The Daily Routine

When I posted about New Year's resolutions a few weeks back, I said we were working on getting some type of daily routine implemented. I'm still open to finding new ideas for how to best use my time with that Lo, but for now, here is the loose "schedule" of each day:



Approx. 7:00-8:00 AM~Lo wakes up. Often he nurses upon waking, but sometimes not, especially if Jerry is still at home in which case Lo Lo gets excited to jump out of bed to go play with Daddy. Lo Lo is such a morning person, always his most cheerful and alert when he just wakes up for the day.



When Jerry is gone, that Lo and me read together. The order of reading starts with scriptures (Book of Mormon children's reader--about a page's worth, and the actual Book of Mormon or Bible--about one verse). To get Lo ready for scripture reading, I sing the Primary Children's song "Book of Mormon Stories" and he has gotten quick at recognizing it; he sometimes even brings me the reader when I start to sing. After scriptures we read at least one Chinese book and a few other books from the shelf--whichever ones Lo picks out. Then we eat. That Lo is able to spoon-feed himself with some accuracy. This photo shows how his shirt stayed mostly clean, and he had eaten a whole half jar of blueberry applesauce all by himself by bringing the spoon to his mouth! Some mornings he eats relatively alot--a few bites of eggs, cheese, a piece of bread, yogurt, cold cereal from my bowl, etc. are all common breakfast foods for him right now. But some mornings he doesn't seem hungry at all and I wonder about it since I'm not sure how much milk he gets at night during nursing sessions. But I really avoid forcing him on any food issue.

Oh, and his face could be a little cleaner during self-feedings, I suppose. He is going through a phase where he gets bothered by messes. If he sees a drip of food landing on his hand or the table, etc. he often points to it until I wipe it up. But apparently messes on his face don't bother him because they aren't visible to his own eyes. lol.

After eating, we do some chores. Usually this entails unloading the dishwasher and folding laundry. Lo likes to "help" with both.

Then we have some playtime. It seems a bit arbitrary, but I decided to make pre-nap playtime be all about Gross Motor Skills, and post-nap playtime focus more on Fine Motor Skills. This just helps me feel more purposeful and brainstorm ideas of what we should do, but I don't restrict Lo if he wants to switch up the activities. Here are the pre-nap activities I have been instigating: rolling balls back and forth to each other, throwing/catching balls (Lo is on the cusp of catching the ball but not quite there yet), playing tag/chase, playing hide and seek, making forts (as seen above in photo--he actually was loving it more than his face shows, but when the camera comes out he stops smiling in order to concentrate on what I'm doing all of a sudden), climbing (we pile all the couch cushions into a puffy mountain and he seems to enjoy trying to scale it), dancing to music (Raffi on Pandora is a favorite) and going on walks outside.

This outdoors time is something I'd like to do every day right before naptime. It has been such an ordeal getting bundled and sometimes much too cold to stay out very long that I am having a hard time making us do it every day. But the days we have gone out, I haven't regretted it.

We walk out to the mailbox to drop letters, or we take out the trash. Often we see people walking their dogs, and Lo has really developed a love for "dog-dogs," as he calls them. Sometimes we even walk to the grocery store, dollar store, or hardware store. Yes, even in the winter. I always feel a bit crazy and pioneer-ish as the wind whips my hair and burns tears into my eyes, but that Lo keeps warm enough if I wear him snuggled up next to my heart in the mei tai.

11:00 AM ~ I put Lo down for a nap. He is pretty consistent at going down near this time, which is a huge relief for me to be able to count on and make plans accordingly. He is totally a "one nap per day" kid now, and naps for about 2.5-3 hours. Though sometimes he cries halfway through and I nurse him back to sleep before he can become fully awakened.

After that Lo wakes up, we eat lunch. Common lunch foods for that Lo include whatever I am eating (dinner leftovers from the day before most likely). He tends to refuse eating anything that resembles baby food. Though he likes the Gerber finger foods a little too much. (since they are processed I am trying to limit his puffs, graham cookies, etc.).

Fine Motor Activities we have been doing: magna doodle, coloring with crayons and markers (brave of me, I know--heavily supervised and I've got a Magic Erase sponge handy). Once he accidentally drew on his hand with a dry erase marker and he was entirely distraught about it until I scrubbed the mark off in soapy water. We also do Legos (the big kind, and he only pulls them apart, does not put them together yet). Blocks are another favorite, but like the Legos, he tends to just knock down the towers I make rather than building up his own towers. Must not have hit that block stacking developmental stage yet...He does like putting the shapes into the shape sorter, and I'm impressed how well he does at that activity. Needs some scaffolding on it still, but totally gets the idea. We also have a puzzle we've played with a bit, but it is still out of his age range really.

