Evening Routines and insect infestations

One of the things I've learned from my time log is that we have a pretty set evening routine at the moment.  Here's a snapshot.

• 5:30 Eat dinner
• 6:00 Kids Upstairs & baths if needed
• 6:25 Kids into pyjamas, I read them a story
• 6:30 Andy gives Audrey Bottle
• 6:40 Andy swaps to finish kid bedtime, I feed Nora.  Andy puts Audrey to bed
• 6:55 I put Nora in Bed
• 7:05 Andy and I tidy up dinner and do a quick house pick-up
• 7:35 Plug in phone downstairs and finish screens for the day
• 7:40 Upstairs for yoga (new addition!)
• 8:15 Meditate
• 8:30 Finish upstairs, brush teeth and get in bed. 
• 8:35 Read
• 9:00 Sleep

I do like an early bedtime but this fees stiflingly early.  I miss my weekly evening writing buddy.  I miss evening walks.  It's still light at 9pm!  However,  I've realised that right now sleep after 4am is just not a guarantee. Even if babies don't need feeding they sometimes gripe and sometimes need nappies and often they will be doing random baby stuff for up to an hour from 4/4:30 on which then brings the morning so close to kid wake up that I can't get back to bed.

I complained to Andy that I feel like we are still in baby survival mode, because I feel the pressure to get to bed starting around 4pm.  Andy noted that baby survival mode meant that we were going to bed at 7pm having not eaten a home cooked meal or done yoga or meditated (or probably brushed teeth).

Also, this yoga and meditation thing is new since starting Peloton App, but I love it.  I have never gotten into meditation before (after trying headspace a few times) but I think that Peloton meditation works for me because I do it in my office (A space I love) and in the evenings.  It turns out meditation is just breathing, and I really like breathing!  I'm not sure it's making me a better human, but I don't think it's making me a worse one.  

I am also hoping an evening Yoga routine might make my morning back pain better.  But probably what would make my morning back pain better is not manoeuvring a 20lb and 17lb baby all the time.

Im the spirit of "there are no normal days" here's what the routines have included for the last few nights.

Monday: Andy found a wasps nest in the shed.  After some googling and some youtube he decided to use a vacuum to remove it.  I thought this was ridiculous so got a quote from a pest person - £88 to remove a wasp nest!  On Monday evening I heard the hoover going during my yoga.  7 minutes into my 10 minute meditation Andy asked if I wanted to see a queen wasp.  He had accidentally knocked the whole hive off (once empty) and it was pretty cool, and the queen was still alive, and there were gross baby bees, and the whole thing was 90% gross/creepy and 10% interesting.  I definitely wasn't as relaxed and chilled and ready for bed after looking at a Wasps nest though.

For the kids, wasps were 100% interesting and 0% gross, so we had a lesson in hive building the next morning.  Wasps are actually cool and interesting and I am happy for them to exist not in my shed.  I am also lucky to have a very handy husband who can clear a wasps nest! Here's Isaac checking out the queen bee in the morning (she did not survive the night):

Tuesday: Isaac had beens scratching his head a lot and so I decided to run the lice comb through it at bath time. Then I did Lilah's hair.  I am still not sure if either of them had lice, although I think Isaac may have had a nit or two?  I assumed there would be either lots or none, so I'm not sure "two nits" is a thing. Another reason I am so ready for summer holidays - school is gross.  I need to get Lilah's hair cut soon, or cut her hair myself, because she has long curly hair (which has been trimmed once in her life) and pulling a nit comb through it was hard.  Andy nit combed my hair just in case (I mean, that's love right?  wasps then nits?) and hopefully we have avoided any potential problems.

Wednesday: Andy went biking in the evening and it was 27c/80f.  The kids did *not* want to sleep. I finished Yoga/Meditation at 8:30 and then continued reading Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.  I pulled this recommendation from Kyria's blog and I could not put it down.  So I ended up finishing it at 10pm, which is a late night for me.

Today: I am meeting friends for dinner at a restaurant.  I am excited to see my friends but already worried about not being in bed by 9. I guess I can always be in bed by 8 on Friday.  Or maybe the babies will sleep until 5am tomorrow? Or later??

What's your evening routine like?  What's your ideal bedtime and your ideal wake up?

Routines that are working now

Here are a few routines that are currently working for us with our four kids ages 5 and under:

Laundry We make a lot of laundry.  I used to always wash and put away in the same day.  That's currently impossible. Every morning I start a load of laundry around breakfast.  It gets put in the drier midday.  It comes out in the afternoon or evening and sits in a basket in the hall until the next morning, when it gets put away during morning baby nap.  Baby clothes get put away just after baby nap.  Every other day we do 2 loads of laundry, which means I need to make sure the second load is in the drier by 5pm so it will be dry after dinner and before bedtime.

