A Day At Home (First Day of Preschool & Soccer Lessons)

I work part time; therefore, I'm in the office three days a week and I'm at home 2 days a week. For those of you that ever wondered what I do on my "days off" each week, here you go:

Tuesday, 9/4/12 - First Day of Preschool & Soccer Lessons:

• Parker cries at 6:01am. Greg goes into her room to give her a pacifier. I fall back asleep.
• 15 minutes later my alarm goes off. I hit the Snooze. I mean, come on, this is my day "off."
• 7 minutes later my alarm goes off again. This time I get up and jump in the shower so that I can be somewhat ready for the day before the girls get up. Ugh, sinus drainage is back. Am I the only one that gets this in 105 degree weather?!
• Between 7-7:30am, Lou wakes up so I get her dressed and fix her breakfast. Bailey then gets up and dresses herself while I make her breakfast. And by make breakfast, I mean they both chose squeezable applesauce so that was awesomely easy. Parker is still snoozing. Oh wait, did I turn on the baby monitor when I went into the kitchen? Turn on monitor. Oops, she's awake. I go in to get her dressed and then feed her.
• Greg leaves for work.
• Parker plays in her excersaucer while I finish getting ready. The big girls watch the Disney Channel and color. Bailey colors her new teacher a picture. So sweet!
• I almost forgot, I also did a load of laundry, a load of dishes, and cleaned the kitchen.
• At 8:30am, Parker is ready for a nap so I lay her down.
• I pack the girls backpacks and lunches for their first day of Preschool back at our church. My goal is to leave the house at 9:10am so that we'll have plenty of time to load up the car, get to school, and talk to their new teachers before school starts at 9:30am.
• As time ticks away, I realize that Parker is napping really well so I hate to wake her. I load the car while letting her sleep those few extra minutes (you will know the importance of this nap soon enough).
• It's 9:15am, past time to leave so I wake up Parker and put her in her car seat. She's not thrilled to be awake. On the other hand, her sisters are pumped to get to school. School?! Pictures?! I almost forgot. I get everyone outside and I take these three pictures with my phone because I'm in a hurry and our "real" camera has a full disk. Too sunny. Too shady. Oh well, we got the shot. Everyone in the car!

• We arrive at school right on time. I carry in Parker in her car seat on my arm, Lou's lunch is in one of my hands, and I hold the big girls' hands in my other hand. Bailey and Lou both decided to wear their backpacks so that was a huge help!
• Here's to another wonderful year at Preschool!
• Parker and I get back in the car and we head to Tulsa for my dentist appointment at 10:15am. Parker makes some sweet sounds, but by the time we get closer to the building her sweet sounds turn in to grumbling cries. You mom's know the sound. The kind of grumbling cries that you don't want to take out in public because you look like "that" mom. She's tired, and this is why I don't like waking her up from naps. And her next feeding is in 45 minutes. This could will probably be disastrous.
• Parker is playing it cool for the first 10 minutes of my appointment, but then it happens, she loses it. My poor girl is so tired. The young dental assistant (having no kids of her own) does her best to entertain Parker, but it doesn't last long. She's tired, hungry, and mad. Thankfully, my dentist is understanding and he does the rest of my check up at lighting speed. I stayed at the office and fed Parker secretly hoping that this would buy me some time to run an errand on the way home.
• As I leave the office I decide that we will run the errand so we go the longer route home, which will drive right by the store I need to go to. A few minutes into the long route home, Parker poops. That settles it, we are going home. She's had funny looking poop for two days now and I'm hoping that it's just teething, but I'm keeping an eye on her. I know that this type of poop needs to be changed quickly so that she doesn't get diaper rash ... good thing we are taking the long route home. Geez!
• Thankfully she falls asleep (our kids rarely sleep in the car) because I get a business call that lasts about 10 minutes.
• We arrive home around 11:30am. I change her poopy diaper, and lay her down so that she can finally get a good nap.
• I decide to ruin my perfectly clean teeth by eating a PB&J for lunch along with some Garden Salsa Sun Chips, and a tea I found in the fridge from Wendy's. The tea is at least 3 or 4 days old. I opted for this quick lunch because I wasn't sure how long Parker would sleep, if at all. Sometimes those cat naps in the car can ruin a much needed long nap at home.
• Alas, she sleeps til 1:30pm so I have time to eat, catch up on work email, and get some more stuff done around the house. I also look back at the pictures I took of Bailey and Lou that morning and I realize how quickly they are growing up. Tear.
• Once Parker is up, I change her 4th poopy diaper of the day. I spared you poops #1 and #2 so you're welcome. She and I finally get that one on one time we were hoping for today! It's only 45 minutes, but we'll take it. Here she is practicing her new skill of sitting up.

• At 2:15pm, we head back to church to pick up the big girls from Preschool.
• Once we get home, Bailey sits on the couch to relax and Lou takes a nap. They're exhausted from school.
• I also lay Parker down because it's time for her afternoon nap. She keeps crying and I go into her room 3 times to lay her down from the sitting up position. She's at that stage where she can sit up, but she can't figure out how to lay back down. On my third trip in, it dawns on me that I should check her diaper. Yep, poop #5 and her poor bottom is very red. Now I feel bad for making her sit in that for however long she had to sit in it. She's screaming, but I would too if my butt was that red so I lube her up with enough Butt Paste to grease a slip and slide. She finally falls asleep.
• Around 3:30pm, Bailey and I share a snickers. A special thanks to Greg for leaving that in the fridge for us. At least I hope it was for us!
• I check work email again, catch up on Facebook, and do some more things around the house. Bailey colors a picture for her new soccer coach. Did I mention how sweet she is!
• At 4:30pm, I start getting Bailey ready to leave for soccer lessons.
• At 4:45pm, I wake Lou up from her nap to get ready for soccer lessons. She is not a happy camper. That girl does not like being awakened from a nap. I struggle to get her ready to leave. She's fussy and defiant, and all she wants to do is curl up on her floor and sleep some more. I don't blame her.
• Greg comes home.
• At 5pm we leave to go to the girls first night of soccer lessons where they were given these awesome jerseys. Please pardon the blurry phone photo's.

• Greg spends the hour with Lou in her class. I watch Bailey's class while taking care of Parker and visiting with friends. Bailey has three friends in her class and Lou has one friend in her class. These are the same buddies we took swim lessons with (blog post coming soon). After checking with other moms, we think that Parker might have a stomach virus which is causing all of her poopy diapers. Yuck.
• We pick up dinner on the way home from soccer around 6:45pm.
• When we get home, Greg plays with Parker so that Bailey, Lou, and I can eat. Then he eats dinner while I bathe Parker, feed her, put tons of Butt Paste on her, and lay her down for the night.
• While Greg is bathing the big girls, I head out to run the errand that I didn't get to run this morning due to Parker pooping in the car. We are completely out of milk and it's one of the items on my list.
• The big girls are in bed when I return. I don't like missing their bedtime, but I did give them a hug and a kiss before I left.
• I put up the items from the store and go for a short run.
• After the run, I lay on the couch and watch TV for about 45 minutes. This lazy time is unheard of ... yet very enjoyable.
• It's currently 10:18pm and I'm finishing up this blog and then heading to bed so that I can do it all over again on my next "day off."
• I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that I will enjoy my "day off" at home with my girls because every moment is a blessing! Mystery poopy diapers and all!

Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."