My day today

Here is a little snap shot of what my day has looked like today. Brace yourself, its a pretty backed name. 

5am- Wake up! Woohoo nice and early. This is the time to fit in many jobs before the kids wake up. This includes, doing my morning bible reading, eating breakfast, getting dressed, showering, getting food ready for myself for the day etc etc. All do able with in an hour, the problem is I often unconsciously hit snooze in my sleep. 

6am- Time to wake up the kids. I have to walk from my cottage to the nursery (about a 5-7min walk). This is often a very cold walk, cause it gets chilly in the morning here. When I enter the nursery I am usually bombarded by 30 crazy kids all with smelly nappies. This morning I was in charge of looking after the kids which are between 6months to 1 years (we call them the grubs) old. So the first few hours of the morning where spent changing these little ones nappies (many many nappies, 10 dirty nappies in the first hour of the day! Fun), bathing the babies, giving the babies their bottles and feeding the babies. When you are dealing with 7 little ones this takes a number of hours.

9am- At nine the grubs go down for a sleep. I am becoming an expert at putting the babies to sleep, I have worked out that it is all about the patting. Problem is though, there are 30 kids at TLC and most of them sleep in the same room, so when one screams really loudly cause they don't want to sleep, the rest wake up. Nap time can be a challenge. While the kids are sleeping I spend the time cleaning and doing jobs and having breakfast if I haven't had the chance to yet. There are lots and lots of dishes to be done and there is a tone of laundry to do. So there is always many many things to do while the kids are asleep.

10am- The Grubs should be awake now. During this hour I am down to spend quality time with an 8 month old baby encouraging him to learn how to sit. This is done by doing exercises with him on a yoga ball. Was really fun, until he projectile vomited all over me. 

11am- This is my break for the day. Its not long but I always need it so much! During this time I usually give Julian, my boyfriend, or my family a call. It is about 8pm back home so it is a pretty good time to call. Then I usually have some more bible reading time. I am finding it really challenging being here so I try to spend as much time as possible in Gods word, because I believe it is sustaining. During this time I also try to take a nap and have some lunch, because it will be a busy busy afternoon! 

1pm- It is time to feed the 2-3 year old kids (we call them the lions). There are 10 of them, so it is crazy times! There is often a food fight, multiple refusals to eat, many tears and lots of mess. Once they have eaten it is a race to get them into bed. They need to all go to the toilet or have their nappies changed, this takes a while. Then they need to settle in their beds, this takes forever. Whenever they are in their bedroom they are automatically crazy!! They jump on the bed, scream, cry, throw things. I have found a new trick for getting them to go to sleep. I tell them that the quietest lion gets to choose what book we will read. Its funny because we only have 1 book, the bible, and so that the only book they know and choose. So then I read the bible to them until they are sound asleep. It usually doesn't take to long once they all have their heads on the pillows and are listening to the story. 

2pm- While the Lions are asleep I spend the time cleaning! There are 100s of bottles to wash, bathrooms to clean, rubbish to take out, dummies to sanitize, laundry to wash, cups and plates to clean, bottles which need making, dinner which needs making, afternoon snack which need making. The list could go on. It actually never finishes. 

3pm- I am now finished with the Lions and the Grubs for the day. I will be spending the rest of the day with the Creepies, the children who are 1 years old. We spend the first hour playing. Often we go outside and play on the lawn, or we go for a walk to see the farm animals.s

4pm- Its time to start getting the Creepies ready for bed. They wont be heading to bed till 6.30 but it takes this long to get 9 one year old children ready to go to bed! We start by giving half the kids a bath. Bath time is always fun at TLC! The kids go crazy. Water goes everywhere. The kids love it! 

5pm- Time for dinner for the Creepies! This is interesting as well, the kids arent to good at eating so we have to feed them one by one. It takes a long while! After this we bath the remaining kids, brush teeth and start getting them settled for bed. 

6.30- Time for bed for all the kids!! All kids, Creepies, Lions and Grubs go to sleep around now. This is a crazy time, because they would much rather play. It particularly hard because there is usually about 4 of us trying to get 23 crazy kids to sleep. During this time we spend a lot of time singing lullabies and patting kids on the back. If the kids get to sleep with in the hour we then go finish doing the dishes for the day. There is usually a big pile of them in the sink.

7.30- Bed time. Just kidding. Now is the time to hang with my room mate or with the other girls working here. Or to scrapbook what the kids have done during the day in their personal scrapbooks, so when they go to their forever families or when they get older they have a record of their childhood and achievements! 

Everyday is very busy! Everyday I learn so much about life and God! Julian has been calling it my crash course in parenting, and trust me it really feels like that!!