I have sort of given up on kids putting away their own laundry for now.  I do try and make Isaac take school uniform from the clean laundry pile rather than his drawers in the morning.  Yesterday he said "It's ok,  I would rather take it from the drawer" to which I replied "oh no, you'll take it from this pile".  

I love the verbalised notion of "It's OK, I'll just make your life harder" which I have only ever heard at home from children and at work from business executives.

Dishwasher We are now a twice a day dishwasher running family.  Breakfast and lunch dishes are put in and we run the dishwasher at around 1:30.  Emptying the dishwasher is part of dinner prep, and then we load it up again after dinner and run it.  Now that the babies are eating food too we are fully filling it twice.  Also, EVERYTHING (except wood) goes in the dishwasher. I don't usually rinse things before putting them in the dishwasher.  I know some people basically wash dishes first, but isn't that what the dishwasher is for? I scrape food into the compost but otherwise if something comes out with food on it (which happens rarely, and mostly with peanut butter knives and spoons) then I give it a quick rinse and put it back in.  

Do you wash dishes before putting them in the dishwasher? Do people who rinse dishes first think it's gross not to rinse dishes?  Can wood go in a dishwasher?

Meal Plans We are making meals plans again, which we hold loosely and move around the week if needed.  For instance this week's plan is:

• Pizza (with sweetcorn and broccoli on the side)
• Beans on Toast & scrambled egg
• Carbonara
• Chicken Gyros 
• Tacos
• Pea Fritters & Roast Veg

We semi assign these to days (Pizza is tonight) but if we need to swap around on the day then we can.  Also, whoever makes dinner also sets the table and makes Audrey's bedtime bottle.  The other parent watches all the kids from 5-5:30pm.  Dinners have to be made in 30 minutes or less.  Tray bakes are a total winner here

Schedule Our days have a pattern.  The babies have a pattern.  I wish they had a schedule, but they don't really.  Here is the rough schedule/pattern:

6:30 kids up
6:45 Breakfast
8:30 kids out the door (if going to school/nursery)
9:30 nurse babies
11:30 Lunch
1:30 nurse babies
2:30 snack
4:00 nurse babies
5:30 family dinner
6:00 kid bedtime
6:30 baby bedtime
7:00 tidy house
7:45 Free time for fun and adventure
8:30 my bedtime

I feel like I spend my whole day feeding people or preparing food.  It turns out, I *do* spend my whole day feeding people or preparing food!

Evening Tidy In the evenings we load the dishwasher, clear of the kitchen counters, clear the dining table, sweep the floor.  Hoover if we have time.  Pick up the lounge.  Put everything that belongs upstairs on the stairs.  Start the dishwasher.  And that's it.  The stairs have stuff on them.  The hall has shoes all over.  However... a clean kitchen, dining room, and lounge is enough.  In the morning, I am not really awake till coffee and coffee is in the kitchen, so I don't tend to notice the messy stairs or hall.  I notice the clean kitchen, and that's a boost for me.

Groceries/FLOM On Thursdays we do our Family Logistics meeting (which I will write about again!) but we have split this so that we plan meals around lunch time, and then do the rest of the logistics and future planning in the evenings.  I book a grocery delivery every Friday.  I can add everything from the meal plan to the grocery delivery in the afternoon.  You know when I 100% don't want to meal plan?  In the evenings after spending ALL DAY feeding people.  When we make the meal plan at lunch (Andy and I do it together since he works from home on Fridays) it doesn't seem like such a chore.  

Oh dear, It's 6:45am now, time for me to start feeding people.

Monday Thoughts - What does success look like?

Mondays are my hardest day - I have the twins and Lilah at home.  It's made easier by having my mom here, as she's taken Lilah this morning so it's just me and the twins.  Hence the blog! But still, I've been slightly fearing the trickyness of Mondays all weekend, and I've been trying to conserve my own energy for Monday.  This was all going well... untill Lilah woke me up at 10:30pm because her blankets weren't straight (??) and then she needed water and a cuddle and her blankets again.  Back to sleep at 11pm, then the babies were up at 12:30 and very angry... and somewhat hungry.  So an early feed and back to bed, before another wake up at 5am.  Which makes sense and is developmentally appropriate and I was still rather tired and annoyed.

