Day in a Life - December 2018

Time for another Day in a Life! I always do this on a Monday, but I can't honestly say this is a typical Monday. At least by the afternoon. You'll see.

Important things to know: we live in Minnesota, the kids are now 6 (John), 4 (Therese), and 14 months (Felicity). we're homeschooling the 1st grader and preschooler, I am home with them during the day and pursue theater by night. Pursue in the "audition", not necessarily "doing", sense. 

Here we go!

6:30 - Wake up, take temp

7:00 - The baby is still asleep, so I have coffee and read the paper while the big kids have breakfast

7:15 - Matt leaves for work. Biking to work made more pleasant by our freakishly warm December (for Minnesota).

7:30 - I assume the baby must be awake by now, just really quiet, but she's STILL ASLEEP. Big kids are not quiet coming upstairs to get dressed, so I grab the groggy baby and bring her downstairs to eat.

8:00 - Bring Felicity back upstairs for changing. The big kids are playing in the day nursery now, so I set the baby free after she's dressed to go join them. I get myself dressed and start morning prayer time.

8:15 - Baby comes to find me. I bring her downstairs to do morning chores with me.

8:30 - Load of laundry started and air drying dishes from last night put away. I let the baby play in the library so I can put away the diapers that I washed yesterday. Tell the big kids I'm setting a timer for five minutes and they have to beat the clock to clean up.

8:40 - I've unwrapped John's new twin size IKEA mattress (finally graduating from his toddler mattress!) and put away diapers. The kids have generally controlled the toy crazy and fixed their blankets, so I'll call it good.

8:45 - Give Felicity her milk, then change her and put her down for morning nap. She doesn't always sleep in the morning, but her hypermobility means she tires out a lot faster than most kids - so a morning rest is typically still needed.

9:00 - Put on Magic School Bus for the big kids so I can do my weekly planning. I'm wrapping up a big audition weekend with a final audition tonight, so I didn't get around to any planning over the weekend.

The best part of a roll top desk is I don't have to see my papers when I'm not working on something!

9:30 - Switch laundry to dryer.

9:35 - Remembered this is an Ember Week (thanks planning time!) Post to Facebook about it just in case anyone else forgot about it in the pre-Christmas busy.

9:40 - Also see I have an Everyday Ediths post due later this week on the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Decide to get started on that by looking up what those are...

9:45 - School boxes are down and we hit the books! I printed out syllabi to the end of the semester last week and told the kids they can work as fast as they want to the finish, as long as they do it well. John is one lesson away from being done with math. Therese really finished her semester a while ago, but I haven't told her that. She LOVES school.

9:50 - Kids are going well on school. Time to get the baby up and changed before her physical therapist arrives.

10:00 - Felicity's PT is here! She is doing once a week in-home therapy visits through a school district program. Minnesota is amazing.

10:20 - Attempt at keeping kids going on school while the therapist is here is not going well. Send kids upstairs to play.

10:30 - Big kids still rowdy. They get bundled up and sent outside to play.

11:00 - Therapy over! Kids come back in and I get lunch going. Mac and Cheese Shells + steamed carrots for the kids and salad for me. I have a moment, so I pre-fill the pasta pot with water and put the lid on it for dinner prep.

11:20 - Lunch is served.

11:35 - Everyone is mostly done eating. Read aloud time!

Current read aloud. Not as beloved as All-of-a-Kind Family for us.

11:45 - Felicity is not content to play on the floor or sit on the couch with us anymore. I go put her down for nap a little early. She's normally more tired on therapy days.

Reading couch selfie!

11:50 - Back downstairs. Reading time resumes.

Therese insisted I include this one.

12:04 - Finished our chapter. Time for Therese to go for nap and for John to finish his math speed drills.

12:10 - Therese is in bed (No tears or drama! Miracle!) I get John going again while I start the kitchen clean up. I had set some herbal tea to seep during lunch, so I strain that and sip on it while I work.

12:22 - Dishwasher unloaded. John almost done.

12:30 - Dishwasher re-loaded and John is on his last drill. I love having the school table in the kitchen!

12:35 - Getting ready for Phonics time. Put the kettle on for tea.

1:00 - Successful completion of a Phonics lesson earns him an episode of Star Wars Clone Wars. Our deal is one lesson for one episode. I heard Therese moving around upstairs during the lesson so I listen for her while I bring up the clean laundry and start folding.

Star Wars is serious business here.

1:07 - As suspected, Therese was up and roving. Remind her of our plans to go to the Y after nap. Laundry is folded so I head back downstairs after re-tucking her into bed.

1:10 - Tea time! I'm reading A Secular Age right now. Very slowly. It's a tome.

1:16 - My finger joints have just about had it with me so I put a heat pack on those while I read. #selfcare

1:57 - John is putting his math skills to use counting down the exact minutes until 2:00. 2pm is when snack is a possibility and quiet time is no longer enforced in our house. Hopefully the girls will be up in not too long so we can make moves toward the Y.

2:00 - John joyfully gets a snack (pretzels). Duolingo time for me! I'm on the French course. My speaking is still weak, but my reading is greatly improved.

2:08 - Therese is up! She join in the pretzel snack.

2:20 - Felicity is up! Heard her babbling. She wakes up full of thoughts. I get her changed and start packing for the Y.

