A Day in the Life - Fall 2013
A popular personal photography project right now is to record one entire day of your life in photographs - one whole day, even the most (especially the most) mundane aspects of your life at the time. Things change so quickly when you're a parent of two young children. Routines that seem like they will be a part of your life forever really only stick around for a while and then *poof*, you're into new patterns, some good, some bad, with children who are just a little bit older, who do things just a little bit differently than before. I can already see this happening with these two. I took these photos back in October, and I'm just now finished with editing and getting them posted. In those few short months both Sam and Evie have changed - their looks, their hair, what they eat, the toys they play with. This project will be a nice way to remember the little things that made up our ordinary days. I hope to start another one soon - it will be fun to observe the changes. For now, here is a somewhat-typical fall day for us. I say somewhat-typical only because we don't go out for pizza everyday and we don't drive to Denton to play everyday, but if we're itching to get out of the house during the week for a special treat, this is one of our top go-to places.
Missing from this photo story are some of the more difficult parts of our day. I don't have any pictures of Evie fussing during the night while her teeth are coming in. Nothing showing Sam throwing a fit about his dinner. No photos of Brian and I curled up on the couch after putting the kids to bed, watching Cheers re-runs while nodding in and out of sleep because, well, I was too tired to take a picture of that! Recording the smoother moments while still being "Mom" was challenging enough for this first attempt. But teary faces, temper-tantrums and tired parents are a regular occurance in our house, and maybe next time I'll do a little bit better job of capturing those images. Otherwise, I tried to "keep it real" - Sam's messy room, the challenge of getting everyone dressed and ready before noon, and doing last night's dishes right before I start cooking the next dinner are all very real-life right now. And years from now I think that's what we'll enjoy remembering most of all.
"When you become a mother, routines kick in hard and strong. Although it may feel that you live in a world where chaos reigns supreme, the inevitable daily grind becomes so much a part of your family life that you will likely depend on it like oxygen."
-Tracey Clark,
Good morning! It was a beautiful day on Franklin Street.
Our fall landscaping looked pretty in the morning sun, especially behind Daddy's butterfly plant.
First things first - get the hot water going for Sam's oatmeal and Mommy's coffee!
A little morning reading while I sip my coffee....
Then it's time to feed Evie. It's cherries with baby cereal this morning, along with buttered toast sticks.
After breakfast - we play! Sam put together an awesome space puzzle (outer space is a popular topic in our house right now) and then moved on to put the "active" in activity by chasing Evie around the house and showing me some cool ninja moves.
Two hours after waking up, Evie's ready for her morning nap. Eating breakfast and playing with Brother is hard work.
While Evie sleeps, Mommy showers and Sam gets dressed. It's important to note this whole series of photos was not planned - I just sat back and snapped. Sam really does struggle getting shirts on over that 98th percentile-sized noggin'. We just say there's a lot of brains in there! Of course, that's contradictory to his other problem, which is consistantly putting his shirt on backward. See how he's checking the tag - which is right under his chin? Everyday it's backward.
Every. Day
. "We'll get there", Brian always says. We'll get there....
Time to feed the baby again, play with Big Brother on the bed for a bit, then it's off to get her dressed.
Today Evie's wearing a little dress I got for her before she was born. It's seems like I bought it so long ago and I love to see her wear it! I had to include this photo of our day because shoes are a very important part of Evie's world. She loves shoes. She loves to play with them, talk about them and put them on each day. She especially likes these brown flower slip-ons. Such a girl!
Time to pile into the car! Getting out the door with everything we need and buckling into the car can be a major time-suck. I'll think we're leaving the house right on schedule then by them time we're all buckled-in, I'll look at the clock and we're ten minutes late. Where did the time go? Why does this take so long? At least they both look happy to be getting on the road! They really are good little car-riders.
Our beautiful Denton courthouse, and on such a pretty day, too. Sam loves to climb up and down the steps and hang out on the concrete railing. Sometimes we'll get a snack and eat on the courthouse steps, but not today - today we're going to get pizza!
J & J's pizza is a little hole-in-wall pizza joint right on the Denton square. It's old and has lots of fun stuff on the wall to look at. And has the
best
pizza. We love it!
Denton is a college town, home to Texas Women's University and the University of North Texas. UNT is known for their excellent jazz program, so there are several music stores on and around the square. Looks like we have a Halloween friend modeling this drum set today.
Today we played for a while in Quakertown Park, a park and playground area we discovered when we took Sam to the jazz festival here several years ago.
Another one of our favorite things to do in Denton is visit one of their libraries. This is the Emily Fowler branch, and while we love Frisco's library and check out all of our books there, we like Denton's library because of their cool computers (with touch-screens!) and their buckets and buckets of toys. Puzzles, blocks and plastic animals - it's fun to go to the library and play. This was Evie's first visit!
Fun time's over - got to get groceries for dinner. At this point in our lives, going to the grocery store, all three of us together, can be quite a beating. Evie wants down, Sam wants to go and Mommy needs to concentrate so I don't forget something. Of course, I always do.
Today was a fairly warm October day and we crammed a lot of activities in. Evie's exhausted and goes down easily for a second nap. Just look at those sweet baby foots.
Second naps are usually shorter - Evie's back up and ready to help me with dishes. And by "help" I mean take out all the dirty silverware and play with it. We do a lot of dishes these days. Four people, three meals a day, and oodles of sippie cups make for many loads.
Dishes are done, so it's time to dirty-up some more! On the menu tonight is soup - a sausage, red lentil, and kale recipe. Brian and I love fall weather foods and we eat lots and lots of soup throughout the season. We pulled some sausage out of the soup for Sam and added some baby cereal to Evie's bowl to help thicken it up. Evie was thrilled. Sam was not.
Typical dinner.
Bath time! Evie loves the bath until I wash her hair. Then she's done and wants out. Immediately.
Sam used to be the same way. Now he thinks it's fun to pour water on his head and, inevitably, all over the bathroom floor.
We've been doing "books on Mommy's bed" for years now, and I think this is the first time I've photographed it. We started when he was about one; he thought it was special to read on Mommy's bed at night. Here we're reading about opposites with the help of Maisy, our favorite British mouse!
After books and brushing teeth, Daddy takes over for prayers and cuddles while I get Evie ready for bed. Sam was wild and couldn't calm down, you can see it in his eyes. Brian just kept on praying. It's a team effort, this gettting kids to bed thing.
Up until about eight o'clock I always have big plans for what I'm going to do with my free time in the evening - finish cleaning, fold laundry, sew, crochet, edit. The cleaning
never
happens; the sewing and editing only sometimes. Usually, once our little people are down for the night, I just melt into a puddle on the couch and attempt to watch some TV with Brian. But really, that's just what I need to recharge and find the strength to do it all again the next day!
Good night. Sleep tight.
