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!
Wednesday 8/1 – I perhaps made a foolish decision by deciding to go to TWO grocery stores with both kids in the morning, but when you’ve gone the last two and a half weeks or so without really buying groceries and been on a super restricted grocery budget, well…#desperatetimes. Honestly, it could have gone a lot worse, but let’s just say we were all hungry BEASTS by the time we got home.
Thursday 8/2 – I’ve started going to Refit classes (a dance cardio aerobics class that reminds me a lot of my hip hop class, but a lot more community-minded) on Thursday nights, which has been a super fun way to connect with more women who live near me AND get a good workout in. Seriously, the more I learn about the community I live in, the more I love it.
Friday 8/3 – My best friend since childhood and her toddler made the 50-minute drive up to our house to bring Raven and me lunch and to hang out for a few hours (and to meet the new baby, obviously). Literally every time I spend time with my friends and their kids, I think to myself how I really, REALLY need to do it more often because it’s basically awesome.
Saturday 8/4 – We made the 2.5-hour drive up to Twin Falls to see our nephew’s baptism and spent the next few hours after the ordinance at my brother- and sister-in-law’s house, where Raven got her fill of cousins and we got our fill of delicious crepes and family time.
Sunday 8/5 – The rarest of Sunday miracles occurred and we ALL got an afternoon nap after church. Hooray for not feeling like a zombie for one evening!
Monday 8/6 – I started Week One (the Beginner level) of Kayla Itsines’s BBG 1.0 on this day, and it kicked my butt. I was sore for DAYS afterwards! We also took the kids to the McDonald’s just down the street from us for Family Night, where we got ice cream cones (for Matt and me) and cookies (for Raven) and attempted to have an adult conversation while Raven played on the PlayPlace, though that plan was foiled by the bottle of milk I’d pumped spilling all over the baby and him fussing most of the time. #lifewithkids
Tuesday 8/7 – I had my 7-week follow-up postpartum visit with my doctor and learned that all is well and that I don’t have diastasis recti at all (or if I did, I don’t anymore, thanks to the exercises I did for a few weeks after delivery). This was great news, as I had, ahem, already started exercising again and had gone ahead and jumped into doing the whole BBG strength training program and everything. (Phew!)
Wednesday 8/8 – In my efforts to get back as much as possible to the good routine we had going before Mathias’s arrival, I’ve been planning out our morning excursions so that I always have at least some idea what we’re going to do each day (since I know Raven will undoubtedly ask me first thing every morning). On this day, we went to the library as I’d planned, but it ended up being somewhat of a bust—for some reason, Raven wasn’t all that interested in staying long like she normally is, so we ended up leaving after about 15 minutes. Considering it takes us around 30-40 minutes to be able to go anywhere it seems, it can be a little frustrating when it seems to be all for nothing.
Thursday 8/9 – A pretty normal weekday–we went to Walmart really quick to pick up a few things and then I went to my Refit aerobics class that night.
Friday 8/10 – The baby was super duper fussy this day, so I was even more excited than usual for Matt to get home from work and enjoy our traditional Friday night grill out in the backyard (which he mercifully calmed down for).
Saturday 8/11 – I had a photo shoot with my niece in the early afternoon (some portraits of her in her baptism dress, as she’s getting baptized in a couple weeks), followed up with time spent with Matt’s parents. As his mom had planned a make-your-own-pizza party for that night, we decided to alter our original plan for the evening and leave Raven with them so she could spend the extra time with cousins, and we took the baby over to my parents’ house (as we originally had planned) so we could head out on a little date night to Texas Roadhouse to use up the gift card we’d won a few weeks back.
Sunday 8/12 – My mom and stepdad had their monthly family get-together, and we enjoyed ribs and conversations about investing and workouts and upcoming plans while I enjoyed being able to eat with both hands (plenty of people wanting to hold the baby!) and Raven enjoyed lots of time with cousins (though mostly inside, because it was HOT HOT HOT).
Monday 8/13 – The kids and I met up with a friend and her daughter (one of Raven’s closest little friends) at the park right by our house in the morning and enjoyed the overcast weather and the chance to catch up while our daughters played happily together. Later, in his evening garden walk/watering plants ritual, Matt picked four cucumbers that seemingly had come on the vine overnight and also had saved the two biggest blackberries from our bush that he could find for me. It’s produce time, baby!
Tuesday 8/14 – I took the two kids over to a friend’s house, who had her baby just a few weeks after I had Mathias. Sometimes it is just so great to be able to talk to someone who’s basically in the exact same boat you are as far as the whole newborn fog thing goes–you can both talk about poopy diapers and sleep schedules and postpartum issues to your heart’s content, without having to worry about the other person getting bored, ha ha.
Wednesday 8/15 – I was so excited to finally be attending my monthly book club meeting again (I had taken a few months off because of the new baby), and we discussed one of my very favorite YA books of all time, Speak. These book club meetings are seriously a highlight of my month! I love getting the chance to get to know a lot of my neighbors better AND discuss great reads (oh, and apparently everyone around here is a fabulous cook too, which doesn’t hurt!).
Thursday 8/16 – Because I had to do my Wednesday BBG workout on this day instead (having literally had no opportunity thanks to two needy children and a full evening the day before), I skipped out on going to my usual Refit class this night and enjoyed a night of watching some Chuck and reading at home. Much needed!
Friday 8/17 – I wrote an Instagram post about how tough this day was going (I cried multiple times throughout it, which is not like me at all) before it turned around thanks to a good reading session, where I was glad that I had the right book at the right time. After that, my day pretty much turned around and I was able to enjoy the rest of the day spent doing our usual Friday grill night and then relaxing after with Matt.
