Five Friday Facts

1. Starting when I was in high school through my mid-twenties, Friday was this major thing. The idea of having no plans gave me anxiety, and when it came to going out-- the more friends the better! Fridays were an evening for fun clothes, a little too much makeup, and a beer in the shower. Now that I'm a parent of three, Friday nights are equally amazing because on Saturday we don't have to wake up to catch the bus at 6:58am, we often get to hang out around the house instead of rushing-rushing-rushing to the next thing, and I can make a night special by calling it a movie night and serving frozen pizza to my little people.

2. Cheese pizza for grown ups: order/ bake/ cook a plain pie for the not-so-foodies in your life. Then saute some spinach (a LOT shrinks down a LOT so I basically put a salad's worth in a pan with a few teaspoons of water and a lid) and top your pizza with the spinach, a drizzle of balsamic glaze/ balsamic vinegar reduction, and a sprinkle of coarse sea salt. Gourmet for pennies! You're welcome.

3. Fall is wonderful and everything, but it's not the only season worth living for: I hate pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice lattes (though I loooove pumpkin beer), I hate my amped up allergies to something that's yet to be defined, I love sweater weather but hate the days where I have to basically plan out three outfits per kid because it starts off at 48 degrees but ends at 75 and rains somewhere in the middle, and I really am not a fan of cider mills because cider and donuts = sugar = bees and I am NOT a fan of them.

4. In less than a week my third baby will be 4 months old and I could already see myself wanting another despite the fact that we've 90 percent decided that he'll be our last. But the time is passing by so very quickly and I can already tell that he's going to be a toddler before I know it. He's already scooting (scary) and sleeping through the night (scary because I know it could change on a dime) and he's just the sweetest little dude on the planet. I'll have five more just like him, please.

5. Instagram is driving me nuts. Though I love the photo-centric format and I really love the fact that I can have my feed automatically printed every 60 pictures (Chatbooks are the only reason why my kids are going to have their early days documented because traditional baby books have been a major fail around here!), it seems like every day people's feeds are getting more contrived and more magazine-like to sell the lifestyle they want everyone to think they are leading. It also, at least for me, breeds discontent. I want the beautiful white rooms and whimsically perfect cookies and adorable children who are always coiffed and styled perfectly. It's hard to remind myself that Instagram, like Facebook, leads people to compare their own rounded knowledge of themselves with the external image that others are portraying. So I'm thinking about seeing myself out. Or changing my social media habits. Or something.

So here's a pumpkin beer toast to the short-lived neverending days of parenting young children and maintaining some semblence of sanity and a career in a world where women are losing themselves in their filtered online lives. Here's to the 9 hour workday I have tomorrow that allows my husband and me to reduce childcare costs and pay for extracurricular activities and the unspoken costs of moving into a new build home, and reduces both our family time but also our stress levels. And here's to the blessed freedom of a Friday night without plans or expectations.

Cheers!
Erin

PS- On the home decor front, we've started planning out our mudroom and study built-ins. I am so so so anxious to get started! Plans coming soon.

A Day in the Life: E3 is 3 Weeks Old!

 7:15AM- Nate's alarm has been going off every 5 minutes since 7 and maybe it's that noise or maybe it's his internal clock, but Elias starts to fuss in his rock 'n play. I debate getting up with him but exhaustion wins and I pull him into bed to nurse him half-asleep instead. He nurses a bit but promptly passes out.

7:30AM- I realize that Nate is STILL laying in bed and wake him up. He has to get both himself and the 3 year old ready to go and I feel a little guilty but not bad enough to get out of bed and help him. Besides, I'm "nursing" the baby (who has since fallen back asleep next to me).

7:45AM- Everett is crying about having to go to school-- he recently switched classrooms and he's a child of routine so this transition has been hard-- and in the process wakes up Norah, who probably would have happily slept until 8:30am if not interrupted. She comes into our room and urges me to get up with her.

8:00AM- Everett and Nate are out the door and I've ceded any dreams of sleeping a bit more, so Elias and I make our way downstairs to figure out something for breakfast. I convince Norah that she wants cereal and force myself to start with a hard-boiled egg before I give in to my sweet tooth and dig into the Rice Krispies treats that a friend dropped off with dinner last night... hey, it's cereal, right?!

8:30AM- I need coffee, especially after Nate calls to ask if Everett had any special events at preschool today since a classmate got dropped off with a bathing suit and towel. I decide that I don't feel like making it myself and that in comparison to grinding up some coffee beans and pressing "brew," I'd rather schlep two kids out to the van in our jammies and make the 3 minute drive down the street to buy some for $2.09. This whole thing would be a total #momfail except for the fact that my five year old has the soundtrack to Wicked memorized and it's really fun to belt out the songs with her for the two tracks that we have time to play.

