A Week in My Life - Friday

10.24.08

I cannot believe it is Friday already! At least I cannot say this week has been a blur, since I have been faithfully tracking our activities. I definitely recommend that everyone do this at least once. It really makes you live in the present and conscious of every little thing you are doing. Of course, it also blaringly highlights the not so perfect moments in your life.

4:29 AM – The smoke alarm starts beeping. It goes off after about 30 seconds but it wakes Kaitlin up and gives me quite the scare. We have experienced this problem recently, especially if it is windy or storming outside. I need to figure out what the problem is. I go all over the house, checking all the rooms to make sure nothing is wrong. My body is still jolted from the waking up so suddenly. I tell Kaitlin everything is fine, and she goes back to bed, but is still restless. I lay down with her for a while but cannot fall back asleep. I move to my bed so I do not keep bothering her with my tossing and turning. I lay there and rest but just cannot fall asleep. Around 5:30AM I start feeling sleep coming back, but by then is too late. I am afraid of falling asleep and waking up late.

6:15 AM – I get up and decide to take a hot bath, to calm my body down. I stay in the tub for half an hour.

6:45 AM - Kaitlin gets up just as I am coming out of the bathroom. She starts getting dressed and I run downstairs to prepare breakfast. It feels good to walk into a clean and organized kitchen. I start cooking an egg for Natalie. She gets up around 5 minutes later. She slept 13 hours straight! I do the run up and down the stairs about three times, while monitoring her bath and cooking her breakfast. I want to make sure she eats a big breakfast since she had no dinner last night

7:00 AM – I am dressed and start getting Natalie dressed. She has loads of energy and keeps jumping from one place to another. I on the other hand have no energy, but do my best to keep a playful attitude. I get her dressed, do her hair, and take her down to eat her breakfast. She offers a very long prayer, praying for each family member individually and a few other friends in the family, but does not pray for the food. She realizes this and prays again for her food. She finds it hilarious that she forgot!

I leave Natalie with her breakfast and go upstairs to do some more picking up around the house. The laundry closet is bulging, and I am still not done putting the clean one away.

7:35 AM – We make an attempt to leave the house, but Kaitlin starts getting frantic trying to find her spelling words cards.

7:39 AM – We leave the house. It is very dark and pouring rain. On the way to school, Kaitlin is in a frazzled mood. I tell her to put the DS away and practice her spelling words one more time. She is not a happy camper but complies. Natalie asks her why she is in such a bad mood. She hates spelling and thinks she is terrible at it. I point out she has an A- so far. I go on talking about the importance of spelling and she starts getting upset so I drop the subject (no pun intended). Natalie starts spelling "down" D O N. She and Kaitlin argue about the word having a W or not. She asks me and gets upset when I say that yes it does have a W.

7:55 AM – Drop the girls off at school.

8:26 AM – Arrive at my desk. It is pouring outside and still pretty dark.

I left the camera with Joel today so he can take some pictures of what they do this afternoon. I honestly feel like a limb is missing or something. I have had that camera attached to my hand all week long.

I am excited about putting this project together next week. It should be fun!

Friday Afternoon


I have another not so great day at work. I guess is to be expected after being awake since 4:30 in the morning. I keep getting calls from Kaitlin; she is having a hard time getting along with her dad. They have been experiencing some issues, that I will not go into details now, but it is getting me frustrated. Joel took Natalie to Chuck E Cheeses today after school, but Kaitlin refused to go.

5:00 PM – I leave work. It is still sprinkling outside.

5:40 PM – I arrive home. I guess my arrival has been greatly anticipated. My first question to Joel is if he took any pictures of the afternoon activities. No, he did not :(. Joel announces my arrival and Natalie comes down running very excited to see me. She immediately asks me if we can make play dough this evening. Kaitlin comes down a couple of seconds later, excited but tense. Almost immediately, she starts an argument with her dad. The plan was that Joel and Kaitlin were going to go out for some quality time together as soon as I got home. Kaitlin protests that she does not want to go, but we finally convince (read force) her to go.

Natalie shows me all the stuff she has been playing with. She set up an “Indian village” with my bed pillows in her room. Joel has these dolls from when he was a little boy of Johnny & Jane West that he has been thinking of maybe selling on E-bay (Lilly we might need your help with this [smile]). He brought them out along with his GI Joe from the 60s and now Natalie loves playing with them.

6:00 PM – Natalie and I come down to the kitchen and start making dinner. She helps make me a hot chocolate, and we start working on the play dough. She wants it colored purple, so we try some food coloring but we cannot get it to look purple. Thankfully, this does not upset Natalie too much. We have dinner and Natalie goes back to play in her room while I clean the kitchen. I go upstairs and try to pick a little bit more around the house, take a picture of the empty laundry hamper and closet. Joel took all the laundry to the laundry mat this morning. Isn’t he just the greatest? I hang out in Natalie’s room while she plays. She informs me that her dad also says the word down has a W, but she still does not believe it. I tell her to get me a book and I will show her the word so she can see for herself. We look at a couple books until I find the word. She looks at it and it is settled, it does have a W. She goes back to play.

7:30 PM – Joel and Kailin come back. They seem happier than when they left. That is a good sign. Kaitlin goes up to take a bath and Natalie wants Joel to show me the other Johnny West dolls and accessories on E-bay. We do that for a little bit and I am getting restless. I am tired and ready for the girls to go to bed.

8:30 PM Joel gives Natalie a bath and I start rounding them up for bed. They are a little more rowdy than normal; I give them time to settle down, while trying to decide what outfits they are going to wear tomorrow. I notice that Natalie’s lips are very chapped so I put some chap stick and it stings her lips. She starts screaming and running around trying to take it off, I start running behind her with a piece of paper trying to air her lips so they will not sting and she won’t rub it off. The whole thing turns into a big game for her with her running back and forth from Kaitlin’s room to hers with me following her with the piece of paper. I finally stop and tell her she has to go to bed. She asks for a little fan so she can fan her lips during the night. We pray and both girls go to bed.

9:00 PM I take a bath and come down to upload the pictures and write this post.