Routine

People keep asking me how it is being back at work and how we do it?

It definitely is nuts with the three little ones and being in the middle of coaching basketball.  This means that I'm gone by 6:20am Monday and Wednesday mornings and Derrick has to do the morning thing on his own with the three kids.  Tuesdays I usually get home in time to put Jayna to bed, but I miss Mara and Davin.  Thursdays I usually don't see any of them except for a short bit in the morning.

On a typical evening, we get home at 5:00, make dinner and feed the turkeys quickly.  If they are happy, they get a short amount of time to play before we stick them in their seats for dinner.  Once they are done, they get a little bit of play time and then it's off to get ready for bed.  On bath nights, they usually go right from their booster seats to the tub for  quick bath and then get ready for bed.  We have  a system, I bathe the kids and Derrick dries and dresses them for bed.

Now comes the interesting part.  I haven't been as diligent in regards to reading stories to Mara and Davin before bed as we were with Jayna.  The main reason for this is that they don't sit during this time.  I try to make them sit on my lap, but they just end up crawling off or continuously trying to climb me as high as they can.  They also move about the room and try to empty as many drawers as they can and sometimes wresting or hitting each other is also involved during this supposedly calming time before they head to sleep.  I usually (like tonight) enjoy this time, but sometimes I just don't feel like being a jungle gym, so I don't do it.

So now it's 6:30 and it's just us and Jayna and we feel like we can now take a breath.  Since the twins were born, we've tried very hard to make sure this time is about Jayna and we get some quality time with her.  Right now she's really into colouring so we'll usually colour with her.  Sometimes we cuddle and watch a movie.  My favourite part of the night is crawling into bed with Jayna and reading her stories before she hits the sack.

It's now 7:30 and this is the time I struggle with the most.  My house is a disaster and I feel like doing absolutely nothing.  I (almost) always do the dishes and make sure I have a clean kitchen.  Most evenings I try to do one little thing to make the house look a little better than it does, but sometimes I don't.  As I've stated before, I've come to terms with the fact that my house will never be immaculate.

Most evenings, I don't get to sit and "do nothing" until 9:00-9:30, and I wonder why I don't go to sleep before 11:00.  Once again, I know that this is short lived and there will come a day when I will long for this craziness.  In the meantime, we just laugh.

So this is how we "do it" from day to day.  It's not pretty, but everyone survives to see another day!

It's been a while

I knew I hadn't written anything for a while, but I didn't realize it had been over a month.  I haven't written anything for two reasons....one, I haven't had a whole lot of time and two, I didn't really think I had anything too interesting to say.

I've been back at work since November 5th and people keep asking me how it is.  My answer is always...Crazy!  My job is definitely not one where I sit at a desk all day.  As a Phys Ed teacher, you're constantly on the go, kinda like my home life.  I'm also right in the thick of basketball season (which is actually going really well....3-0 so far and ranked 5th in the province!), so that means that two mornings a week, I'm gone just after 6 am to be at school for a 7 am practice and Derrick is on his own with the kids in the morning.  Two other days a week, I'm not home till later in the evening because of a practice or a game, which means Derrick is also on his own.  I'm so thankful to have a super supportive husband, because I couldn't do it without his support.

I remember a conversation I had with a colleague in my first year at my current school.  Derrick and I had just gotten married that summer and were in the midst of deciding whether or not to have children.  My colleague was also a basketball coach and I mentioned that one of the reasons I was considering not having children is because I wanted to coach and children would get in the way.  He proceeded to tell me that it didn't make that big of a difference and that you just work around things.  I looked at him and reminded him that he is the father and I'm the mother.  I had a pregnancy to go through as well as maternity leave and also the expectation that the mother is around most of the time.  His response, "oh, I never thought of that."

Obviously, we decided to have children and I'm glad to say that I'm still able to coach.  I have only missed one full season, last year because the twins were born right at the beginning.

Three weeks ago, Davin had a hypospadias repair surgery.  Here's a link to explain what that is...beware, there is a picture of a penis.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypospadias  I'm happy to report that he is doing well and was awesome after surgery.

Also, Christmas came and went.  What a whirlwind three days that was.  It was super fun because Jayna finally "got it".  I can't even imagine what next year is going to be like when the twins kind of understand what's going on and Jayna's even more excited.  This Christmas made me realize how much parents lie to their children.  I felt awful on many occasions, such as when I had to explain Ace (Elf on the Shelf) going away.  We had told Jayna that she would get to say goodbye to him and on Christmas Eve we got sidetracked and forgot.  Christmas morning, in the van, Jayna started talking about wanting to say goodbye to Ace.  We told her that if she said goodbye right now, he would hear her from the North Pole.  Derrick and I looked at each other with that look of feeling guilty for having to lie.  Oh well, I guess that's just part of the magic of Christmas.

Davin is a walking machine and is almost running.  He rarely crawls anymore.  Mara is walking a lot more as well and she is a master at climbing up on the couch.  Now we're just worried about her climbing other things.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and is settling into the new year.  I will hopefully be posting more often and making the time to include more pictures and videos.  I do have a few ideas for some posts.  Oh, and I can't believe that I'm going to have to change my description of my blog soon to state that I have a 3 year old :(