9:15AM- I juggle baby and my laptop and somehow manage to send out two (possibly coherent) e-mails for work. I'm still on leave but will go back in for one day in a few weeks before I actually go back in September. Major win!

9:30AM- Oh my god-- my angel baby is fussy and is spitting up to boot. My brain tries to freak out except for that the spit up isn't that excessive, he isn't normally fussy, and he's been awake for awhile and nursing is not helping. So I ride it out without any major stress and ultimately decide that he's overtired.

10:10AM- I've decided that in honor of his 3 week birthday, we are going to begin some semblence of a schedule, so I swaddle Elias and put him down for his first official nap. He quickly falls asleep and while I initially planned to use this time to fold some laundry and do a few "productive" tasks, I instead begin this post and let the five year old watch another episode of Doc McStuffins. I want to remember these times for when I'm a few decades out from babies and am tempted to tell new moms to "enjoy every moment."

11:00AM- I promised myself to start writing more, so I decide to take a few minutes to do so now. My computer only has 10% battery life so somehow it feels less stressful now.

11:40AM- Elias has been napping for an hour and a half now, so I'm sure that my time is limited. Since I've done such an excellent job avoiding productivity so far I decide to take the rest of the time to do things like wipe the spit up off the floor at the base of the stairs, load the dishwasher, and generally tidy up the house. I also lay out some lunch for Norah because although she isn't hungry yet, I'm sure that she'll decide she's starving right when her baby brother is up and nursing.

12:14AM- Baby is up and screaming to eat. He proceeds to eat for the next 40 minutes or so with barely a pause. Norah does eat, too, and she also completes a few pages in one of her writing workbooks. She's getting better and better at her lowercase letters, which is amazing to see.

1:00PM- We need to get out of the house! It's unfortunately gone from slightly overcast to sunny, and the temperature is holding steady around 90 degrees so it's too warm for a newborn even though we'd love to go on a walk. We need some kind of privacy curtain on our powder room stat and so we head to the fabric store to check out some options.

2:45PM- The baby barely made it through store #1 intact, so I bribe Norah with the prospect of a few minutes to watch a movie in the car so that I can nurse him in peace. He eats briefly and then passes out, so we head to store #2 to pick up a few birthday gifts for upcoming parties after only 15 minutes or so. Norah is a great gift giver so we have fun looking through every single book and toy option to find the "right" ones.

3:30PM- We're back in the car and Elias is back to eating. This is the challenge with taking newborns out, but with only one other kid in tow, we're managing okay today.

4:15PM- We're home and back to nursing yet again for the third brief session in two hours. I love tiny baby burp faces.

5:00PM- The baby refuses to be put down but dinner needs to be made, so I decide to make it work. We thankfully had dinner brought to us last night and there are leftovers, so all I have to do is put together a quesadilla and shove the pan of pasta in the oven to reheat. It's all ready to go just as Everett and Nate walk in the door.

5:45PM- Everett refuses to eat dinner until we literally put a noodle in his mouth and he remembers that he actually is hungry, and once he starts eating, it's a major mess. Norah, on the other hand, eats her dinner like a champ and is good company to boot. The baby is still fussy, but I manage to eat in between back pats and paci reinsertions.

6:20PM- We are using a beam from an 1800s barn as our mantel and now that it's at our house, Nate has been gunning to start working on it. So he heads outside with the big kids after dinner and they watch in half-awe/ half-terror as he power washes it. I take the opportunity to head upstairs with the baby.

6:30PM- Fracking laundry. Luckily Elias is a pretty big fan of lounging in the Boppy pillow, so he does that while I fold way too many piles and half-listen to a podcast. Consciously I really enjoy use of all four of my limbs for once!

7:15PM- Bath time for all kids! Norah & Everett are huge fans of our master shower so we throw them in there (along with daddy!) and I set up the baby tub on the counter. He really enjoys his bath until I wash his hair, so I wait until the absolute last second to get his head wet and then sing as loudly as I can until he's rinsed off and I scoop him up in his hugely plush towel.

7:40PM- Nate completely forgot that he had promised the kids an episode of "Shawn the Sheep" until Everett made sure he remembered, so we all hang out in our bed for 10 minutes of a show before I relax and nurse the baby while Nate puts the other kids to bed.

8:30PM- It's a thankfully early night but we're all washed up and in our beds. We celebrate with an episode of Orange is the New Black.

10:00PM- Lights out! And that's a wrap on a day in our life with a three week old!