a day in the life - jenny

This morning I have a very heavy heart.  It isn't my place to share details right now, just know there is a very sweet little five-year-old girl who could use lots of prayers for strength and healing.  I would very much appreciate you adding this precious little Kansas girl to your thoughts.

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Hi!  I'm Jenny, a Montessori teacher turned stay at home mom.  I blog about life with my almost 18 month old daughter, Ruby, over at We G Three.  I'm excited to share our day with you again over here on Ashley's blog - the last time I did it was over a year ago, Ruby has grown up so much!

Here's a peek at a day in our life.  Our Mondays and Tuesdays are crazy and we're out of the house most of the day.  The rest of the week tends to either be just as busy, or we stay home all day, so I guess we don't have a "typical" everyday!  This day was a Thursday with a little bit of both.

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6:38 - I wake up to Mr. G getting ready for work.  I'm a horrible sleeper, and know I won't be able to fall back to sleep, so I grab my phone and check on the internet for a bit.  After reading blogs, and checking facebook and instagram, I jump in the shower and then dress.  Ruby is still asleep, so I put on my makeup too.

8:00 - Ruby is still asleep, in spite of the fact that there seem to be landscapers with leaf blowers or hedge trimmers right outside her window!  I go downstairs to get coffee made, pour Ruby's sippy of milk, and defrost a zucchini muffin for her.  She's still sleeping, but we have a morning playdate, so I have to go wake her up.

8:15 - I go in and wake the little miss up.  She immediately asks for "Braids", our dog, and gets excited when Braidy makes her way in too.

Yawn!

I change Ruby's diaper and tell her that the sound she hears is guys outside landscaping.  She entertains herself saying, "guy, guy, guy, guy" over and over, then says, "leaves?".  Which blows my mind, because, how did she know they were blowing leaves?!?

We head down for breakfast.  She requests cheese, which she does for every meal and snack.  I compromise and make scrambled eggs with cheese, in addition to her muffin and banana.  She also requests to "dance dance", so I turn on Pandora on my phone.  Who doesn't love a breakfast dance party?

Ruby is taking forevvvvver with her breakfast, and we need to get a move on.  I'm about to cut her off, when she says, "all done!" and rips her bib off...  then proceeds to stuff her face with food.  Um, ok?  I tell her we are going to go see her buddy James, and she gets very excited and points at her chest (which is what she does when she really wants something).  I'd packed up her diaper bag while she was eating, so we hustle up the stairs for a diaper change and to get her dressed and dry my hair.

9:35 - Time to hit the road!  It is crazy foggy out this morning.  We pull out of our neighborhood, and I peep the Starbucks drive thru line.  It's stacked up 12 cars deep (!), so that's a no-go.  Maybe we'll take a walk down there later.  Hop on the freeway, and I'm glad for my carpool buddy, since traffic is still kind of heavy.

9:50 - We arrive at the Children's Museum for our playdate with Ruby's buddy James and his mama Jessie.

Still foggy out there!

The Children's Museum is in a mall, and I decide to let Ruby walk in there, which she loves.  She sees a workman up through the skylight cleaning it, and becomes obsessed.  Again with the saying, "guy, guy, guy, guy" over and over and pointing up.  Which means walking takes a long time, haha.  A woman sees her walking and tells her she's doing a great job.  She looks really familiar to me, and we quickly realize we know each other!  It's our neighbor, Sarah, whom we've met a few times before out on walks with our dogs and kids.  We chat a bit, then make our way to the museum.

Jessie and James arrive a few minutes later, and we head into the Children's Museum.  The kiddos first check out the 0-3 area, where Ruby rides a Roddy, they play with trains, in a play kitchen, and explore these little sensory houses that each focus on one of the senses.

James is way more high energy than Ruby, so we lose them for a while, but catch back up in the all-ages water area (where we pretty quickly lose him and Jessie again, lol).  Ruby has a blast throwing balls in.

Once she gets tired of the water area, we head over to "the garage".  We find James and Jessie inside a (real) Mack truck, and the kids take turns steering and turning the key.  Also in that area are a giant lite-brite, pneumatic things that shoot balls and scarves, toys for building, and chalk and crayons.  Ruby and James explore it all (and move so fast that I never get a picture of them together - sad!!!), and pretty soon Jessie and I can tell that they are tired and have had enough.

11:45 - We say our goodbyes and leave the Children's Museum.  I'm really pushing it with lunch/naptime, but we need to make a quick stop at Trader Joe's on the way home, and I know it will be better to do it now than later.  We also do a quick trunk-change of the diaper.

