photo by Tessa Richardson

aahhhh, mondays. these are my intentional stay-at-home-and-do-absolutely-nothing days. the powerdriver family usually has lots going on over the weekend and max is transitioning back to spending his days with us (for the record: i have one baby but nanny another one during the work week). so i make sure monday is reserved for catching up on sleep (naptimes are often missed over the weekend) and getting the three of us back on the same page and in the same groove. i stay in my pajamas and rarely do my hair. we do not leave the front gate. today, for example, except for playing with the water table, we have not left the living room. it’s been spectacular.

our typical stay-at-home-and-chill-out schedule

• 6:45 ramona starts stirring. jp and i keep sleeping
• 7:15 jp gets ramona and brings her back to bed. i nurse her while jp and i chat about the upcoming day’s plans
• 7:30 it’s up an at ’em. jp is making breakfast and getting ready to milk the goat. i’m dressing mo and making myself somewhat presentable (“somewhat” being a loosely used term around these parts)
• 7:45 the three of us are usually eating breakfast and drinking coffee (mo doesn’t drink coffee but she tries to) when max is dropped off.
• 8:00 max and mo toddle around the first floor and front yard playing with toys and bringing me books and saying hello to each other
• 8:20 i feed max and mo breakfast
• 8:40 change diapers!
• 9:00 by this time both babes are in bed.
• 9:00 until whenever they wake up i catch up on various interweb things, clean whatever’s on my daily cleaning schedule, return emails, change the goats’ water, feed the chickens, tweet and pin, and package up any etsy sales and/or make any needed updates to the store. this is, hands down, my most productive time of the day.
• 11:00(ish) the kids are awake and we eat a snack (or sometimes it’s lunch) and then let them get some post-nap wiggles out. we read books, play with a very obnoxious tractor, and practice our animal sounds. we do this some more. we might head out to the water table, or go give scraps to the animals, or hop in the pool in the backyard, or climb through the vinyl tunnel, or ride the scramble bug, or climb the rocks. we just play play play. sometimes i’ll do something a little more structured but not always. it’s lots of just hanging out with them. snacks are involved. and getting them to do tricks for me (animal noises, responding to questions, pointing to body parts, generally showing off how smart they are 😉 ).
• 2:00 second nap. ramona usually will take hers. this is becoming just some quiet time for max as he doesn’t always fall asleep but will babble happily in his crib. i do, i don’t know what i do. write blog posts like i’m doing now. check google reader (again!). wash dishes. sit on my arse.
• 3:45 they’re usually both up by now and it’s time for max to be picked up! again, we’re playing in the living room. it is low-key, for reals. i know, you can barely contain your excitement for my mondays.

i should point out this monday looked absolutely nothing like what you see above. max still has not slept one wink (it’s 3:00) and ramona was a little grouch butt who only slept for one hour for her first nap and still, like her mother, has not gotten proper clothes on today. also, oddly enough, the schedule we seem to follow now seems weirdly similar and low-key to what was going on october when i first started looking after max and when the babes were much younger. except we go far fewer places as i am a slave to nap time (and you will be too once your child gets on some sort of cycle or schedule!).

what does your typical monday look like? any different than your other weekdays?