Firsts

Motherhood has become a blur of kissing skinned knees, filling bubble baths, and snuggling little sweethearts. I spend my days cleaning up more than my fair share of bodily fluids and getting just the right number of baby kisses to counteract the madness. I run next to maniacal two year olds on trikes (who usually request the baby be put on back as a passenger.) I sing songs and clean up streaks of paint. I step on toys and tuck kids in bed (repeatedly.) It is an ongoing influx of joy, frustration, disgust, and laughter. I'm finding every day of motherhood to be humbling, overwhelming, hilarious, and fun.

On Sunday, New Fish got her first tooth. She is working on#2. She has been up on her hands and knees today trying to crawl and pulling herself into a standing position. Too many firsts for this mama! I want to slow time down and keep her little. Life just seems to pick up speed every time I wake up.

Playtime

Don't worry. I hold on to New Fish when they get to really moving.

Our Life- The Musical

Two Fish's Mom made Red Fish a book and CD of songs and finger plays for Christmas. We pretty much use it every day. We have a few instruments (but we could use a lot more) and we are adding to our favorite CD collection. We also spend a lot of time playing our piano and lately Red Fish has been requesting some violin every day. She loves to dance around me while I play and it is good for all of us.

Collage

Red Fish has been making a lot of collages with contact paper or glue sticks. We especially like using the Anthropologie catalog because it offers plenty of colors and textures.

Bummer

(Yes she is asleep.)

I'm officially bummed. It has been a rotten week for the most part. Tonight, we missed our last play because there was no parking. After driving around forever we gave up and came home. Boo. Here is hoping next week is better.

- Then I was up all night with food poisoning from my favorite restaurant. That's what I get for complaining!

Oh What A Life

Art Update

More Salty Watercolors. This is one of my favorite projects. I love the way they turn out.
















A print made from corrugated cardboard, the same way we made the bubble wrap prints. This time it made a striped pattern instead of dots.

Foam shapes, feathers, felt, yarn, seaquins, popsicle sticks, paper, paint, & pom poms glued onto an old piece of foam core I had used for a presentation.This is what New Fish does while we are making art in the backyard.

Playtime

House full of babies. Seeing these two kissing and squeezing their baby dolls makes me feel like I must be doing something right! They know babies should get a lot of kisses.

Family band

Family zoo

International Attire

Outfit from Mexico city. It was actually mine as a baby. My parents played in an orchestra in Mexico City until shortly before I was born.

Shoes from Paris

Shoes from Spain

Chinese dress

Saturday

Clean car. Strawberries. Two hour walk outside. Fresh cut grass. Backyard BBQ and picnic. Bubblebath.

Another Little Sister For Me!

Brother M asked his girlfriend E to marry him!

Here is a picture of the day they met. They met at my brother J's wedding. She caught the bouquet and Brother M caught the garter. I guess it was fate. Pretty funny.

A Typical Schedule

I couldn't keep track of an entire week at once so the days are from different weeks but are fairly typical. No sick days, doctor's visits, dive classes or random emergencies are included. I don't include every diaper change, every bottle, every mess because I can't keep track of all of that. I just wrote the ones that stood out for some reason. I also make a lot of phone calls to my family that I don't keep track of. This is probably only interesting to me but I wanted to keep track of what I do in a day because they all seem to blur together a lot of the time and I want to remember what life was like at this stage.

Monday
12:30 am Feed New Fish a bottle and change her diaper.
5:30 am Feed New Fish a bottle. Put her back in bed
7:00 am Red Fish is up for the day. Two Fish gets up with her while I pretend I'm going to get more sleep. Red Fish pokes me for awhile.
8:00 am Shower,dress and sort laundry
8:30 am Prepare Art Project and acitivities for the day while Red Fish eats.
8:45 am Breakfast while Two Fish feeds New Fish
8:55 am Put in load of laundry
9:00 am find shoes while Two Fish leaves, morning dishes
9:15-1:45 pm Work while girls do activities, play, and eat lunch
2:00 pm Go to bank and post office
2:15 pm laundry and get snack for girls
2:30 pm Girls go down for nap time. Red Fish sleeps for almost Two Hours and New Fish for one if I'm lucky.
2:45-4:15 pm Laundry, Answer email, Feed New Fish, Get some lunch for myself, blog, return phone calls, and make a to do list of work projects. Send out a few invoices.
4:15 pm Girls awake and we play for awhile and do speech exercises.
5:00 pm Make dinner while Red Fish plays with playdough and New Fish plays in her exersaucer.
5:40 pm Red Fish starts watching out the windows for Daddy. Laundry.
6:00 pm Two Fish gets home and we eat.
7:00 pm Try and feed New Fish solids. Feed her a bottle.
7:30 pm Family Home Evening. laundry.
7:50 pm Play piano with Red Fish
8:00 pm Start the bedtime routines
8:30 pm Make shopping list and menu plan
9:00 pm Grocery shopping
9:45 pm Put groceries away and pick up main floor.
10:30 pm Get Ready for bed
10:50 pm Read scriptures and books.
11:30 pm Turn off the lights and go to sleep for 30-45 minutes.