Luckily Andy did the big kids this morning so I slept until 8 and let the babies sleep until.  I don't know what this means for the rest of the days naps/feeds but I decided I needed it.  The schedule the babies are in now is totally working for me and totally temporary, which is a tricky place to be! Soon their naps and feeds will shift and then I'll have to shift again.  My major consideration is whether I can shift their schedules around enough to make the £13 pilates class at 9:30am rather than the £20 pilates class at 10:30.  We will see!

I've been a big grumpy this morning but as I filled out my time log for last week I realised I actually have had enough sleep.  I'm averaging 8.2 hours of sleep per 24 hour period.

And suddenly I was less tired.  So I decided to do a quick blog post.  Then I'll tackle laundry (currently a load in the drier and 2 loads in the baby room), and I need to get dressed, text our cleaner, and then maybe read my book (authors note - this is why I am still on page 22 of my book)?  

I got out for a Mothers Day run yesterday and did a 15 minute core workout so I'm not feeling keen to exercise again this morning.  I also am coming around to the apple watch and finally figured out how to add strava!  So, my first recorded run:

So many PRs!  It's week 2 of Couch to 5k... and I feel I'm taking it adequately slow enough for recovery.  It feels weird but I am super excited for someday being in the woods for a 10k again.  Being on the streets for a 4k is good for now.

All this to say - what will make today a success?

• Staying calm with Lilah (3 year olds can be a lot)
• Having the house in OK shape for the cleaner tomorrow
• Putting away the laundry
• Taking the twins and Lilah to a friend's house for a cup of tea
• Finishing Time Log and Line a Day journal
• Writing a blog post
• Going to bed early so I can wake up early for Rachel time
• Eating one of these delicious cupcakes (old photo - there are only 3 left)

That all seems achievable to me.  And tomorrow it's my weekend!

Rhythms and Routines

The other week a delivery driver sighed and said "Mondays!" when he dropped off a parcel at our house.  "Oh it's definitely a Monday!" I said... and he said "yeah those weekends just go to fast".  But then I realised... no, I was lamenting that it was a Monday because Mondays are hard.  Mondays are me and the twins and the three year old.  Weekends are also hard, because although I add a husband I also add the 5 year old and the 3 year old.   I wasn't looking back wistfully the the weekend... I was just commenting on it being a Monday.

I've had some grumpy Saturdays recently, but I think this may be more of a mental framing issue.  I've mostly lived in a world where we make it to Saturday and then... we breathe.  Or at least the day changes.  If we work a 9 to 5 on Saturday we subtract work and add kids.  Or we subtract work and add hobbies.  For me... I just add.  On Maternity leave my 9-5 is babies, and on the weekend those babies are still there... plus the others.  It's a lot.  And on Monday I subtract the other adult and keep one of the kids.  It's more.

I decided I need to change my mental approach to my week.  My "weekends" will be Tuesday-Thursday, when it's just me and the babies.  The 3 year old is in nursery, the 5 year old is in School.  Yesterday I told the husband to go into the office today so I could be at home alone (+babies).  Everyone was out the door at 8am and the babies were asleep and I was so excited.

I spent the first hour tidying before the cleaner came.  Then a friend came and we went to a pilates class (top tip - if you have twins find someone who doesn't work during the week to help you take babies to baby classes!). Then we went to a cafe for lunch.  Then home, where my clean house greeted me! And I put the babies down for a nap, swapped out the laundry, made some more food, and started writing this blog.

Tomorrow a friend is coming over to help me take the babies for a walk in the woods.  (Top tip for twins - find someone who doesn't work in the week who wants to carry a baby in a baby carrier so you can go for a walk!)

Anyways, the reason this is all possible is that these two gremlins are now 4 months old, and they are starting to reliably nap! 

Not every nap is reliable, but nap 1 is.  Which means I have one time a day when I know I will get some me time.  It turns out, all I need is one tiny bit of reliability to feel so much better about life. In addition to the morning nap, every night I reliably get a bit of TV with Andy while we put the babies to bed.

A lot of life is still hard work.  Dinner is hard. Post school pre bed is hard. Waking up once a night feels easy, but is hard.

But my Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday is not hard.  So when Saturday is hard I'll try and remember I'm only 2 days away from Tuesday.

One Little Adventure - Fermented Food Date Night (Tranquility by Tuesday Inspired)

 I am very exited for this book:

Laura Vanderkam is an excellent writer on productivity and life organizing.  Although the book isn't out yet, there is a sneak preview of the 9 time management rules for tranquility.  I was actually already doing a few of them, but it's definitely made me a bit more thoughtful about my own priorities and scheduling.

