What a 'Typical' Day Looks Like for Us (July 2020)
THE FARMHOUSE
I thought it would be fun to share what a ‘typical’ day looks like for us as stay-at-home parents, landlords, bloggers, and country-dwellers. Typical probably isn’t the right word, since no two days are exactly alike, and every season brings different routines, but there’s a consistent flow to our days right now. As I mentioned last month, we’ve been making an active effort to slow down, to spend more time with our kids and less time being busy. This is what that looks like for our family of 5 right now.
I have always loved ‘day in the life’ type posts. You too? I think there’s value in peeking into someone else’s life and seeing what a career or lifestyle actually looks like. It gives you the chance to try something on and see if it might fit you, too. But in the context of the pandemic, I wanted to mention that there’s a big difference between being home mostly by choice (after building a life, space, and work centered around that home) and being unexpectedly forced to be at home. So if this is not the post you need right now, please skip it.
Okay, let’s get to that ‘typical’ summer day, a weekday in July…
psst: photos are from our life lately at the Farmhouse. You can find most sources here.
6:30 I wake up to Daphne snuggling me. She comes into our bed almost every night in the middle of the night and then Garrett leaves and sleeps in her bedroom. I know my 20-year-old self would be flabbergasted by that, but it’s working for us right now. And if I’ve learned anything from parenting, it’s ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’. Ha! But honestly, Daphne is my last baby and I’m really soaking up this time with her.
Brooks, our 4-year-old, joins us for snuggles and we chat about dreams and random animal facts he’s thinking about (porcupine quills are actually hair, who knew?!).
7:00 I start coffee and unload dishes and Garrett puts on a big pot of oatmeal. The kids each have a bowl topped with milk and a little brown sugar. I stick with coffee for now (I used to be a big breakfast eater first thing in the morning, but lately I’ve been having smaller meals later in the morning).
7:30 On the days I post on the blog, I usually spend an hour or two on my computer in the morning. So I take my coffee in the office and check that today’s post is up, catch up on emails, respond to comments, get todays Instagram post up, and edit a few photos from yesterday. My time is far from uninterrupted, which has always been the hardest part of working and parenting from home for me, but I get a good chunk of work done while the kids occasionally run in and out to chat or grab things.
8:45 I eat one of yesterday’s muffins and then play with the kids. Legos in the living room for the boys and pretend play with Daphne in the kitchen (I get to be a baby named Rosie).
We head outside to water the garden, let the chickens out, and run around. Garrett takes this time to work at his computer on landlording and the blog (he does most of our communication with brands, all of our bookkeeping, and makes our videos).
9:30 Garrett and I do a workout video outside in the yard. Yes, for real. Today it’s a Pop Sugar video on YouTube but we’ve also been doing a lot of Yoga by Adriene and go for hikes once or twice a week near our home. The kids play outside while we do our workout video, and we only have to shoo them off of our yoga mats a dozen times. They like to crawl under us or on us when we workout and it’s all kind of ridiculous, but we try. By 10 the kids are “starving!” so I leave Garrett to finish the video and put together apples and peanut butter snacks for the kids.
10:30 Wilder, our 7-year-old, and I do a ten-minute piano practice at the piano in our dining room (he’s taking Zoom lessons with his awesome local piano teacher).
Garrett’s dad arrives and the kids all flock to him. Both Garrett’s dad and mom (Papa and Nana) are retired and spend a lot of time with us. We’re incredibly fortunate that they like to lend a hand with projects and spend as much time with our kids as they can. All 3 of our kids are very, very close with them.
I head up for a shower and then clean the kitchen. I’m planning to shoot a raspberry jam post today so give the always-in-use space an extra scrub. I’ve lost track of the kids but they’re outside somewhere with Papa.
12. Garrett makes lunch - our go-to farmers hash for the adults and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit for the kids. I grab my camera out to take a few photos while Garrett cooks, just for fun. The kids eat at the kitchen counter while Garrett finishes cooking the hash.
12:30 Garrett, Papa, and I eat out in the garden and the kids watch an episode of Wild Kratts in the living room. We don’t have a firm policy on screen time, other than we try to limit it. But we do try to let the kids watch an episode of a PBS or nature show if they ask for it and as long as everyone’s being kind and respectful, and sometimes we put a show on when we have a conference call or need some uninterrupted time on our computers.
1 I pick some raspberries in the garden and then start a batch of raspberry jam. I take photos of the jam process to share on the blog, which slows the whole thing down considerably, but I really do enjoy taking pictures, especially in our kitchen! The kids are outside with Garrett and his dad doing something in the garage - unloading the truck from yesterday’s trip to the Dexter House and working on the small chicken coop Garrett is building for his mom, I think. Daphne wanders in hungry at some point so I send her back out with a bag of trail mix to share with the boys.
3:30 I clean up the kitchen and then head outside to play with the kids. We swing on the swing, kick a soccer ball, throw a football around, and putz around in the garden. Wilder, our 7-year-old, tells me that this is what he likes most about summer - being outside and just playing around. I couldn’t agree more.
5 Garrett makes dinner - leftovers plus a fresh salad and bruschetta on yesterday’s sourdough. The kids and I look for frogs in the pond while he puts that together and then we wash up and eat in the garden. This is the time of night when we try to keep Daphne awake (she refuses to nap) so there’s equal parts playing, whining, and eating going on.
We have some dark chocolate for dessert.
6:30 I take Daphne up for a long bath with plenty of soap to wash off a day spent outside. She puts on PJs and then heads to the boys bedroom where she likes to sleep (we have a mattress on the ground for her in there). I close the blackout curtains and read her 3 stories and she’s asleep before I finish.
7 I head downstairs and hear Mario Cart on the TV. We got a hand-me-down WII this year and it’s been replacing board games in the evenings a lot. I used to think I’d be anti video-games as a parent, but I’m shocked to say that they’ve been super fun to play as a family. While Garrett plays with the boys, I clean up the last of the dishes (Papa did most of the dinner dishes before leaving for home) and head to my computer to download today’s photos.
Garrett takes the boys up for a bath and then I read to them. We finish ‘the Nocturnals’ and start the second book. I love reading with the kids at night and rue the day they get too big for it. After a couple of chapters, I turn off the light, and kiss them goodnight to moans and pleas for more chapters. I promise to check on them in 5 minutes and head downstairs.
8:15 Garrett’s already at his computer and I join him and work on editing photos and drafting a post for the rest of the evening. These nighttime hours are the most reliable time we have to work, so more often than not, we end our days here in the office.
9:30 We lock up the chickens in their coop and head up for showers and reading. I’m working on ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ and Garrett’s reading ‘the Underground Railroad’. We’re asleep by 10.
Thanks for spending the day with us!