Seeing as this time in our lives is rather unprecedented, I wanted to record exactly how it goes. Our days are pretty much the same old thing everyday, but I seriously love it because Ethan and the family are here along with Hannah. Let me see if I can describe them a bit.
John leaves between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. It just depends on what he's covering for the day. Ethan comes into our room to get to the office around 8:00. That usually wakes me up. Plus, the babies are usually up by then. They have breakfast, and Baby usually struggles to get through her cereal :-)
Somebody takes out the dogs, and by this time, Hannah is hopefully up, or else Hootie is driving us crazy, begging to be fed.
While they are eating breakfast, Ethan and I do the daily Washington Post crossword together. Yes, he has such a hard job..... We have gotten 750 every single day, so we looked up how to earn more points. Today we scored 850 so we were pretty stoked!
Also, Ethan frequently has video calls so we have to be sensitive about keeping doors closed when that is happening. Of course, most of the time we don't even know it's happening, and the camera faces the opposite wall (and not like the bathroom door or anything embarrassing ;-)). Today, he was supposed to share something from his life for five minutes. Brother refused to get in his lap, so I grabbed the trio of sunning cats and brought them over one-by-one. The people loved it, and he thanked me for doing something he would never have done.
Then it's time to PRACTICE! She even gets Hannah to practice with her. It's impressive though--going through everything they're supposed to be doing takes nearly an hour. Hannah asked me the other day if Glo and she had done all of the things Baby is being asked to do, and I replied no--they just started playing pretty much from day one--but they were both older. Baby is only four so things like bow holds take serious motor skills.
Then, it's usually music time with Lollie. We work on some classical music piece. Yesterday, I made up the rest of the pictures for her picture book for Pictures from an Exhibition, and today we'll work on learning the last five pieces. Rebecca was playing "Liebesfreud by Fritz Kreisler" this morning, an assignment from her violin teacher, and then went onto Rhapsody in Blue. Baby didn't want to listen to Rhapsody though--I think she's kind of been there/done that with that piece.
Baths, showers, getting dressed.
Maybe a little bit of watching TV, or playing after that. The babies seriously never watch TV. They are so good playing on their own after all the morning attention. Baby has her Barbies all set up at the top of the stairs. That way, she's close to mom if mom is upstairs, and she can see us over the cat walk if we're downstairs. Brother will entertain himself literally for hours.
Then it's lunch and nap time. Rebecca likes to save her own lunch for after the babies go down so we do too, and we all watch an episode of Gilmore Girls. One of the best parts of the day!
The afternoon is free time for all of us. Sometimes Hannah goes running. I usually take a nap. We read. And Rebecca and I usually start getting things ready for dinner.
Man, we've had home cooked meals for weeks now, and my stomach has never been happier...nor has my AERD. None of us feels sick at night, and the food is always so good. In the beginning, we were having whatever Daddy could find at the grocery store, but now that things are as bad as they are, we're trying to keep Daddy from shopping and just making do with what we have. We've had King Ranch chicken, chicken tacos, pork chops, beef stroganoff, whatever. And it's a running joke that we can't go to bed without eating some homemade dessert which Rebecca or I create. Cakes and brownies mostly, but ice cream and cookies as well.
I have to say, I absolutely love multi-generational living. I wish they would just stay here forever and live. I know Rebecca is happier because she isn't stuck in her tiny apartment with the babies all day by herself, and it gives Daddy and me some purpose. Plus, the babies love us so much now. I mean Brother sleeps in Glo's room, and he knows how to reach the doorknob to the bathroom from his crib to open it and call to Hannah in the morning. And he has the biggest belly laugh and loves to play with all of us. Honestly, I got super mad at Ethan on Sunday morning because he was so crabby with his beautiful children, and there was no reason to be.
After dinner (we sit outside if it's nice enough) it's bedtime for the babies. We read a story, and Baby has been LOVING discovering all the great books we have. No joke, I can't tell you how happy I've saved all those books for so long because they. are all still winners. We sing "On A Golden Springtime". And then Baby reviews the Joseph Smith story that I taught her (she's got it almost all down now so we're adding in more details), she rehearses her memorized scripture (1 Nephi 19:23 at the moment), Brother rehearses his scriptures (Moroni 10:5), and then we say a prayer with our "Amen" song afterwards. Then it's "KISSES! KISSES!" as Brother and Baby make the rounds of kissing us all goodnight. The babies then go to bed, Baby in her princess bed in her "bedroom" aka "the closet under the stairs" and Brother in his crib in your room.
We then either play a game or watch a movie. In between, we take the dogs out and pet and feed the cats, and do laundry, and clean the kitchen (it's a constant struggle) and try and unpack more boxes. Last night, I got John to hang all of the big pieces on the walls that need anchors. And the rest of us kept hanging the smaller things. We are making serious progress, although working on the basement kind of scares me at the moment. I better get going on it quickly though because everyone is leaving this weekend.
It's such a beautiful life.
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