Rule 6 is "One big adventure, one little adventure".  I realized we were good on weekend adventures, but Andy and I hadn't really been scheduling many little adventures.  Sure, we had some date nights, and intended to do adult dinner after kid dinner, but most of the time when we both found ourselves home in the evening we chatted, played on the internet, read and went to bed.  

I know the value in scheduling, I'm currently writing from my weekly writing friend date night.  She's writing a book, I'm writing a blog, and we meet every Thursday (or as many as possible) to write together.

I also have my one work/social night once a week, and an alternate week run & wine club with my neighbor.  Andy has a MTB evening and a work evening.  We do our planning meeting on Friday.  I still felt like there were some evenings of tired at home time that could be better repurposed for fun.

I trailed our little adventure on Wednesday - we were both home after kid bedtime and house tidying so we decided to make Kimchee and Sauerkraut.  Recently we took an amazing course with the Crafty Pickle and had a ferment rotation going, but eventually slowed down and hadn't made anything for a while.  I even had a fridge full of cabbage and carrots and ginger and almost going-off bits which needed fermenting.  

8:00pm: it was go time:

And by 9:30:

Yay! My kimchee on the outside, Andy's sauerkraut in the middle.  He went for red cabbage.

And to end the night, like any good date night, Andy had to plater his finger back together after garlic chopping incident (I wasn't involved, except to say "do you need stitches?" and "do you need to go to A&E" and "If you do go to A&E you should probably drive an hour to Abergavenny because I think their minor injuries unit will see you faster than our local flagship A&E")

I am very excited to add a weekly 90 minute date night to our schedule.  Kimchee was ambitious, but next week perhaps we'll do cake baking for Isaac's birthday.  And we might get into a TV show!  Or, when we have childcare, go to the pub.  Or maybe play a board game?  

Tranquility by Tuesday comes out next week so I have another week to think of more ideas...

Hotel Room Circuits - Easy Hotel Rooms Excercises!

I was lucky enough to watch someone design a circuit the other day, and after 10 minutes of it I was knackered! (That's british for tired, by the way...)  So here's how it goes...

Incredible Bodyweight Circuit!

1 minute Burpees

Then alternate 30 seconds on and 30 seconds rest for the following:

Crunches

Side Crunches

Bicycle Crunches

Leg Lifts

Supermans

Push ups

Seated Dips

Plank

Shoulder Bridge

Flutter Kick

Then stretch for 5 minutes!

Then repeat!

I love this circuit, I hope I'll do it again. I was mega-tired at my gym session after trying this - I could feel the pushups in my arms for sure.  30 seconds of pushups is a lot of pushups!

If you're looking for some more inspiration, The Greatist has a lovely set of 50 bodyweight exercises  perhaps you can design your own 10 minute circuit!

(And this workout is only 30 minutes - that's 2%!!)

Friday Cardio

Today was the kind of day where I had too much to do.

I woke up at 6:30, and started doing work.  I had intended to do something athletic, but since I hadn't gotten a chance to try the breakfast at this hotel I decided to sit and enjoy a breakfast instead.  I like being at hotels because I can order picky food - for instance I had boiled eggs with smoked salmon this morning.  Yum.  And rye vita and Boursin.  Extra yum.  600 calories of breakfast later I was too full to go to the gym

So I did work, and work, and work.

At about 1pm I had a stressful series of interactions and I started to get wound up.  I could have kept working - there was a lot more to do - but I thought it would do me good to take a few minutes away and go to the gym instead.  So I snuck out for a bit and found a local gym where I was able to do the following:

MIND CLEARING CARDIO ROUTINE

Elliptical for 20 minutes on level 7, 5 minutes forward and 5 minutes backwards

Running intervals - 20 seconds at 11 to 13.5 within 1 minute intervals

Rower - 2000 meteres at level 8 as fast as possible (pretty slow - took me 12 minutes)

Stair climber - start at level 4.  Increase by 1 level every 20 seconds until you can't bear it anymore.

And that was my routine - it took an hour and I left feeling energized and revived.  I got more work done and felt good about things.  It goes to show that when I think I have too much to do to work out maybe sometimes I am just not working well because I *haven't* worked out.

I also ate a very bizarre dinner which was Bolognese on chicken breast.  But it was kind of delicious.  When I'm away with work I'm trying to cut out most bread/grain so pasta and rice were out.  But to be honest it was quite tasty!

