a typical day

These days, things are pretty much the same around here. When folks ask how things are going or how we're doing, I say something like, "Our life pretty much stays the same."


Matt gets up and goes to work (except on the days he doesn't), I get up, get ready, Jonah wakes up, poops his diaper, I go get him up, he stands up sweetly and sometimes greets me with "Hi, Mommy" and a wave, we do a diaper change, and then he gets his breakfast tube feed.


While he's "eating" breakfast, I unload and load the dishwasher, check email, catch up on Google Reader, eat breakfast, and make Jonah's next three tube meals.


Then we do bath and bandage change (or "new wraps" as I've been calling them to Jonah lately).


Then Jonah plays for about a half hour and then he goes down for a nap. He typically sleeps for an hour and a half. I eat lunch, relax a little, and make any important phone calls that are hard to make when he's yelling in my ear awake.


Then he gets up, we do another diaper change, and then we usually try lunch by mouth, complimented by tube if needed.


AND THEN HE FINALLY GETS TO REALLY PLAY FOR THE FIRST TIME OF THE DAY. It's typically 2:30 or after before he gets real free time. And he takes advantage of it.


On days Daddy is home, sometimes he builds Jonah a tunnel.

We play trucks. Lots and lots and lots of trucks.

We watch lots of television (don't judge; we can't go outside).

There's lots of fake falling down and "a-slams" ("Jonah slams" where he jumps on Daddy or me or whomever else happens to be over at our house at the moment)...

... lots of running around squealing in delight...

... lots of smiling, talking, and generally looking adorable...

... and lots of bothering playing with Deac, ofttimes much to his dismay.

While he plays I'm either being productive or not. But regardless, I wash, dry, and fold this load of laundry every day. It's the dressing change load. I put it in the wash right after bandage changes and get it cleaned and folded for the next day (outfit, diaper, and socks subject to change).

Around 6:15, we put his pajamas on, drain his blisters, and cover his visible wounds in Polysporin. Then it's to the high chair for dinner.

After dinner, we go downstairs to set up for the next morning's dressing change, let Jonah play with his downstairs toys for a while, and then it's back upstairs and soon off to bed. Before bed, we change his diaper, put on his night tube, put hand sanitizer on his hands, brush and MI paste his teeth with our fingers, and put Aquaphor on his face. 

Then, Matt takes him up to bed. I, in the meantime, draw up his morning meds, finish loading and start the dishwasher, put up the clean med syringes from the previous night's dishwasher, and take out the bedroom and kitchen trash.

Then, we relax. Shwoo. It's a good life, but it's certainly hard to deviate much from the schedule. Between three one-hour meals, an hour and a half bath and bandage change, nap time, and all our chores, we utilize most of our minutes when we can so that we can relax for a couple of hours before bed.

I'm not complaining. Just didn't have much to blog about. It's not a normal life, but it's a good life. And I look at it this way, a major need of many foster system kids is structure and routine. We are ALL over that.