Tuesday
12:30 am Feed New Fish and change her diaper
4:00 am Go in to comfort the teething two year old. (Darn those molars!)
6:30 am New Fish is awake. Two Fish feeds her
7:30 am Red Fish is awake. They both get in bed with me. We watch Little Einsteins and pretend Mommy is sleeping.
9:00 Feed New Fish, blog, and facebook (all in bed.)
9:45 Shower and dress myself and Red Fish
10:00 Blow out. Bathe New Fish and change her clothes.
10:20 Art project
11:15 Speech Therapy
12:00 lunch
12:30 Sing and dance to a new toddler CD.
1:00 Blow Out. Bathe New Fish and change her clothes. Put yucky clothes in washer.
2:00 Naptime. Red Fish decides to sleep in the playpen in my room and New Fish in the swing for a bit.
Design a poster and CD menu.
4:00 Blow Out. Bathe New Fish and change her clothes. I'm really rethinking the pears from the night before.
5:00pm Start making dinner while the girls play with the toy dishes and Red Fish pretends to cook her own dinner.
5:40 Red Fish starts watching for Daddy.
5:45 Feed New Fish a bottle.
6:00 Try to feed New Fish solids and Two Fish comes home.
6:15 dinner
7:00 Vaccum and pick up carpeted areas of the main floor (I'm off schedule because I didn't finish all the laundry on Monday.) I carried New Fish around in the moby wrap.
7:30 Play ball with the family in a circle and do some blocks.
8:00 Bedtime stories and routine
9:00 Finish putting away the laundry and clean my room and closet. Set a bag of old clothes on the porch for a donation pickup.
10:30 Read my book
11:30 Try to sleep while Two Fish finishes reading his book for work.

Wednesday
1:00 am Feed New Fish
5:00 am Feed New Fish and change wet pajamas
7:15 Red Fish is awake. Two Fish goes in to get her.
8:00 am shower and have a little two year old jump in halfway through. Dress and eat breakfast. Prepare art project and music activity. Vacuum my bedroom.
9:00-2:00 Work for five hours designing CD covers and a postcard. Take dog (yes he goes to the office with me.) out for training exercises.
2:00 play with the girls and read a couple books.
2:30 put Red Fish down for a nap. Feed New Fish a bottle and get myself some food.
3:00 New Fish goes down for a nap. I take the dog out front for training.
3:30 Do some work and answer email.
4:00 New Fish wakes up. I hold her and play with her and make her laugh. It's a blast.
4:30 New Fish plays on a blanket with some toys while I clean two bathrooms.
5:00 Red Fish is awake. She has me play the violin for her (her latest obsession.) I play for half an hour for the girls and then we sing songs.
6:00 Two Fish comes home plays with New Fish and heats up the leftovers while Red Fish and I take the dog for a walk and training exercises (I'm trying to retrain the dog right now.) We have several discussions about how dogs "wee wee outside" but people "wee wee in the potty." We step on crunchy leaves and sing a song about a tumble weed because we saw one blowing across the road. We discuss the size of every rock on our path. Red Fish dances, skips, hops and leaps down the sidewalk and demands that I copy her. I can't believe what a big girl she is getting to be.
6:30 Dinner
7:00 Speech practice and some family time in the toy room.
8:00 Stories and bedtime routine. Feed New Fish a bottle.
9:00 Blog and download some pictures. Do the dishes.
10:00 Both girls are up. Put them back to bed again.
10:15 Read book and scriptures.