And now it's 10:30 and I'm exhausted!  So tomorrow is it a run day or a weights day?  Only time will tell!!

Tuesday Travels

I'm almost over my SARS.  Being sick is lame, but the exciting part of being sick is getting healthy again!  I've not been able to excercise since Friday but I managed to make it to the gym today for modified Cardio 1.

Modified Cardio 1:

Treadmill: Run a mile.  

Cross Trainer: 3 minutes on 8, 2 minutes on 18, repeat 4 times 

Rower: Row 2,000 meters

There were a couple of good points - the mile took me 9 minutes today, which is really good for me.  Before I started running a mile took me at least 10 minutes, usually 11 or 12.  Today I was tired after my mile, but I probably could have continued if treadmills aren't so damn boring.  I think the interval training of Non-modified Cardio 1 must be helping.

The rower took me under 10 minutes, which is also really good for me.  I've never timed myself on the rower but 11 to 12 minutes is my usual for 2,000 meters.  10 is such a nice round number that I have little desire to improve, except maybe to start doing 9 minute miles and 9 minute rowers?

Tomorrow I am going to try TRY TRY to get up at 6am for an early weights session at the gym.  Being sick over the weekend set me back and I haven't been for a long weekend ride in 3 weeks now so I'm somewhat worried about my next cycling adventure.  I don't think there's much I can do to keep my long ride stamina up, except long rides, and when you're away with work (which I am now) you can't really sit on a bike machine for 5 hours.  Also, that would be so boring I would rather....

... I don't know, I can't think of anything more boring than that.  Even watching paint dry would probably be less boring than 5 hours on an indoor bicycle.

If I am to get up at 6am I better get to sleep now, so goodnight blogosphere!

Saturday is the fail day.

I had a wonderful day planned!  First a parkrun at 9am, then mountain biking at Afan - hopefully to have a go at the epic Wall 2

On Friday I did Cardio at the gym with Geraint, which killed me as it always does.  We used to only do Cardio, then switched to weights, but decided to throw in a second session this week and make it Cardio.

The cardio routine at the moment is as follows:

Cross Trainer

 3 minutes on 8

2 minutes on 20

 keep above 100

repeat 4 times 

(20 minutes)

Treadmill

walk for 30 seconds

run for 20 seconds

10 seconds of transition

repeat 10 times

(12 minutes with 2 minutes walk warm up and down)

Rower

Row 2,000 meters as fast as you can

(10 minutes)

Running kills me, and might actually be easier outside because you spend most of the time raising and lowering the speed. 

I've also tried to cut down on bread after Christmas and eat more protein and veggies - I had a healthy dinner of chicken and potatoes and salad, then an early night with no drinking (2 weeks no beer - detox!).  All in prep for my awesomely sporty day of running and biking!

...

...

...

and I woke up this morning with SARS.  Okay, maybe it's not SARS, but I'm not good at being sick. I get man flu.

I did nothing but watch 5 episodes of Dr. Who and moan and drink Lemsip tea and moan. This SARS is the worst.

Hopefully on Monday I'll be fixed enough to try running with the Cardiff Tri group - that might actually kill me.  But until then I shall moan about my sore throat and grumpy tummy.  Oh (wo)man flu!

Core strength and silks training at NoFitState Circus.

Core strength is one of my weakest areas.  I've been dabbling in some silly circus skills for about a year now, but I'm not getting that much better.  A lot of the tricks I want to do involve climbing ropes, lifting legs, and having excellent core strength so I can do things like this:

At the Moment, I mostly do this:

Yes, that's me at the end of "Scarab" I think.

So the point is, I can either try to do new tricks, or I can get stronger, or I can weigh less (less to lift) and a combination of the last two will probably bring me the quickest improvement (be stronger and weigh less) though with Christmas and my love of all things chocolate, I may just focus on "stronger" for now.  In January I start the silks class again, and we'll see how far I've get (or how far I can fall) then.

So how am I getting stronger?  With this

AMAZING CORE WORKOUT:

Leg Lowers - until failure (4 sets)

Hanging Knee Raises - until failure (4 sets)

Crunches - until failure (4 sets)

Bicycle Crunches - until failure (4 sets)

Plank - 30 seconds (4 sets)

And that's it!  Plank is pretty much the hardest thing in the world.  Some people travel to the moon, and some people fight wars, and some people solve complex math problems, but people who can do strong planks for long periods of time.... well those are people.

So anyways, maybe I'll do this workout soon.  But until then, here's a video of me doing my only trick on arial ropes, and doing it rather sloppily.  Enjoy!