a day in the life...
so what is a day in the life of a family of 6 with 4 kids 5 and under who were brought together by foster care, share one bedroom, and one bathroom and a lot of love and laughter? here goes:
6:30- Aaron's first alarm goes off
6:40- Aaron's second alarm goes off. he wakes us up. I get mad at him for not waking us up sooner. the traffic at biggie's school is ridiculous and he won't get there in time for breakfast.
(for all of you who think, I should set my own alarm, I don't have an outlet on my side of the bed to charge my phone and set an alarm on it.)
6:45- Aaron gets the kids up and gets their teeth brushed and alergy meds administered while I get the clothes picked out.
7:10- On a good day all 4 children are dressed and buckled in the car. and we are off.
first we take bigs to school where the traffic is TERRIBLE. one of the worst in our county. yippeee. then the younger 3 go to daycare. assuming none of them need to go to the WIC office or a doctor's appointment or back home to visit with a caseworker. we have 3 different caseworkers that we have to see in our home monthly, biggie and smalls share one, and then tiny and itty bitty have their own. then Aaron and I have a case worker we have to see in our home with all 6 of us present every 3 months. anyway.
funny things they say in the morning:
"is it show and tell day?"-smalls
"can I be a car rider today? I never get to be a car rider!"-biggie
"can we eat breakfast at bojangles?"
"who's going to pick us up?"-3 big boys
"where daddy go? daddy go bye bye? where daddy go? daddy go bye bye!"- itty bitty, the whole way to biggie's school
"where iaiah go? iaiah go bye bye?"- itty bitty, the
moment biggie steps out of the car, and the whole way to daycare.
"my mommy! my mommy! my mommy!" -itty bitty shouts, while I sign them in, grasping my leg tightly and glaring at any child who even glances in my direction. clearly they all want to steal HIS mommy.
depending on the day of the week, I either spend my day making the people of Columbus more beautiful, one head of hair at a time, deciding the best combination of ping pong balls, hula hoops, and Jesus for the kids/families of St. Mark UMC, both this week and long term, folding laundry and watching too much reality television, or a combination of all 3.
meanwhile Aaron gets himself ready and to work.
5:57- we roll up to the daycare with the rest of foster momma's unincorporated (I have this awesome unofficial support group of 9 ladies that are all foster moms. we meet monthly and group message daily. all but 3 use the same daycare. and most of us get to the daycare within 10 minutes before closing every day!)
5:59- the children all ask where we are going. while simultaneously shouting out their votes.
telling them we are going home ends up in all of them whining/throwing themselves on the ground. however naming a restaurant will most likely result in someone being unhappy as well. mostly smalls. he likes to be obstinate and difficult.
if we go out to eat, it is almost always somewhere with a playground or a "kids eat free" special.
if we come home, usually they eat peanut butter sandwiches with fruit or dry cereal. occasionally we will even do grits and eggs.
if we get done early enough, they love to have a "dance party" before bed to "shake it off", "watch me", "uptown funk", "welcome to the space jam", and "bad blood" "with the boy singing" (which means the version featuring Kendrick Lamar)
7~8- bible story, prayers and bed time. I love this time of day. Aaron and I snuggle with and pray over each boy in their bed. the fun part has been when they started praying for us afterwards. even itty bitty mumbles his own little jibberish of a prayer over me and then shouts "amen!"
once they are all in bed, we have a couple hours to eat, watch tv and relax before it is time to go again.
on the weekend we love to stay busy. we often have birthday parties and such these days. we also like to go to the indoor pool this time or year. so ready for the outside pool to open. the boys love the trampoline in the back yard as well as playing any kind of ball. we also have a great driveway with just enough of a hill to make riding scooters and bikes fun. they love bubbles and chalk. we RARELY play inside. mostly because I like my decorating style to resemble anything but "just hit by a tornado" but also because I think it is just better for them to be outside.
that is all I can come up with for now. most days are very busy and go by too fast. today we woke them up from nap at about 4 and played in the sprinklers and ran into eachother with those new inflatable sumo-esque toys. it was awesome. and a wonderful reminder of how fortunate the 6 of us are to have eachother and this challenging, but fun life!
