So we are now four months in to this whole having three kids thing. How’s it going? Things are constantly in flux and still a little crazy, but I feel like we’re starting to get our sea legs. I’ve been wanting to share more here, but I haven’t for reasons I’ll get into here. So here’s what we’re up to and how a typical day looks for us right now.
Tag: day in the life
Another day in the life
Last year, I told you about a typical day around these parts. Since then, Henry is doing a few hours a week at Italian day care which we are treating as preschool. Here’s our new usual routine on a school day. You know, until it all changes again in 2.2 seconds.
| 4:50 | Mac is awake. I give him a few minutes to settle down. No luck. I go to feed him. |
| 6:56 | James’s alarm goes off. I pull the covers over my head. Why am I so tired? Is it really just Monday? |
| 7:30 – 8:05 | Shower, get dressed, makeup. Say goodbye to James. |
| 8:05 – 8:15 | Wake up Mac to feed him. Normally, I’d let him sleep, but we already run behind enough as is on school days. |
| 8:15 – 8:25 | Head into Henry’s room. New diapers for the boys. Get everyone dressed. |
| 8:25 – 8:35 | Into the kitchen for breakfast. Normally we have eggs plus fruit, avocado, or sweet potato. But we only have one egg left so it is oatmeal with apples and cinnamon. I work on the oatmeal and fill watered down juice cups. |
| 8:35 – 8:55 | We eat. For someone who loves all food, Mac is being pretty picky about the oatmeal. Henry is showing off and taking big bites. I talk about school and how much fun it will be to try to get Henry pumped up. |
| 8:55 – 9:00 | Clean that kitchen. |
| 9:00 – 9:20 | A dreaded part of my day: getting us out the door for school. Thankfully, Henry is feeling cooperative today. At 9:20, we have new diapers, coats, and are locked and loaded in the stroller.
Temporarily waylaid after I snap a pic and Henry wants to take a picture of his brother.
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| 9:20 – 9:32 | We walk to school. These posts are good for me too because they force me to face reality that, yes, it does take longer than 5 minutes to get places. |
| 9:32 – 9:40 | Unload the kids, walk Henry into school, and remove his coat and shoes. Henry is being Clingy McClingerson today. His teacher, Valentina, has to actually peel him off me in the end. No screams; he’s just being a little timid. |
| 9:40 – 9:52 | Mac and I are on the town! After I reload him, we walk to a playground at Villa Ada. |
| 9:52 – 10:27 | I give Mac a chance to stretch his legs. We do some time on the swings, but mostly I just help him pull up AKA his most favorite thing ever. I also try to keep him from eating rocks, another favorite pursuit of his. |
| 10:27 – 10:50 | I recline Mac in the stroller and provide a pacifier to encourage napping. We walk to the market, and sure enough, Mac closes his eyes right before we get there. |
| 10:50 – 11:05 | I visit my new bestie, AKA the egg lady. Picture giant eggs with Auburn Tiger colored yolks. Delish. Once you go egg lady, you can’t go back, they say round these parts. (20 eggs/6 euro)
 Guess which one is the supermarket egg We also visit our produce stall. We picked this one because they have sweet potatoes, and now I’m working on becoming a regular. After learning I’m from DC, Duder (I’ll get his name soon) introduces me to another customer who he says is from LA. (Turns out to be San Francisco.) But I love everything about this; I’m slowly starting to feel like a regular.
I was going to work up the courage to visit the fishmonger (almost all the fish are whole and will involve an interesting display of broken Italian and hand gestures on my part to make them manageable), but no fish on Mondays apparently. This makes sense because fishermen are probably not out on Sundays.
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| 11:05 – 11:35 | Mac is still asleep. I decide to enjoy the sunny weather and just walk around for a bit. I turn down a few new streets because why not.