Ruby is a great shopping buddy, and is a trooper in the store - especially when we find they are handing out samples of cheese!  It's smoked mozzarella, and I wasn't sure Ruby'd go for it, but she eats my whole piece.  Guess she liked it!

12:45 - We are home, and I haul everything upstairs (our garage is the first floor - ask me how much fun that is with a baby!) and get lunch together.  Ruby pulls leftover pasta with veggies out of the fridge, so I take that as a sign and serve it up to her with some strawberries and a piece of turkey.  Meanwhile, I eat half of a falafel wrap from TJ's that I treated myself to.

Telling me she'd like some more strawberries.

After lunch, we rush upstairs since it's so late already, do a quick diaper change, and read stories.  Ruby chooses Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman and Ghosts in the House by Kazuno Kohara.  We finish reading, she requests I sing Row Row Your Boat, then I give her a kiss and tuck her in with her blanket and dog stuffed animal.

1:30 - Ruby is asleep, so it's work time for this mama!  I go through and delete all the dud pictures from the morning, then try to fix our internet which has been non-working since we had a power outage yesterday.  I fail.  Argh.  I haven't made Ruby's Halloween costume yet, so I cut the tulle I need for her tutu so that it's ready once I've sewn the elastic.  Side note - glitter tulle = not worth it.  Serious PITA to work with, and my house now looks like a Ke$ha concert.

Once that's done, I text my husband about the internet, then I get down to the real business.  Ruby goes to an amazing parent co-op toddler school, and they are having a craft fair in a couple weeks.  I decided to bite the bullet and sign up to be a vendor!  Which means I pretty much spend all of my free time lately crocheting hats and hairbows.  I start by doing some finishing work on a couple of them; weaving ends, and sewing on pompoms.

2:39 - Ruby wakes up and cries out.  I stare at the monitor, hoping that she goes back to sleep.  She does.  Phew.

I get another hat started, and basically finish the whole base of it (I'll embellish it tomorrow - this one will have dino spikes).  Ruby is still asleep, so I start another one.   The entire time I'm working, an alarm is going off outside.  It's making me crazy!

Hats, hats, hats.

4:06 - I hear, "Mama?  Braids?" on the monitor.  Ruby is up.  Long nap!  The Children's Museum must have really worn her out!  I change her diaper, and Mr. G texts me to say that he had the fiberoptic company reboot our house (?) and that the internet should work now.  It does!  Yay!

Ruby and I head downstairs.  I ask her if she wants a snack, and of course, she says "cheese", so I oblige her.  It's too late now to walk to Starbucks, but we bundle up anyway (it is still crazy foggy) and head outside to blow bubbles.

Ruby remembers that the "guys" were out here earlier with the leaves.  She's excited to find "leafthsh!", but keeps asking about the guys.  Haha.

As it always does, bubble time turns into "pick up all the rocks I can find" time.  But we also take a little walk to look for the guys.  Spoiler alert - we don't find them.

"What?  No, I don't have any rocks..."

Just before we head in, our next door neighbor, Samantha, comes down the walk with her dog and 8 week old baby girl.  We chat for a little bit, and Ruby gets to pet their huge dog, which makes her day.

4:55 - Ruby and I head inside to start dinner.  I don't really feel like cooking, so I pull out some pumpkin and bat shaped ravioli that we got recently at Costco.  I start to question my sanity, because... the bats are black.  I'm not usually one to buy black food, so I check the ingredients.  It says the pasta is dyed with "natural black liquid".  Um... what???  Why did I even buy this (probably because I get like Mitchell from Modern Family when I enter a Costco...)?  I have no idea what "natural black liquid" is, but the water is boiling, so I just go with it.  

During this time, Ruby occupies herself for about a minute making impressive stacks with our Magic Bullet cups.

Of course, like she always does when I'm cooking dinner, she decides she'd rather me hold her.  Nothing makes this girl want me to pick her up like me cooking hot things!  I hold her when I safely can (not much), and get some veggies heated up for her, and salad out for the grown-ups.

5:20 - Mr. G walks in just as dinner is ready.  Ruby and the dog are equally excited to see him.  We all sit down with our food and tell each other about our days.  It turns out, the bats (and pumpkins) are pretty good.  It's Ruby's first time eating ravioli of any type, and she eats a ton.

Please note the dog licking her chops in the background - an every night occurrence.

