If you’re new around these parts, this monthly series is an exercise in brevity as I try (but not very hard) to summarize each day of our month in one sentence. (Also, I’ve been taking a picture of my daughter–and now my son, too–every day since they were born, and this is a GREAT place for me to share several of those!). Although I’ve almost always included the photo at the top of its corresponding day, the daily captions of what we did and the photos often do not match. (Just to clarify!)
Thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Jo for the post idea!
Saturday 9/1 – We woke up super early to make the two-hour drive down south to see my niece’s baptism, and we stayed at my sister’s house for several hours after just chatting and letting Raven play with her cousins to her heart’s content. Later that afternoon, my mom took Raven and I to get our toes done (such a treat, especially as I’d just had that D&C surgery the day before), and we spent the rest of the evening having dinner with Matt’s folks and enjoying our time over there. We might have gotten home way too late, but it was such a fun day that it was totally worth the craziness that ensued once we had to wake up both kids getting them out of their carseats and getting them into their beds.
Sunday 9/2 – Too much fun on Saturday and a severe lack of sleep for two nights in a row meant I was REALLY feeling the aftereffects of Friday’s D&C surgery on this day, so I ended up staying home from church and sleeping for almost 4 solid hours, which was exactly what my body needed. One of our awesome neighbors also brought us in dinner, so it ended up being exactly what I needed to get my body back to full functionality again.
Monday 9/3 – We spent the morning of Labor Day in a Herculean struggle to get us all out on a hike before it got too hot (I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t Matt or I that were the problem). After reaching several points where Matt threatened to not go at all, we finally made it into the car with two crying children (WE WILL HAVE FUN, DANGIT!) and headed the five minutes up to the canyon right behind our house. And you know what? Once we were out and about and actually on the hike, all was well, and the rest of our day was quite pleasant, indeed.
Tuesday 9/4 – I spent the two hours Raven was at preschool in the library parking lot, frantically trying to finish up a book that had been due before the long weekend (but that I wanted to put in the book drop before the library opened to avoid the late fee #sadthatihavethisdowntoascience) and then fitting in a super quick Walmart run to pick up all the stuff I didn’t want to buy in bulk from Sam’s Club the day before. Ah, grocery shopping with just the baby…#soeasy
Wednesday 9/5 – My biggest accomplishment of the day was that I finally created the Facebook group I’ve been wanting to forever–a local produce swap/co-op group where locals can post what extra produce they have growing in their gardens so that less food goes to waste in our community. Eventually, I plan to extend this far beyond Facebook, but I feel like I got a good start on my dream!
Thursday 9/6 – We went to Mathias’s 2-month appointment (which coincidentally ended up being when he was almost 3 months old due to scheduling conflicts), which involved the dreaded shots. News flash: those don’t get any easier to watch as a parent, even when you’ve done it multiple times with your oldest before. Also, my Refit class started a new workout/class type on this night called Rev + Flow, which mixes a lot more resistance training in with the dance cardio (and at a much slower pace). Let’s just say that even though by this point, I’d been doing the Kayla Itsines BBG workout program for 5 weeks, I was still SO SORE after this class.
Friday 9/7 – Fridays have seemed a bit cursed lately, as for the last few weeks, Fridays have always been my hardest day with the kids. A lot of crying happened on this day (though thankfully, not by me), and we all turned in a bit early as a result.
Saturday 9/8 – I drove about an hour away to do two family photo sessions in the morning, then the rest of the day was spent getting ready for the big luncheon we were hosting the next day for Mathias’s baby blessing.
Sunday 9/9 – A very special day, as it was Mathias’s blessing day at church! We had loads of family and friends turn out to support us, and we all enjoyed a large luncheon together at the park pavilion across the street from the church. Some of our friends that we don’t see nearly often enough stayed for a few hours after that, so Matt and I (AND Raven) got plenty of fun time with friends! A wonderful day.
Monday 9/10 – Our neighbors invited us over for a little impromptu hot dog roast over their new fire pit, so we spent an enjoyable evening with their family and another neighbor family just shooting the breeze and trying to keep our kids away from the flames. Love this neighborhood!
Tuesday 9/11 – Got a lot of excellent financial news this day, as my insurance appeal ended up being granted, one of our other hospital bills got discounted way down, AND Matt had an extra work opportunity come up this day to earn some cash on the side. Feeling so blessed.
Wednesday 9/12 – Dealt with a lot of poop on this day, both literal and figurative. A super tough day.
Thursday 9/13 – We called our neighbor over (who’s in the medical field) in a bit of a panic because the Instacare was closed and Mathias had been screaming for hours, clearly in pain. Thanks to him, we discovered that he had an ear infection and were able to start him on antibiotics right away, which helped quite a lot. My sister and her family also stayed over on this night, as they were in town for the USU football game.
Friday 9/14 – After a much harder-than-usual end of the week, it was nice to just have our usual grill night outside, followed up with a bunch of silly play (where Matt chased Raven round and round with a spray bottle, and Mathias looked on with delight).