2:25 - Send John out to get the mail.

2:30 - Out the door!

2:35 - Kids are all buckled in the car and... I can't find my phone. I consider going without it, but decide that might be tempting fate.

2:45 - After searching the house twice, and the car once, I finally find my phone hidden on the side of my desk. NOW we're off.

2:47 - Realize I should probably get gas now so I'm ready to head straight to my audition after dinner. There's a station on the way so this should be a quick stop.

2:50 - For some reason all the other cars have pulled into the first pumps, and effectively blocked all the others. I have to go around and do a parallel parking maneuver into the one slot I can find.

2:52 - The pump is defective. It keeps switching off every 1/2 - 1 gallon. Even though I know the tank is almost empty. I close out and restart only to remember that the discount I had was used up in the faulty transaction.

2:55 - I call it quits and decide to fight this fight another day. I have antsy kids in the car and I really want to get a workout and some stretching in today.

3:10 - At the Y. My kids have the Kids Spot all to themselves. They're making construction paper mosaic gingerbread men today. Therese is thrilled.

3:15 - Finally getting to my workout!

When I got on here and pushed "go" it set my time goal to an hour. I laughed and reminded the machine of who was using it.

3:50 - Not as long of a workout as I would have liked, but I need to get home and start dinner.

3:55 - I go to pick up the kids and they don't want to leave. I swear they love me.

4:15 - Home! I turn on the burner for the ready to go pasta pot. Pat myself on the back for remembering that afternoon Kirby is much less put together than morning Kirby. Dinner plan is open ended pasta something, so we'll see what I create!

4:30 - Water is close to boiling. I settle on making a beefed up pasta sauce with rigatoni noodles. I use up leftover taco meat and frozen broccoli, plus a diced onion, garlic, and a few spices to jazz up my jarred pasta sauce.

4:45 - Matt's home! The baby insists he drop everything to hold her. Daddy's girl is a real thing.

Then I stopped taking notes because things started to go sideways. Here's the gist.

Felicity wants to eat the pasta, but only if Daddy feeds her. 

John loves the pasta, but Therese has sudden, overwhelming, existential angst about: using a fork, eating a bite, knowing which bite to eat, sitting, and how anyone looks at her. D R A M A ensues.

After much cajoling, yelling, time outs, hugs, and re-starts Therese finally eats dinner about an hour after we started.

But I feel nauseous. Really nauseous. That taco meat better not have been bad. I do the math and conclude there is no reason to think it would be rancid. It smelled fine and was only a few days old. Images of being up at 2am with vomiting kids fill my head anyway.

Matt has put on Lord of the Rings for the big kids while he finishes cleaning up. He is hosting a book group at our house tonight, so it needs to happen. At least we succeeded in keeping most messes contained this afternoon (yet another reason I love going to the Y.)

I've started sipping ginger ale, but have to conclude that tonight's audition is looking ill advised.

Matt tells me to go rest and that he's got it. I know he really does got it, but I still feel totally crappy about this whole evening. I put myself in bed with a Harry Potter book and try to distract myself from the nausea. 

Matt gets the baby bathed and put down, gets the bigs to bed, and tells me to feel better on his way back downstairs to play host. He's kind of amazing.

I finally start feeling better about 8:30, but the auditions end at 9:00 and it's unlikely I could make it there in time. I console myself by remembering that Anne Frank isn't really a show where I'm likely to get cast in a strong role anyway. It's fine. I'm fine. 

I scroll through Netflix trying to find a feel better distraction show, but come up short.

An unknown Minneapolis number calls me. I let it go to voicemail assuming it's some medical appointment reminder call. Whoever it was left a voicemail, so I check it real fast. 

It's from the director who I auditioned for on Saturday.
She wants to talk about my audition.
There is zero reason for a director to personally call an actor unless there is casting news. I try and call her back immediately, but get sent straight to voicemail.

I remind myself she has a whole cast to call, if that's what she's doing, so I should give it a few minutes.

I give it exactly three minutes and I call her again.

She wants to offer me a role.
Not a callback. A role. Even the role I wanted!
I accept the offer and try to sound cool, happy, and calm all at the same time. I probably failed, but whatever, first impression time is over anyway.

I roll out of bed and walk into the living room filled with the new book group people. I think for five seconds I might be able to tell Matt quietly about the news without interrupting the meeting, but it's clearly at the tail end of things and everyone is doing the polite Minnesota thing of trying to include the new person who just walked in.
So I announce it to everybody! Varying levels of excitement, confusion, and congratulations float up from the mostly male crowd. About what I expected. I go hang out in the library with the one female attendee plus baby.

After the book group leaves, Matt and I powwow what this casting means for family logistics. Mostly ok. Figuring out how to get John to Catechism classes on Wednesday nights is the biggest hurtle, but we'll figure something out.

For now I'm just so grateful to have a bone. Getting callbacks is a nice reassurance that I'm not just completely un-talented, but, over a year into being serious about auditioning in the Twin Cities, it's soooooo much better to have an honest to goodness show to put on the resume.

Got to bed sometime around 11pm. 

I tried to pick a normal day, y'all. God laughed at me.

Previous Day in a Life posts:

January 2018

December 2016

April 2016