7 Quick Takes – Routine Recap, Hungry Hippos, Chai Lattes and Bread Pudding

1. The quality time I’ve carved out to spend with God in prayer and singing praise songs is really helping me to stay close to God. In a positive sense I’ve taken for granted the fact that He is present, and looked to Heaven for assistance and guidance, as well as just to smile and say thank You.

The new routine is definitely making a difference. My resolution/resolve to stick to the schedule as much as possible forces me to leave the computer and do other things, and while I’m not sitting there I’m tidying up clothes, rinsing dishes, interacting with my kids, reading (some, but need to do more) and even engaging my hobby and taking pictures just for the fun of it w/o having a specific cute moment I feel the need to capture!

This week I made a point of not missing the morning radio broadcast, working on cleaning the assigned room each day and reading with the kids. It all worked great the first couple days. DH came home on Monday evening, saw the tidy clean living room and kitchen and told me I ‘did awesome today.’ Compliments like that sure make me want to keep doing it And Tuesday I was proud to report I got EVERYTHING into the day at least to some degree, even if it wasn’t within the exact assigned time frame. Wednesday the plans we had got cancelled which threw the whole day off and then the added trip out o Thursday also made it hard to know what to keep and what to eliminate from the routine that day. After falling off the wagon there in the middle, Friday went ok, but I found myself easily distracted.

I did work on some of the rooms on their assigned day, but I wouldn’t say I ever got any one of them properly clean. Still, I’ve been noticing definite additional improvement; as I’ve been more on top of tidying daily many of the drop surfaces are getting steadily cleaner – and staying that way! The dining room table, bathroom floor, kids’ room and at least one kitchen counter are all consistently more visible. And since I moved most of the kids toys to their room, leaving only the trains etc in the sunroom and the play kitchen/food and babies my living room has been seeing a lot less clutter too. And since there’s less to tidy up each night, the kids have been somewhat less resistant.

—I even found time to reorganize the kids’ clothes

Oh, and we even had date night! We just rented a movie and the baby made it difficult, but we did officially have one, and that is progress!

There is definitely room for improvement. The biggest problem with following my routine is probably the time I have to spend with the baby. When he needs attention it typically requires a full 30 minute time slot, enough to put me off schedule w/o any other distractions. I’ve also been running into problems finding the time (and then remembering!) to read over my schedule etc so as to plan the day (my mornings are often busy with either the baby or my middle kid who keeps me on the couch so he can have ‘Mummy Time’. This leads to the old adage, ‘fail to plan and you plan to fail.’ When I do plan, I write everything out on my wall calendar which I finally got hung up and stocked with dry-erase markers.

I’m seldom the only one up, so I typically spend the first 30 min tending the baby and have to sneak away from one or more big kids with the tv on, just so I can have the time to pray and make my bed. Then I tend to forget to plan, and try to jump into breakfast and chores. I have not been very good at getting off the pc at 4:30 to get ready for the evening either, usually because I was late getting everyone quiet and settled and because my time there has been interrupted. And when I have to sit and nurse the baby, I frequently choose my computer chair. It’s unlikely I’d get anything else done around the house at the same time, so I usually sit down and read blog posts or check email and Facebook. This brings in additional computer time outside of the schedule and makes it that much harder to get away again. However, when I can’t do anything else anyway, is the best time to read things.

I haven’t printed off a paper schedule yet because I’m still tweaking it; I haven’t found a time-slot that really works for the Room of the Day or general chores and there never seems to be enough time in the evening for me to have that chance to relax after supper.

2. This week we put the 2 year old in pull ups. I was tired of cleaning up accidents so he was already back in diapers again, but I let him go to the potty when he wanted to. However, we still ran out of diapers and had to get some more and DH bought pull ups. As far as potty training goes I had been against them because it’s harder for the child to learn, when they feel like they’re wearing a diaper, but for my son they seem to be working well. He already largely knows what to do from several months of training so he still goes regularly to the potty. However, if he gets forgetful, or stubborn or whatever, then the diaper is there to contain it. It’s working out well because now we don’t have to put his diaper back on EVERY SINGLE TIME and he is still keeping it fairly dry. Today he even went to the potty for #2 all by himself All he told me was ‘pants off’ which I helped with before he ran off to the bathroom.

3. The baby is getting more interactive. He no longer cries when he gets his diaper changed and often gives me little smiles, reminding me that there is a sweet little person inside this often fussy baby. Other than holding his head up like a champ there really is no new developmental milestones to report, but we saw clear evidence of him learning from his environment this week. I was in the kitchen getting supper when DH told me to come and take a look at the baby. He was in his baby chair visibly concentrating on kicking his feet so as to make it rock back and forth. It was adorable

4. Last week I finally tracked down a secondhand game of hungry hungry hippos! I had wanted to get it for Christmas for the kids because I figured it would be one of the easiest games for all 4 of us to play together, with a 2 and a 3 year old. At the time I looked online but there just weren’t any for sale. On a whim I checked back in when I was looking for a cd player a few weeks back and to my surprise, there were 2! I picked the blue one, since I live in a house full of boys



The good news is that they can play it better than snakes and ladders or crokinole. The bad news is they’re still not very good at it

5. My new favorite drink to make is a chai latte. I love the sweet spicy blend from coffee shops but specialty coffees are so expensive, if I can, why not make my own? Most of the specialty coffee recipes are supposed to be made over the stove etc, but I’ve found a way to skip that part. I bought a tin of vanilla bean chai tea bags and dissolve them in a cup of hot water. Then I put some milk and a little French vanilla coffee creamer to sweeten it up. I heat that in the microwave and then foam it with my battery powered hot chocolate mixer stick. I pour the chai teas into the milk foam and top with whipped cream and a little cinnamon. YUM. I don’t have them every day, but I do have them often, so often in fact that I think they would qualify as something to give up for lent this year .

6. It seems I’m now making a new recipe in my slow cooker on a weekly basis. This week I tried making bread pudding.

I really like this dessert and wanted to make it myself, so a while back I tried in the oven and even though it wasn’t in long it came out too dry :S. I think I tried again with the same result so I sort of gave up. But then I got into using my crockpot and thought ‘I bet if I can find a recipe it would come out great’ because it would be almost impossible to overcook it.

I was right It came out soft and moist with no dryness whatsoever.

It was sweet and cinnamony and deliciously rich.

And, best of all, EVERYONE liked it

7. Yesterday I went and bought ANOTHER memory card. I bought one back in October when I discovered one of my big ones was broken and I could no longer access the data etc. I know it hasn’t been that long, I think I can typically go 6 months to a year before getting a new card, but with the new baby and then Christmas it got too full. In this season of life, with 2 little kids and a newborn and I just don’t have the time or energy to keep up with photos. It’s just been causing me unnecessary stress so I think it’s better to stop trying and leave them for later. In 3 or 4 or however many years when all or most of my kids are in school, then things should be different.

If there are any serious photographers out there (professional or not) I’m curious, do you manage to keep up with all the personal photos you take and if not, how many memory cards do you have?