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| 11:35 – 11:42 | Back to school for Henry. The kids are running around in the play area outside. This is awesome (1) because Henry looks longingly at all the toys outside every time I coax him inside so I’m glad he got to experience it and (2) he is ALREADY wearing his coat and shoes. SCORE. |
| 11:42 – 11:54 | We walk back home. It still takes longer than 5 minutes. |
| 11:54 – 11:56 | We circle the building because Henry wants to see our car. |
| 11:56 – 12:06 | Unloading, de-coating, re-diapering. |
| 12:06 – 12:30 | We play. I keep expecting Henry to ask to watch TV, but he only asks for potato chips. I can work with that. |
| 12:30 – 1:00 | Lunch time! Henry has yogurt, clementines, and potato chips. Mac and I have leftovers and clementines. I try to ask Henry about his time at school. After spending so much time together, it intrigues me that he now has stuff of his own. Because he is an unreliable narrator, I don’t even know what some of this stuff is. Maybe they played with legos or maybe they went to the moon. Who knows? |
| 1:00 – 1:15 | Prep for nap. Story time. Henry down. |
| 1:15 – 1:20 | Feed Mac. Mac down. |
| 1:20 – 1:25 | Start a load of laundry. Make popcorn. Pull some stock out of the freezer for dinner. |
| 1:25 – 1:40 | Browse the internets while munching on popcorn and the last of the truffle pecorino from our trip to Pienza that I still need to tell you guys about. |
| 1:40 – 2:45 | Get my blog on. Some combination of writing, photo editing, and link linking. And Publish! |
| 2:45 – 2:55 | Look up some recipe ideas for dinner. Glance at a few other websites. |
| 2:55 – 2:56 | Henry is awake and screaming. They shorted me! I know it is only a few minutes, but it feels significant. Henry cannot be persuaded to stop screaming. Now Mac is also screaming. Coincidence . . . I think not. |
| 2:56 – 3:05 | Screaming. |
| 3:05 – 4:00 | Everyone is rediapered and has ceased screaming. We play in the living room. |
| 4:00 – 4:05 | And I have reached capacity. I offer Mac a top up. (Mac never refuses a top up.) I announce that we are heading to the park. |
| 4:05 – 4:20 | Shoes, coats, check diapers. Finally they are loaded in the stroller with snack packs for their munching pleasure. |
| 4:20 – 4:40 | We walk to Villa Borghese. On the way, we run into one of James’s coworkers. His family is out of town, and I extend a dinner invitation. |
| 4:40 – 5:25 | We play in the park. Henry runs around like a maniac. I try to persuade Mac NOT to eat the rocks.
 Someone seemed to be filming a very Rebecca Black style video here today |
| 5:25 – 6:00 | We walk home. De-coat. Rediaper. De-shoe. |
| 6:00 – 6:36 | James gets home. We debrief, and I head in to cook dinner. I abandon whatever my plan for the chicken stock was and make chili. |
| 6:36 – 7:30 | James’s coworker arrives. We sit to enjoy the cheesy chili goodness. |
| 7:30 – 8:00 | Prep the kids for bed. Toothbrushing. Diapers. PJs. Storytime. I go put Mac down while James finishes up with Henry. |
| 8:00 – 8:25 | While James cleans the kitchen, I dork around on my phone. I eventually abandon facebook and go in and talk to James. |
| 8:25 – 8:45 | I’m beat. I get ready for bed. |
| 8:45 – 10:06 | In bed reading. I’m currently reading Book 2 of the Outlander series. I was warned this would be addictive and it is. The first book felt a little bodice-rippy, but I think it was just where the characters were then. The writing is good, the story hums along, and it makes me want to plan a trip to Scotland immediately. |
So that’s our new school day routine. Henry goes three days a week, except when he doesn’t. Like if it is raining. Or we just don’t feel like it. More on school soon.
Two hours feels incredibly short, but I try to have some dolce vita moments with Mac while Henry is at school. We go on walks. We hit markets. We explore. We’ve even gone to get cappuccino with James. Good times.
Thought this was neat-o mosquito? Would love for you to pass it on!
A day in the life
This is not the most glamorous, but I present for your consideration a typical day around here. In many ways it is not “typical,” (we don’t always go to tree lightings), but is there actually a typical day? As you will see, it is not all cappuccino wishes and fettuccine dreams.
| 7:06 am | James’s alarm goes off. Holy tootknockers, that means Mac slept through the night! This has only happened a handful of times and is big doin’s. Of course, he stirred right when James got in the shower, but settled back down. |
| 7:06 – 7:30 | Reading. Most days this is spent dozing fitfully, thinking about the day, and yelling at myself that this would be the perfect time to get up and do some pilates. Sigh, some day. |
| 7:30 – 7:55 | Shower, get dressed, makeup. Mac is stirring so James gets him up and changes the dipe. We say goodbye to James. |
| 7:55 – 8:36 | Henry is stirring. I grab Mac and head into Henry’s room, giving Henry a couple books. Henry reads while I feed Mac. Eventually, Henry is ready to leave the crib. He gets the new diaper, fresh clothes treatment. We hang out on the bed for a bit.
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| 8:36 – 9:10 | Breakfast time. I’m irked because the dishwasher was not run last night and walking into a messy kitchen is a pain. Less shenanigans today than usual from the boys though, likely because I told Henry that if he eats his eggs than he can have leftover banana bread. The boys sit while I cook. Henry and I have eggs, as we do most days, and Mac has the rest of a jar of prunes baby food. I throw more in the dishwasher and start it on the way out.