Saturday 9/15 – Matt and I have been trying to be more intentional about the time we have together at home when the kids are in bed, so we chose to do a good ol’ fashioned date night in by snuggling up on the couch together and watching a movie (with popcorn, naturally). It had been waaaaay too long since we’d done this!
Sunday 9/16 – Our Primary class was a bit insane on this day. Just when you think you have classroom management figured out, man…
Monday 9/17 – Finally, a day when Mathias was hardly fussy at all! (It helped that he’d been on antibiotics for a few days by this point AND that we started him on reflux medicine this day, too.)
Tuesday 9/18 – Both kids were super whiny and crying for an indecent amount of the day. I started to rethink all the latest “strategies” I’ve been using to try and help Raven…
Wednesday 9/19 – Mathias turned 3 months old, I had to put the gummy worms up higher because Raven climbed on a chair and stole some down from the cupboard when she wasn’t supposed to, and I also had my monthly book club meeting that night (always a treat!).
Thursday 9/20 – I edited a photo session all night, which meant I was *almost* all caught up–always a good feeling.
Friday 9/21 – While Raven was at preschool in the morning, I enjoyed an especially productive morning doing a quick blog post, doing most of the laundry, showering after my workout (which I’m miraculously managed to fit in before we took her), and getting a client’s photo gallery uploaded and sent off. After our usual grill night as a family, Matt and I finally turned in early (because we always say we should since we’re so tired, but we usually get caught up reading and stay up too late).
Saturday 9/22 – We had our annual McBride Highland Games family reunion (where I took 1st place in the “stoneput throw”) in the afternoon, and then my mom watched our kids while Matt and I went on a birthday date out bowling (where my high was a 128 and I beat Matt both games, albeit just barely), out for burgers and frozen custard, and then on some kids-free shopping errands to buy ourselves some new running shoes and stop at Barnes and Noble (of course).
Sunday 9/23 – After going to church with my mom and stepdad, we joined them and my sister’s family for dinner (and my awesome mom made Matt and I a birthday cake and everyone sang to us after), and later we went over to Matt’s folks’ house to celebrate our niece’s 6th birthday. SO MUCH CHOCOLATE CAKE THIS DAY—and it was all SO GOOD!
Monday 9/24 – Matt’s birthday! The kids and I surprised him at work with balloons and donuts, and we had a block party with a bunch of our neighbors later that night (not for his birthday specifically, but it was fun the two dates coincided!), which we had a blast at (especially as our neighbors had rented a bounce house for all the kids).
Tuesday 9/25 – My neighbors had the bounce house until 3:00 p.m., so after preschool and lunch, I sent Raven over there to have yet more fun play time, which she loved. (Of course, when it was time to go, she had a meltdown, but as it resulted in her going down for a nap–which is becoming increasingly more rare–I couldn’t complain too much). Later in the evening, Matt got both kids down for bed so I could go to Old Navy solo (such a treat!) and finally buy myself some non-maternity jeans that fit before I went to my exercise class.
Wednesday 9/26 – Matt had to take off one of his precious vacation days because I was super-duper sick with the stomach flu (it started in the night and had me running to the bathroom about every half hour for the first 10 hours or so). What an awful way to spend the day (especially as I had lots of plans for this day!).
Thursday 9/27 – Not surprisingly, Raven and Matt came down sick with the same plague I had, and luckily I was *barely* feeling well enough to take care of everyone.
Friday 9/28 – We were all still feeling weak and not super great, but Matt did feel well enough to go into work, so there was that. Later, just before putting Raven down to bed, Matt took her on a little bike ride around the block. After a weird turn and his tire getting stuck in a driveway groove, he hit the ground hard and hurt his arm pretty badly. We texted back and forth with a friend (thanks, Lyndsey!) who’s a nurse and determined we could probably skip the ER visit that night (since the Instacare was closed) and reevaluate in the morning.
Saturday 9/29 – My birthday started off with a bang as we determined that Matt did, in fact, need to go to the Instacare and get his arm checked out. After a horribly long wait (about an hour and a half, with both kids with us!), they took some x-rays and the doctor said there were “mixed opinions.” The bone in question is very difficult to catch on an x-ray so they had to take it from two different angles, and the doctor concluded from one of the x-rays that there was indeed a fracture, and the x-ray technician disagreed and said there wasn’t. We were told to put it in a sling and call a specialist in the next week to get a confirmation one way or another (which, update: the specialist said that his arm is definitely broken). We tried to salvage the birthday joy (yay) by going out to lunch and to our very favorite u-pick apple orchard in the afternoon, and after getting generous amounts of sunshine and apple cider into our souls, we *did* feel a bit more in the birthday spirit.
Sunday 9/30 – We had our Primary program on this day, and I started to really realize just how much I was going to have to do myself now that Matt can’t use his right arm. I was running on high stress all day long, but luckily having our friends over for our monthly get-together (we just did dessert instead of the usual dinner because of how crazy our week had been) made me feel a bit less crazy.
Honestly, September is usually my favorite month, but this year, I kinda couldn’t wait to be shot of it. We had some good times in there, but there was a LOT of hard this month (not all of it mentioned here). Here’s hoping October is a bit kinder on my nerves!
