll (we'll) adjust to our new way of life and things will start to "fit" in again.

As Adam mentioned in his guest post, he arrived on May 7^th only for me to wake up at 4:30 AM on May 8^th with the flu. That was a fantastic (SARCASM) day of laying around and being sick wishing we were doing the things I had planned for the day instead. Thankfully this last weekend we were able to get out and on Saturday we tooled around Denver Metro looking at homes. We did this again on Sunday after attending church. Let me just say that our kids are angels for sitting in the car for that long. We left at 9 AM on Saturday and got home ~6PM and on Sunday we left home at 9 AM and got home ~5 PM.

All in all, though, we still feel like we're in the right place and now that Adam is home with us, my anxiety level has decreased significantly as I'm no longer the only parent around making decisions, changing diapers, running baths, making breakfast/lunches/dinners, picking up sick kids, etc. In fact, today is yet another day that I feel extremely blessed to have Adam home with us because Little Miss Raven was sent home about an hour ago with a fever. Thank God for Dad being there to be able to pick her up! (Only so that Mommy doesn't have to use PTO – not because I don't want to be there!)

erin