A Day in the Life

My friend Lauren does a day in the life photo entry just about every month. I love those entries and after reading them, I’m always so motivated to do one of my own. Well, I’ve read at least a year’s worth of her DiTL entries and it wasn’t until this past Saturday that I remembered to pick up my camera early enough to try this out.

Please be warned, this is a very photo rich entry!

7:51am and 7:52am

My day began a little over a half hour earlier than this when Mr. Serious entered our room and climbed up into bed with me. For a change, Boa was sleeping past seven and of course that has to coincide with the one day Mr. Serious wakes up before 7:30. I left Boa to sleep and took Mr. Serious into the bathroom with me where he found a barrette and promptly wanted me to put it in his hair. He needs a haircut so sweeping the hair off his ears sounded like a good idea to me and I agreed. He spent most of the rest of the day with them in his hair.

For breakfast, he requested a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and “wakkles”, which is what he calls Eggos. I usually entertain reasonable meal requests, so PB&J and Wakkles is what they got. Notice how Boa’s sandwich is already devoured and Mr. Serious’ is still mostly on his plate.

8:37am

After breakfast, someone decides it’s time to color. Boa’s getting a lot better with the crayons and really loves coloring, but he still tries to eat them from time to time.

8:50am

While looking for my copy of Understanding Exposure the other day, I found this cool preschool activity book with some cut and paste pages in it. Mr. Serious is all about the cutting and pasting lately, so he picked out a page and I helped him through the directions. He colored two balls, then cut them out and pasted one on a top step and one on a bottom step. When he was done, he ran to the refrigerator to put it up there. That’s Boa’s hand trying to pull it right back down.

8:55am and 9:08am

Boa normally doesn’t get dressed until after breakfast since otherwise, it’s a waste of clothes. He found an empty Dr. Pepper bottle and begged me to open it, then got irritated when he had trouble screwing the cap back on. When he tired of that, he toddled over to our craft closet and pulled out the Play-Doh as he’s wont to do.

9:30am – 10:00am

The weekend was beautiful, so we went outside in the morning to play. It was Mark’s morning to sleep in, but he was up and outside with us by then. I love watching them play outside and can’t wait until the weather gets warmer again and we can make full use of the backyard once more. I thought about pulling the slide from the playroom outside, but ultimately I was too lazy.

10:05am

When we went inside, the boys started playing with their Fisher Price Shake ‘n Go Xtreme Speedway they got for Christmas from my mom. I love this thing! The cars are fun, fast and easy for little hands. Even Boa has no problem shaking the car, putting it on the track and watching it race around. He applauds himself when it works. Leah likes sitting in the middle of the track watching the cars race around. Boa simply adores Leah and gives her many hugs a day.

For the next couple of hours, we likely played and watched a TV show. Yeah, I’m one of those parents that loves TV and uses it to regain sanity.

12:17pm and 12:19pm

Nearing lunch time and Boa just can’t hold on, so I give him a few pretzels. I’m pretty sure he’d eat food nonstop if we let him! I’m reheating some pizza in the oven. With my point and shoot, I took this quick video of Mr. Serious highlighting his latest very favorite number.

12:24pm

Lunch is nearly ready! It’s too hot straight out of the oven, so like with most of their foods, I put it in the fridge to cool down first. The kids really love pizza and it’s one of the only meals they’ll both consistently eat. (Spaghetti is the other meal. Everything else is completely hit or miss.)

After lunch, Boa goes down pretty quickly for his nap. Although this was just a couple of days ago, I have no recollection of where Mark was during this time. We’ve long since given up trying to get Mr. Serious down for a nap in the afternoon. He hasn’t really taken many naps since he was two and a half. At first he would get incredibly cranky in the afternoon without a nap, but now he does just fine so I don’t see a point in trying.

I rather enjoy my time with Mr. Serious when Boa is napping. It’s nice to have some time to give the kids some one-on-one attention.

1:18pm

I was sitting on the floor with Mr. Serious, thinking about what I wanted to do for my Project 52 SP Silly Faces shot this week. I asked him to make a silly face and he stuck his tongue out at me.

2:14pm

I really have no recollection of what was going on at this point. I think Mr. Serious was watching TV while I played on the laptop and Boa napped. Still, I’m not sure where Mark is, but I think he was with us.

4:48pm and 4:49pm

Boa took an extra long nap, so snack time was pushed back. Both the boys love yogurt. I have no idea what a toddler serving size should be, but both of them eat a full cup.

Boa’s recently acquired the skill of feeding himself and he gets mighty upset if I try to spoon anything in his mouth. He’s pretty good with yogurt, but I’m so neurotic about messes it’s very difficult for me to let him.

5:25pm and 5:29pm

Mr. Serious absolutely loves playing with his Duplos and building new things (usually cars). For the photo on the left, I used a wide aperture and focused on the blocks and Mr. Serious separately. On the right, Mr. Serious put two Duplo gas nozzles on top of a Duplo car and I thought it looked really cool. What a creative little boy!

6:59pm

Finally, dinnertime! Normally we don’t have dinner so late, but our afternoon was just running later than usual. We took the easy route and opted for chicken nuggets and mac & cheese. Yeah, we should have made some vegetables to go along with this, but I completely forgot and the boys wouldn’t eat them anyway so it’s just as well we not waste food…

This shot is actually made from two different shots. The one I got with Mr. Serious in focus, Boa was looking off to the side. So I replaced him in Photoshop with a Boa looking straight at the camera taken a few seconds earlier. If you look at the largest size available, you can tell where I did this around Mr. Serious’ sippy cup because I was doing it quickly and sloppily. I may go back at some point and clone out my mistake, but I’m pretty happy with the composite otherwise.

7:47pm

Depending on how messy dinner is, we may either go straight to the bath or let the boys run around for a little while before bath time. We bathe them together and it’s still working for now. We recently got these sudsy scribbler Crayola bath toys, but they’re just way too young for them. They both really love bathtub crayons, but we haven’t been able to find any that work especially well. We’ve also tried Crayola’s regular bathtub crayons which color really well, but almost immediately pop out of their plastic casing and also their bath markers which hardly work at all.

If you have any suggestions for cool toddler bath toys, I’d love them!

8:17pm

After bath time, we get the boys lotioned and in their jammies and then chill in the dark living room for about a half an hour or so before Mr. Serious and I retreat to his room and Mark snuggles Boa to sleep. (The lights are on in this shot because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture…) Sometimes we read, sometimes we play, but usually we watch an Imagination Movers and the boys dance and wiggle out the rest of their energy.

By the time I get Mr. Serious asleep, it’s usually around 9:30 at which point Mark and I just collapse on the couch and watch a couple TV shows or a movie. On this night, we watched The Social Network, which was excellent and thought provoking.

Whew! Well, that’s a typical weekend day for us if we stay at home. It was an experience trying to make sure I took pictures all throughout the day. The last time I did a photographic day in the life was 2006 before the kids were conceived. I don’t think I could do one of these a month like Lauren, mostly because they would always look exactly the same. Maybe in another five years I’ll attempt it again.

If you’ve done any day in the life photo entries lately, I’d love a link in the comments!