I forgot to mention that sometime in the day by now we normally have a shower. The time varies, but usually I do it pre-nap. Lo showers with me, playing with toys at my feet but sometimes he likes to be held/nursed while the water runs over him and that's okay with me too. Sometimes our showers are pretty long.

Anyway, around 3-4:00pm I start dinner. Often that Lo plays in the kitchen at my feet while I cook/chop veggies, etc. but if he starts to get clingy, I do one of two things: wear him in the mei tai or put on a Chinese DVD for him to watch. I know it is bad to use TV as a babysitter, but the Chinese movies we have are totally educational! And I try to still talk to him and interact with him while he's watching since the laptop in the living room is near enough to the kitchen. Here's an example of one of our favorite Chinese DVDs:

Another thing I encourage Lo to do while I finish dinner is to go watch out the window at all the cars driving by. He imitates their engine noises, and often "talks" to me about what he sees out the window.

6:00 PM ~ Jerry gets home from work. Actually, lately he's been getting home later than this. =( But we normally wait to eat dinner once he arrives. After eating dinner, Jerry and Lo play a bit if there is time. If we are short on time, we go straight to Lo's bath. Jerry is primarily the baby bather, and it is their prime bonding time of the day. Often I leave them to themselves, letting talk Chinese together in the bathroom, while I clean up from dinner.

7-8:00 PM ~ Lo asleep. Some days if he is fussy, I put him down as early as 6PM, which he has especially been needing over the past few weeks as he transitioned from 2 naps/day to 1 nap/day. Occasionally, if we try to go to a quick run for groceries or something after dinner, we can push Lo's bedtime to a bit after 8. But I really hate more than anything to mess with his sleep times, so I am pretty much a Nazi about putting him to bed at the same time frame each day. I nurse him to sleep. If I'm gone to a Relief Society activity or book club, Jerry puts Lo to bed by soothing activities. It is a lot of work, or so I hear. So perhaps the nursing has become a crutch. I stopped caring about it after reading one of my sleep books.

Anyway, there's the Lo Routine. We still have moments during the day where I shrug and say "Now what do we do?" But having the simple commitment to work on Gross Motor Skills & Fine Motor Skills at varying times of the day has seemed to really help me stay motivated and Lo seems happier than he's ever been. He notices that I am more excited about how we spend our time. And I am loving my days for the most part. Motherhood is a blessing, giving me more joy than I ever thought I could have. And that Lo is the most special, wonderful little boy! A lot of times when he is sleeping, Jerry and I say to each other, "we miss him!" But we like our time alone from him as well. ;)

Wow, this got really long. Thanks to anybody who stuck with me.

What do we do all day

A friend of mine recently pointed out that I must be feeling back to normal since the birth, because blog posts are coming more frequently. Hah! What a funny correlation. But yes, I am feeling good most days and have figured out a (sort of) routine with sweet Little.
Each day has lots of play time. Little has figured out that if he yanks on the chain links of his gym, the whole gym will shake gloriously. Yesterday I laid him on his belly on his gym mat and glanced at him 30 seconds later to see that he was on his back! I moved him again to his tummy and immediately he rolled to his back again. Of course, when I got the camera to film his new trick, he declined my request for a repeat performance.

Helping with laundry. I have learned how to stay pretty caught up with what I call "the Big 3" chores: laundry, dishes, and meals. The rest of the house has its ups and downs.

Each day I try to keep Little upright as much as possible, because I am paranoid about him getting a flat head if he lays on his back too much. So I wear him in the baby carriers a lot, and last week decided to try out the Bumbo chair. He loved it so much, I wished we had tried playing with it earlier! Best five bucks I ever spent (thank you Craigslist).

If he sits in it for longer than 5-10 minutes however, his strength gives out and he starts to look like the Leaning Tower of Little.

We also do storytime each day. I read to him in English and Mandarin, and Jerry reads to him in Cantonese. Little recognizes the books now, and it is cute to see his eyes light up when I pull out one of his favorites. He seems to like three in particular: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Toes, Ears and Nose (a lift-the-flap-book). We translated that last one into Mandarin pinyin, so it is helping all of us learn cool body part names. Did you all know how to say "belly button" in Chinese (Mandarin). It is du(4 )qi(2).

Also, just this past week I noticed Little intentionally helping hold the books while I read. He bats at the pages and I let him grab at them when it is time to turn to the next page. He is growing up so quickly, it makes me have tears in my eyes just now to think about it. (heh, maybe those pregnancy hormones aren't all back to normal after all)