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| 9:10 – 9:32 | We head to the living room to play. New outfit for Mac. Henry is super into the nativity scenes here. So far, I’ve seen cows eating grass, wise men marching, angels dive-bombing shepherds, and sheep eating Baby Jesus. I slip out for two minutes to throw in a load of laundry at some point.
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| 9:32 – 9:37 | Prepping Mac for his nap and putting him down. |
| 9:37 – 9:48 | Confirm that Henry is occupied and clean the two bathrooms. Henry comes in when I’m finishing up the tub in the second bathroom. |
| 9:48 – 9:50 | Refill waters and sippy cups. |
| 9:50 – 10:15 | Henry and I read. Lion King and a book on military aircraft today. It’s all toddler’s choice around here. |
| 10:15 – 10:25 | Henry and I play basketball. |
| 10:25 – 10:45 | Mac wakes up. New diapers for everyone! (Bathroom break for me.) Locating shoes, socks, and jackets for everyone and stuffing shoes, socks, and jackets onto everyone. Two meltdowns result which is not a terrible track record. |
| 10:45 – 11:55 | We head outside. I thought about heading to a farther park like Villa Borghese, but the clouds are still looking ominous and decide it is better to stay close. I thought we’d hit the playground out front, but we ended up on a “toddler walk.” This is a walk where the toddler sets the pace and we stop where he wants. Henry kicked trash.
Climbed on window grates.
And kicked columns.
For the record, the Italians approve of none of this. Italian kids generally sit in strollers bundled up to their eyeballs. Nobody said anything though, except the one lady who commented that Henry should be wearing a hat because of the wind, but she was pretty nice about it. |
| 11:55 – 12:25 | We head inside to watch one episode of Winnie the Pooh, aka the only way I could convince Henry to come inside. I can’t just scoop him up because I’m wearing Mac. I feed Mac while Henry watches. Mac and I play. I throw Henry’s wet shoes in the dryer. Henry has a meltdown that he only gets one episode and then gets a timeout because he repeatedly shoved his brother. He is uninterested in lunch and tells me it is time for nap. |
| 12:25 – 12:38 | Naptime is usually at 1:00, but who am I to question a screaming toddler? New diapers and story time. Kids are down for naps. |
| 12:38 – 12:50 | I switch that laundry from earlier and make myself lunch. I start to unload the dishwasher, but double naptime is sacred and must not be squandered on chores. Lunch today is some seriously past its prime arugula with oil and salt/pepper (I end up abandoning about a quarter of the way through), apple, cheese, three leftover pieces of coppa, and a heated mug of turkey broth. |
| 12:50 – 1:01 | Read some blogs. I’m in the bad habit of associating food with internet break time. Too many lunches eaten at my desk at the law firm. |
| 1:01 – 1:15 | Read some sites on what to do in Nuremberg for upcoming trip. |
| 1:15 – 2:25 | Write 1.5 blog posts. Post the day’s post. |
| 2:25 – 2:55 | Take dishes back to kitchen, grab a small piece of banana bread and nutella spoon, respond to email, check a few more blogs. |
| 2:55 – 3:15 | Text with my neighbor about walking to Christmas tree lighting. Read guide book on Munich. |
| 3:15 – 3:18 | When I hear the kids start to stir, hit the bathroom and go on a blitz gathering up stuff for our outing. |
| 3:18 – 3:45 | Feed Mac, change diapers, get Henry yogurt, put on shoes, socks, coats, etc. |
| 3:45 – 4:25 | Walk to James’s work for Christmas tree lighting. |
| 4:25 – 5:30 | Enjoy tree lighting and reception.
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| 5:30 – 6:25 | Walk to and enjoy best gelato ever at Come il Latte. More on this soon.
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| 6:25 – 7:00 | See someone we know. Walk home with friend, chatting all the way. |
| 7:00 – 7:40 | Peel off shoes, socks, coats; hanging out and chillin’ as a fam.
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| 7:40 – 8:00 | Get kids ready for bed. |
| 8:00 – 8:45 | Make soup from the turkey stock we made previously. Empty the dishwasher, reload the dishwasher, and do other kitchen cleaning tasks with James. In theory, we would do more chatting about our days here, but we were both kind of out of it and cranky. |
| 8:45 – 9:30 | Eat soup and do some plotting with James on Munich trip. |
| 9:30 – 9:50 | Watch an episode of Brooklyn 99 with James. (If you aren’t watching this show, you really should be watching this show.) |
| 9:50 – 10:00 | Get ready for bed. |
| 10:00 – 11:00 | Read in bed. I really need to get better here. In my mind, I only read for like 15 minutes. Clearly, that is NOT the case. |
So there you have it. A typical-ish weekday in December. Some days we see friends. Some days we go to the store. Most days we feed the kids a real dinner. But if you can’t have gelato for dinner every now and then, what’s the point of living in Italy?
Roman Reboot 