Thursday
4:30 am Feed New Fish and try and coax her back to bed.
7:15 Two Fish gets up with Red Fish
8:00 Feed New Fish, answer emails and read some blogs.
9:00 put Red Fish in the tub. Take Red Fish out of tub (because she pooped- gross! She never does that!) and stick her in the shower while I clean the tub.
10:00 Clean up the mixture of baby formula and hand soap that Red Fish painted the kitchen floor with when she was "cleaning" while I was using the bathroom.
10:30 Shower while the girls watch Little Einsteins together in my room.
11:30 Gammie picks up Red Fish for a playdate and lunch with her friend Sophie. I spend 30 minutes searching for the contents of my wallet and still can't find my ATM card. New Fish and I head to Costco (with my checkbook.) New Fish loves shopping.
1:00 Put New Fish down for a nap and put away Costco stuff.
1:15 Do a quick project on my computer.
2:15 Red Fish comes home and I carry her up to bed and try and help my Mom clean up some of the mess in the back of her car.
2:40 Get back to my project.
3:30 Spend 45 minutes playing with New Fish and making her laugh because she is too darn cute.
4:15 Clean kitchen (except for mopping because Red Fish pulled my mop apart to see how it worked and I can't fix it.)
5:00 Walk the dog with the girls in the double stroller and do training exercises.
5:40 make dinner.
6:15 We eat and feed everyone
7:00 Two Fish gives the girls another bath while I pick up the house and vacuum.
7:30 Put New Fish to bed and Red Fish reads stories with Two Fish.
8:00 Watch Project Runway on TV and work on emails and billing.
9:00 Read my book and scriptures.
10:00 Watch Lost with Two Fish on DVR.
11:00 Go to bed.
11:45 New Fish wakes up and wants a bottle.

Friday
4:00am Feed New Fish a bottle.
5:30 New Fish is awake. I take her to bed and try to convince her we both need more sleep.
6:15 Red Fish is awake. I go back to her bed while Two Fish keeps New Fish.
7:00 We give up and get out breakfast.
8:00 Shower and dress myself
8:45 Get out the ingredients to make a batch of playdough.
9:00 Two Fish leaves for work
9:15-1:45 work designing 4 CDs and a brochure. Take dog out in the rain for training exercises.
2:30 Put girls down for naps.
2:45 New Fish refuses to nap so we play with some toys.
3:45 Red Fish wakes up and we play a new kids CD and draw pictures.
4:30 We play the piano for awhile and go up to the playroom.
4:45 I vaccum up a shredded (luckily only wet) diaper that the dog got and I go back up to play.
5:15 Clean the bathrooms and start picking up the house.
6:00 Two Fish comes home and we eat leftovers and grilled cheese sandwiches.
6:30 Attempt to get more food into New Fish. Tired babies do not like to eat.
6:45 New Fish falls asleep in the middle of the floor for 15 minutes. We play with Red Fish and try to do some speech exercises.
7:30 Read books to New Fish and rock her to sleep.
8:00 Two Fish is reading stories and putting Red Fish to bed so I finish up some design projects.
9:00 Facebook and blog.
9:15 Two Fish and I catch up on Lost episodes on the DVR.
19:00 Put a wandering Red Fish back in bed.
11:00 Feed New Fish a bottle.
11:20 Red Scriptures and go to bed.

Saturday
is always too random to even write down. We catch up on chores and try to cram something fun in.

Sunday- I know it is technically the beginning of the week but I just don't see it that way.
6:30am Feed New Fish a bottle
7:45 Red Fish is awake.
8:00 Shower and dress everyone. Pack diaper bag with snacks and toys.
8:45 Try and force everyone to take a family picture because they are wearing new clothes.
9:00 Sacrament meeting- We mainly concentrate on not making a spectacle of ourselves.
10:15 Sunday School- I get called out to change Red Fish and lose my seat. I end up standing in the hall for 40 minutes listening to the lesson.
11:00 Relief Society- Try to keep from laughing at an overly happy New Fish and hope she isn't disturbing the whole meeting. I always figure happy sounds are WAY better than screaming right?
12:15 Home. Lunch.
1:00 Both girls take a nap.
3:00 Red Fish and I bake cupcakes.
3:30 Family walk with dog.
4:00 Frost cupcakes. We run out of frosting halfway through.
4:30 Go to family dinner at my Mom's house. Red Fish puts on a show of acrobatics.
7:30 Home. I am rocking both girls in the rocking chair when Blue Fish comes in and pukes 5 times all over the floor.
8:00 I read the girls stories in Red Fish's room while Two Fish (horray!) cleans the carpet.
9:15 New Fish finally goes to bed.
9:30 Red Fish pops out of bed for the 3rd time.
10:00 Spend some time actually talking to my husband.
11:00 Feed New Fish a bottle (yes she wakes up at almost the exact same time every night.) Read scriptures and go to bed.