6:30- Aaron's first alarm goes off
6:40- Aaron's second alarm goes off. he wakes us up. I get mad at him for not waking us up sooner. the traffic at biggie's school is ridiculous and he won't get there in time for breakfast.
(for all of you who think, I should set my own alarm, I don't have an outlet on my side of the bed to charge my phone and set an alarm on it.)
6:45- Aaron gets the kids up and gets their teeth brushed and alergy meds administered while I get the clothes picked out.
7:10- On a good day all 4 children are dressed and buckled in the car. and we are off.
first we take bigs to school where the traffic is TERRIBLE. one of the worst in our county. yippeee. then the younger 3 go to daycare. assuming none of them need to go to the WIC office or a doctor's appointment or back home to visit with a caseworker. we have 3 different caseworkers that we have to see in our home monthly, biggie and smalls share one, and then tiny and itty bitty have their own. then Aaron and I have a case worker we have to see in our home with all 6 of us present every 3 months. anyway.
funny things they say in the morning:
"is it show and tell day?"-smalls
"can I be a car rider today? I never get to be a car rider!"-biggie
"can we eat breakfast at bojangles?"
"who's going to pick us up?"-3 big boys
"where daddy go? daddy go bye bye? where daddy go? daddy go bye bye!"- itty bitty, the whole way to biggie's school
"where iaiah go? iaiah go bye bye?"- itty bitty, the
moment biggie steps out of the car, and the whole way to daycare.
"my mommy! my mommy! my mommy!" -itty bitty shouts, while I sign them in, grasping my leg tightly and glaring at any child who even glances in my direction. clearly they all want to steal HIS mommy.
depending on the day of the week, I either spend my day making the people of Columbus more beautiful, one head of hair at a time, deciding the best combination of ping pong balls, hula hoops, and Jesus for the kids/families of St. Mark UMC, both this week and long term, folding laundry and watching too much reality television, or a combination of all 3.
meanwhile Aaron gets himself ready and to work.
5:57- we roll up to the daycare with the rest of foster momma's unincorporated (I have this awesome unofficial support group of 9 ladies that are all foster moms. we meet monthly and group message daily. all but 3 use the same daycare. and most of us get to the daycare within 10 minutes before closing every day!)
5:59- the children all ask where we are going. while simultaneously shouting out their votes.
telling them we are going home ends up in all of them whining/throwing themselves on the ground. however naming a restaurant will most likely result in someone being unhappy as well. mostly smalls. he likes to be obstinate and difficult.
if we go out to eat, it is almost always somewhere with a playground or a "kids eat free" special.
if we come home, usually they eat peanut butter sandwiches with fruit or dry cereal. occasionally we will even do grits and eggs.
if we get done early enough, they love to have a "dance party" before bed to "shake it off", "watch me", "uptown funk", "welcome to the space jam", and "bad blood" "with the boy singing" (which means the version featuring Kendrick Lamar)
7~8- bible story, prayers and bed time. I love this time of day. Aaron and I snuggle with and pray over each boy in their bed. the fun part has been when they started praying for us afterwards. even itty bitty mumbles his own little jibberish of a prayer over me and then shouts "amen!"
once they are all in bed, we have a couple hours to eat, watch tv and relax before it is time to go again.
on the weekend we love to stay busy. we often have birthday parties and such these days. we also like to go to the indoor pool this time or year. so ready for the outside pool to open. the boys love the trampoline in the back yard as well as playing any kind of ball. we also have a great driveway with just enough of a hill to make riding scooters and bikes fun. they love bubbles and chalk. we RARELY play inside. mostly because I like my decorating style to resemble anything but "just hit by a tornado" but also because I think it is just better for them to be outside.
that is all I can come up with for now. most days are very busy and go by too fast. today we woke them up from nap at about 4 and played in the sprinklers and ran into eachother with those new inflatable sumo-esque toys. it was awesome. and a wonderful reminder of how fortunate the 6 of us are to have eachother and this challenging, but fun life!
(no preschoolers were harmed in the making of these videos)
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