6:00 - Dinner is over and the kitchen is cleaned.  Mr. G and Ruby are down in the living room playing.  I get out my sewing machine to work on Ruby's Halloween costume.  She's going as a black cat, and while I quickly get the elastic sewn for her tutu, it takes me way longer than I wanted/expected to figure out the tail.  It is not a bath night, so Ruby should be playing during this time, but of course, since I'm trying to get something done, she keeps coming back up to me.  

7:00 - I've finally got the tail figured out, so I try it on Ruby.  It doesn't stand up like I intended, but it still looks pretty cute, and she walks around meowing with a big smile on her face, so I'll call that success.  We goof around for a bit, then I grab her a sippy of water and we head upstairs.

7:15 - Ruby and I get our jams on, and I take her into my bathroom so that we can brush our teeth (she's way better about it if we brush together).  Ruby finds some faux pearls on my counter, so she puts on her finery while I wash my face.

Once we're all ready, Mr. G comes up to say goodnight.  Ruby chooses her stories for the night - Night-Night, Forest Friends by Annie Bach and Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex.  We snuggle up on my bed and read them together.

7:45 - Lights out.  I snuggle with Ruby until she falls asleep, then carry her down the hall, put her in her crib, and cover her with a blanket.  After I close Ruby's door, I head back to my room, turn the light back on, and the tv, and pick up the hat I started earlier.  I do several more rows before I realize I'm pretty darn tired!  Mr. G comes back up, and we watch Covert Affairs, which we're not really sure we're into, then switch to the news.  I set the timer on the tv and am pretty much out like a light after that!

Now, for Ashley's questions:

1.)  What is the most surprising thing for you about being a mom?

My answer to this question changes from time to time, but right now, it's how much I love toddlerhood!  I was terrified by the word "toddler".  But so far, it is totally awesome.  I know that Ruby has plenty of time to make me eat my words, but I am loving this stage so much.  She understands everything I say, and can respond now!  She walks!  She's inquisitive, but she doesn't go looking for trouble.  She loves to help me around the house.  She's generally pretty compliant, and it takes a lot to ruffle her feathers.  I know that my excitement for this age has a lot to do with who Ruby is personality-wise, but I am pretty happy that so far toddlerhood isn't the scary, screaming mess I thought it would be.

2.)  What advice would you give to new or soon-to-be mamas?

It's ok to say never.  You're going to hear "never say never" a lot.  Which is actually pretty good advice, too, since flexibility in parenting is important.  But if you feel strongly about something, it IS ok to stick to your guns!  I know I often feel like I follow the parenting road less travelled, but when I look back on Ruby's life so far, and who she is right now, I feel the most at peace with the decisions we made that others might have said "don't say you'll never do that!".

3.)  What are your top three baby products?

*Cloth diapers.  We've been using cloth since the day Ruby came home from the hospital, and we're still going strong 18 months later!  They're easy to use, cute, and we've never had the dreaded "poosplosion", even back in the newborn days.  Plus, not having to buy diapers means more money in our pockets!  Our favorite brands/styles are Bum Genius 4.0s and old-style Elementals, and Swaddlebees Simplex all in ones for day time, and Sustainablebabyish and Bububebe fitteds for nighttime.

*Rain or Shine Kids pouch.  This is probably the one piece of baby gear I have that random strangers ask me about more than any other.  Probably because it's awesome!  I tie it to the stroller to keep Ruby warm and DRY (in Washington, dry is a hot commodity).  She can't kick it off, and the pouch style ensures that her feet stay covered the whole time (it also helped contain her socks that she did kick off when she was smaller).  I mostly do back-carries with out Beco now that she's heavier, but when I did/do wear her on the front, the pouch can tie to the carrier, too!  And it has a pocket for your hands when using it with a carrier.  Bonus!  This thing has been worth every penny.

*Hip Peas hair balm.  This is a recent add to my baby must haves, but I'm pretty excited to have found it, so I'm spreading the word.  Ruby has ca-raaaaaazy hair.  Like, a billion cowlicks (thanks, Mr. G).  It can be really hard to try to tame.  This stuff does a pretty good job.  It also smells really good, and I feel like her hair clips stay in better when she has some in her hair.  It's kind of pricey, but a very little goes a long way.  We have the Hip Peas shampoo, too, and we actually love that a lot more than the Burt's Bees we'd been using in the past, too!

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Thanks so much for reading about our day, and thanks for having us, Ashley!

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Thank you for sharing your day Jenny!