Yes, I am staying at home this summer, quite unemployed, and taking care of our 3½ year-old daughter and 4 month old, 18½ lb son. (He’s huge… a virtual planetoid!) Every once in a while, you can see me pushing him in the stroller and her riding on my shoulders as we marvel at the roaring lions, bathing tigers, and bamboo munching pandas.
Our moving schedule is:
- Close on the sell of our house Tuesday, 29th.
- Movers show up to load the truck Wednesday, 30th.
- Close on the purchase of our new house Thursday, 31st.
- Leave after closing for Lexington.
- Sometime between the 1st and the 4th of August our stuff (which consist mainly of toys for children under 4, pots and pans, bookshelves, 3 armoires, and 1,200+ books) will show up in Lexington.
For the past two weeks this has been my schedule:
| 7:30 | wake up as wife leaves for work (either because she wakes me to fix the girl’s breakfast or change the son’s diaper or because the daughter, climbing on me, kicks me in the groin) |
| 8:05 | tell the daughter that she can watch T.V. at 9, when Sesame Street comes on |
| 8:10 | get on-line, check mail, get knocked off because our new laptop doesn’t like our old wireless system… tell the daughter, in response to is it time for t.v. yet that she must check the clock to see the long hand is on the 12 |
| 8:40–9:30 | put the boy down for his nap, depending on when he woke up. This consists of reading a book, singing a song, and telling the girl that she must be quiet. |
| 8:10–4:55 | read to the girl, if I’m not doing any of the above mentioned activities. |
| 9:00 | read articles that have nothing to do with the two articles I’m supposed to be writing, while Elmo busies himself about his world. |
| 9:40 | stuff the passy back in the boy’s mouth and hope he sleeps another hour |
| 9:45 | pack |
| 9:50 | stuff the passy back in the boy’s mouth and curse |
| 10:00 | rearrange boxes so that there is room in our 1,100 ft2 house for more packed boxes |
| 10:15 | climb into the attic to pack |
| 10:20 | climb down to stuff passy in boy’s mouth and climb back up |
| 10:30 | remember that the daughter is still watching TV and tell her that it is time to turn it off, though that means that no packing will get done, a boy will be woken up, and a general mess will be made that will then have to be picked up |
| 10:45 | feed the boy |
| 11:20 | curse that I have not gone to the store to buy honey to make bread for our lunch (did that finally last night and baked the bread) |
| 11:30 | go to the store, or to credit union to close our account to have money to buy our house, or to the office to get the last of my journals (wondering if I should just throw the journals away since I’m already taking 1,200+ books to L-town) |
| 12:00 | curse because I am hungry and the girl is hungry and whining and the boy is crying because he’s getting close to the end of his awake time |
| 12:10 | feed the girl whatever |
| 12:45 | put the boy down and hope that he sleeps well past his 3 hour feeding window |
| 1:00 | send the girl, who gave up napping when her brother was born, to her room for quiet time |
| 1:05 | get back online and get knocked off |
| 1:30 | tell the girl that it is not time to get out of quiet time |
| 1:35 | see above |
| 1:40 | see above |
| 1:50 | let the girl know that there are 10 more minutes until quiet time is over |
| 2:00 | spend 30 minutes with the girl cleaning up the mess she’s made |
| 2:40 | feed boy |
| 3:00 | tell the girl that she has already watched too much TV today |
| 3:05 | read to the girl and boy |
| 3:20 | let girl play with play dough, paint, make bead necklaces, or color with crayons |
| 4:15 | rough house with girl and boy before putting boy down for third nap |
| 4:20 | look through pantry to see what will be prepared… curse because there is one half-rotten onion, three shriveled potatoes, one 4-year-old bag of split peas and little else |
| 5:30 | hope the wife is leaving the job |
| 5:50 | get a call from the wife who is just now leaving the job |
| 5:55 | curse because I am exhausted and still have to finish cooking, feed the boy and tell the girl, who is now doing back-flips off of the couch and/or love-smacking her brother and/or screaming that she loves him into his ear, to stop whatever she is doing. |
| 6:00 | let girl into backyard, put boy in chair in kitchen, and cook |
| 6:45 | grumble at wife who walks in the door |
| 7:00 | eat in living room because dining room table is a wreck |
| 7:30 | begin cleaning of kitchen |
| 7:40 | help put daughter down |
| 8:00 | watch trash TV and hate self because the books poetry that were to be read this summer sit in a pile, still holding out against packing them as I unrealistically hope to find time to read and write |
| 10:00 | finish cleaning kitchen |
| 11:45 | take daughter to bathroom so she won’t wet the bed in the night |
| 12:00 | try to stay up to read poetry or the novel that hasn’t been read in 3 weeks |
| 12:15 | go to bed |
| 12:20 | get up because I’m too wound up about move and how little packing has been done |
| 12:30 | pack some |
| 12:40 | watch Charlie Rose or Craig Ferguson |
| 1:30 | go to bed |
WOW..My head’s still spinning from reading that post.
by kl—Jul 24, 06:55 PM
And she read it three hours ago!
by greg—Jul 24, 06:55 PM
thanks to G for the formatting…
some days 11:45 loo call is too late, alas.
back to packing…
by Jeremy—Jul 24, 10:23 PM
In truth, I’d read it 3 seconds before; but truly, I feel for all of you juggling your busy lives. I lie around scratching my belly most of time (while watching G vacuum the carpet), so I can’t really relate.
by kl—Jul 25, 10:32 AM
scratching my
bellyass most of timeFixed!
by greg—Jul 25, 10:38 AM
so, i see you had formatted it before i posted it and undid all you’d done… you’ve got a lot of time on your hand.
by Jeremy—Jul 25, 10:55 AM
It doesn’t take long. I realized as I was doing it the first time that you probably weren’t finished and would wonder what the hell had happened—little did I know that you revise elsewhere!
by greg—Jul 25, 10:58 AM
gotta escape our own, so we are off to the zoo…
by Jeremy—Jul 25, 11:13 AM