What we do on an ordinary summer day. I was originally writing it down for a page for a scrapbooking message board journaling challenge, and thought I'd throw it on here. Try not to hurt yourself from the boredom. All words/phrases in quotation marks are from Jacob.
Wednesday, August 15
5:45 am Jacob is awake and none to keen on staying in his room. So that means that Mom is up, too.
6 am I set Jacob up on pbskids.org on the "cuer" to play some learning games and toss in a load of laundry
6:30 am Jacob happily eats "chiten" nuggets for breakfast. Yeah, you would have given them to him too, to get him to stop crying.
6:45 to 8:30 am Jacob occupies himself on the computer, fast forwarding through vcr tapes, sitting on the potty, playing with toys, coloring and running through math facts with mom. He can do the 1+1, 2+2, etc all the way up to 10+10 and all the 1+ numbers up to 20. Now he's working on 2+. I do more laundry, check email, get Rick out the door to work, work with Jacob on math facts, letters, and sounds and put together a scrapbook page for a friends' baby album. He also gets mad that I won't let him have "to-tittles" i.e popsicles.
8:30 am Brandon stumbles out of his bed. Jacob has decided he wants to "brus teeeeth". Which involves quickly brushing his teeth and then lining up everything from his bucket and his brother's bucket. As you can see, Jacob collects toothbrushes and expects to get a new one everytime we go to Target. Nowhere else, just Target. On a good day, this task (the lining up) can eat up 20 minutes.
9 am Jacob figures he has waited long enough and it is time for "socks and shoe", or time to go somewhere, anywhere. I get Brandon to eat something quick, and he's not happy to be leaving already because he just started watching an Indiana Jones movie, a current favorite from the movie store. While getting ready, Brandon decided to be creative and puts his strappy sandals on with nothing but his toes and feet. Seriously. I wish I had a video of it because it was pretty funny.
9:30 am We stop at Half Price Books. This is a favorite for the boys. About once a month I give them a $5 allowance to pick out what they want. Sometimes they kick in their own money from allowance/birthday. Unless it's something educational, they buy their own non-holiday/birthday presents at the other stores. Brandon picked out a used dvd of Catch that Kid (he loves anything spy/treasure hunt/kids getting the best of grown-ups), and Jacob picked out an Elmo vcr tape and 3 Clifford Books. $10 total. I leave a message for a friend to see if they want to do a picnic at the playground, but they're not home. And we were out in under 15 minutes, which I think is a new record for us, since we're usually there closer to 45 minutes.
10am We pop into Big Lots and Dollar Tree to find some items for a PTO raffle I have to do next week.
10:40 am Our friends still aren't home and the kids are "hunry!" So we decide to have a picnic in the car. (Taking Jacob into fast food play areas was always too stressful, because he has a tendancy to pick up and put things (just about anything) in his mouth, run with his eyes closed, and for a long time, take his clothes off. So I invented picnic in the car, where we put the seat down for Jacob so he can use the table, Brandon comes up front, and we eat in the car. The kids love it and Brandon begs for them. I guess this also explains the condition of the carpet in my van!) I let Brandon choose, and he chose Chick-fil-A, our favorite. The food is a little more expensive that other quick places, but so worth it. Actual pieces of chicken breat cut up for the nuggets (they only serve chicken), non-greasy fries, and educational toys in the kid's meals. Today it was Leap Frog computer games.
11:15 am We head back over towards our house to the Target near us and head to the bathroom. And then spend an hour looking at books, movies and toys. Yes, I really said an hour. Ten minutes looking at movies to appease Jacob so he'll cooperate, 5 minutes on books and then the toy section. We've got nothing else scheduled for the day, so I let them spend as much time as they want, and I watch and take notes for Christmas ideas. Yep, I am that anal. But almost everyone in the families calls and asks for ideas, for Jacob especially, so it pays to have a ready answer. This is actually the first year that I have not started my Christmas shopping yet. Rick is wondering if I'm feeling ok. After the toys (and convincing Jacob that we weren't buying any of them) we spend another half an hour doing our actual shopping before heading home.
1 pm I try and arrange babysitting when a meeting pops up for Rick at the same time I have a meeting and Brandon arranges a playdate.
1:30-4 pm Brandon has a couple friends over to play while Jacob plays "bruss teeth!", sits on the potty, plays on the computer with his new Caillou kindergarten disk, prints out coloring pages, gets his popsicle fix, practices writing the alphabet and his name, and plays with his toys. I do more laundry (I'm not behind or anything, we just generate a lot of laundry), check emails, bake muffins, vacuum, wash walls, blah blah blah housework.
4pm It's overcast and thunderstorms have been expected all day, so we avoid the pool. After watering flowers, Brandon and Jacob play outside for an hour and get nice and soaked (and muddy).
5pm "Baff!" with "bobles". Jacob would live in the bathtub if we let him.
5:30-6:30 Art time. We have a 4'x6' locking cabinet that we keep games, science experiements, educational materials and a whole heck of a lot of art supplies in. Brandon chose his stuff to work on (styrofoam snowman and halloween cutouts) and after putting away the silverware (one of his chores) Jacob was content to paint for awhile. Messy, but fun. Love Brandon's punk rocker snowman (see next post). For painting and drawing he's so afraid of messing up, but with 3-d and mixed media art, he lets himself have fun and he's in Heaven. Jacob actually lasted 40 minutes painting with a brush before dipping his hands in it.
6:30 pm Back to the bath for Jacob (his choice) and Brandon decides to watch an Indiana Jones movie.
7 pm The boys eat "1 Potato 2's" for dinner. Essentially, for them, it's a baked potato with shredded cheese on top with a veggie on the side. The name comes from my family; I think it was the name of a restaurant in the Eastwood (?) Mall in Casper, WY that served baked potatoes with meat, cheese and veggies in them that we always went to when we were there. Rick has an evening reception to go to, so he won't be home until later.
7:45 pm Jacob is put out that Brandon and mom are watching a movie in the living room, so he spends the time playing computer, "brus teeth!", making a bed for himself under the bunk beds, sitting on the potty and putting his Thomas flash cards in some special order known only to him (don't even think about touching them.)
8:00 pm Rick gets home and is immediately dispatched to take care of the wasp nest under the slide. He duels Brandon in Yu-gi-oh (and wins) and watches the end of the movie.
8:30 pm Jacob gets ready for bed, which includes yet another tooth brushing, but this time by mom, and Brandon reads a little before bed.
9 pm All is quiet on the minature Staigle front. Rick's not feeling well and follows suit and I play on the computer (my craft room is on the other side of the wall from Rick's head, so that option is out) until I'm finally sleepy enough to try going to bed without keeping Rick up (anywhere from 11 pm to 1 am, usually.)