Saturday 8/18 – My mom and stepdad came up all day to install the new-to-us dishwasher left over from them doing their kitchen remodel (we got their old Bosch dishwasher which works WAY better than the one that came with our house), help us with some house organization and yardwork, and enjoy a quick meal at KFC together before they had to head back. We love it when family comes to visit!
Sunday 8/19 – We had our monthly get together with the Owens and Andrew, where we celebrated Rob’s birthday with homemade ice cream (courtesy of Andrew) that expanded my flavor palate (as it was flavored with goat cheese and black cherries, which surprisingly worked) and a scrumptious Thai dish as our main. We only left (after almost 4 hours!) when the baby started to fuss and when it was clear the kids were definitely past their bedtime, ha ha.
Monday 8/20 – The weather was perfect for going to the park, so I took both kids over there for about an hour and a half. It’s not often that a morning goes basically perfectly anymore (with no tantrums or fussiness and where I’m not horribly sleep deprived), but on this day, we had pretty much a perfect morning—Raven found a fun new friend at the park (while I made a new friend with the mom), and Raven was ecstatic that I could really play with her again (since I’m no longer hugely pregnant or very recently postpartum). A good day!
Tuesday 8/21 – This day turned out super busy, though I hadn’t known it would be when I got up that morning. We went over to Raven’s preschool open house in the morning so she could meet her teacher and so we could get acquainted with the set-up and such, and since the morning was overcast and lovely again, we planned to go on a walk once we got home. On our walk, we ran into my friend and her daughter (Raven’s friend) who were on their way to the park, so we decided to join them on the spur of the moment. Turns out, half the neighborhood had the same idea since there were tons of mine and Raven’s friends there, which made it a lot of fun. Later that day, our friends (the Owens) came over so I could try to help Rob out with a technical photography issue, and we ended up inviting them to eat dinner with us. Basically it was a pretty awesome day with lots of interaction with some of our favorite people, which we always love! (And the spontaneously-inviting-people-for-dinner has only happened a few times to us, but every time it has, I seriously think I should do it all the time because I love it so much.
Wednesday 8/22 – We met Matt at the local garden store after work for their end-of-season sale and picked up five gallon-size perennials for dirt cheap (just $18 for all of them!). I’m so excited to see our garden progress and grow over the next several years!
Thursday 8/23 – An annoying potty incident first thing in the morning prompted me to begin trying to help Raven to be nap and night-trained in earnest. (Spoiler: it does not seem to be working quite as well as we’d originally envisioned…)
Friday 8/24 – Raven’s first day of preschool! I only cried a few tears when I drove away, but she loved every minute and has asked most days since if it’s a day that she gets to go back to preschool again. To celebrate her big milestone, we did a totally spur-of-the-moment trip through the drive-thru at McDonald’s and picked up a happy meal for her and a couple burgers and then went and surprised Daddy at work. The four of us went to a shady, grassy area nearby his workplace and enjoyed a spontaneous little picnic for 20 minutes together. Raven loved not having to wait to tell Daddy all about her day (and she loved the Happy Meal, obviously), and I loved the special kind of fun that only comes from doing something totally spontaneous, which I don’t do nearly often enough.
Saturday 8/25 – Matt got an opportunity to work the day for his former employer at the university, where he helped administer the SAT, so our Saturday looked a lot more like a weekday except that Matt got home from work around 2:00 instead of 5. We did go to the park as a family after dinner though to enjoy the perfect, fall-like weather we’ve been graced with recently.
Sunday 8/26 – One of those increasingly-rare afternoons when both children (and, in this case, Matt too) slept for quite a long time in the afternoon, and I had about 3 blissfully quiet hours to myself.
Monday 8/27 – We attempted the library again, as our books from the last not-so-great trip were due back, and I was pleased that we seemed to be back in the pleasant zone when it came to library visits.
Tuesday 8/28 – Raven had her second day of preschool (she goes on Tuesdays and Fridays) and started learning concrete things like the letters of the alphabet that I could start quizzing her on at home. (Note: I have tried repeatedly to help her do things like learn to write her name or learn her letters before this point, but whenever I’VE tried, she insists she already knows it and doesn’t listen to a word I say. Thank goodness she seems to be listening well at preschool, as it was obvious I wasn’t going to get too far with her in that regard…)
Wednesday 8/29 – I went into my doctor’s office at the spur of the moment after I’d called with some postpartum concerns. There they ran an ultrasound that showed I still had placental material left in my uterus, which required that we wait to hear from the hospital to book the first open slot for a D&C procedure.
Thursday 8/30 – We ended up going out to eat at our favorite local diner (Angie’s) so I could get a big meal in before I had to start fasting for my procedure the next afternoon, which meant that we got home way later than planned (and which meant I accidentally missed my exercise class).
Friday 8/31 – My doctor was able to get a last-minute slot in order to do the D&C procedure on this day, so luckily my mom and stepdad could come up to watch the kids (and a neighbor could come over until they got here) so I could get that done. At least this time, I didn’t think I was absolutely hilarious under the anesthesia and say all sorts of “super witty” things. (I also didn’t cry and have a minor meltdown, like I did when I was under anesthesia for the colonoscopy I had to do several years back.) Progress. (Oh, and they told me that I wouldn’t remember anything for a few hours after, but I remember everything from when the doctor first came in after the surgery to talk to me up until everything that night. So….there. Take that, anesthesia.)
Kind of an up and down month, but I’m kind of getting the sense that life with a toddler and a newborn is going to be like that for awhile!
