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!