A Day in the Life, or How to Be Me

In the spirit of my "daily log" journal style, as Travis has christened it, I decided to chronicle an average day of my life. For posterity. But I won't stop there - while I'm at it, I figured when the time comes that we are able to replace ourselves with mommy-clones of ourselves and go on long vacations in the Bahamas, I will be the first one on board. So, I am writing this in instruction-manual form, so the Clone Krista will know exactly what to do.

How to Be Krista: A Study
Example Day 1

6:45 - Arise
1. Wake up to Brooklyn calling, "Moooooomm-mmmmeeeeeeeeee!" Try ignoring her for a few minutes, but ultimately roll out of bed and stumble blindly into her room.
2. Pick her up and go straight to the kitchen. If she is not fed within 74 seconds of waking up, she will whither away. (Or so she believes.) Pour her a bowl of cereal, and don't forget the bib. If you're feeling extra energetic this morning, put the milk back in the refrigerator.
3. At this point, if necessary, you can tell her you are going to the ladies' room, and then sneakily crawl back into bed. This will allow you an extra 4 minutes of sleep before she calls for more cereal.
4. Argue with yourself about whether you should go running that morning. If you can keep up the argument long enough, eventually you will waste so much time that it will soon be too late to go anyway, thus conveniently making the decision for you.

7:30 - Kate wakes up
1. Do not try to feed this one right away as she will not eat anything for maybe another hour. DO remind her to use the ladies' room.
2. This is a good time to take a shower. Try to sneak away secretly while the girls are playing; otherwise they will follow you and climb into the shower with you. Brooklyn will do this fully clothed.

8:00-10:00 - ???
*I cannot tell you what this time is spent doing. All I can say is it goes very quickly and somehow the house will be messier afterward rather than cleaner as you will be led to believe.*

10:00 - Going Out in Public
Invariably you will be out of one item or another, or have to return something, or take someone to an appointment, or return something to the library, etc. Here is how to accomplish Going Out in Public.
1. Dress children in appropriate clothing, including socks, shoes, jackets, and clothing that isn't pajamas (mismatched shirt & yellow tutu is okay for Kate if it is summer). Doing Kate's hair is preferred, but optional. This will take around 30 minutes, and another 10 to physically get them out the door.
2. Put them in the car. Allow another 15 minutes.
3. Arrive at destination. Take Brooklyn out of car first and hold her while you unbuckle Kate and wait a minimum of 10 minutes for her to climb out of the car. It will most likely be raining.
4. In the store, convince one or both of them to sit in the shopping cart and the other to hold your hand. Push the cart with the remaining hand, alternating sides of the handlebar in order to steer in a somewhat straight manner.
5. Repeatedly ask the child(ren) standing in the cart to sit down. End up carrying Brooklyn.
6. Ask Kate not to practice her dance spins in the middle of the clothing department while holding an open sandwich bag of Kix.
7. Get down on hands and knees and pick up every single Kick. Convince children to help you, if possible. (HINT: when I last did this, the carpet had just been laid within the past 48 hours, so I did not worry too much when Brooklyn "helped" by popping the Kix she picked up into her mouth. If the carpet is over 48 hours old, however, please try to avoid letting her do this.)
8. When one (or both) of the children begins screaming hysterically over the princess fruit snacks you are not going to buy.... um... actually... good luck with that.
9. Try to remember what you came to buy. Buy it.
10. Get back in car. (Refer to steps 1 & 2) Drive home.

12:00 - Lunchtime
1. Reheat last night's dinner in the microwave. It will still be on the girls' original dishes from the night before and usually completely untouched.
2. Place it in front of them with a glass of milk and allow them to sit at the table for 10-15 minutes. They will not touch the food, but at this point it is acceptable to supplement this "lunch" with a pb/j sandwich. Try to coerce Brooklyn into eating a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g.
3. At this point they will need another bath (they believe they can consume meals through osmosis), but there will not be enough time before naptime, so it is acceptable to place them in the kitchen sink and splash water on them.

1:00 - NAPTIME!!!

Whew I'm already exhausted. Looks like this 1-day instruction manual may be a lifetime work!

TO BE CONTINUED....