Time: !0 am    Place: My Bedroom

I wake, or rather baby wakes me. I feed him while mentally going over all the things I should have done in the last month that I promise myself I will do today.

I finish feeding baby and start to get out of bed when he falls asleep on my shoulder making me fall asleep again (pesky baby).

20 minutes later baby jerks his head scaring the living daylight out of me and I get out of bed.

Put robe over PJ’s. Take baby to nanny (whom I hug and kiss and give chocolates and yummy things to in my head every day). Hand over baby and go back to room to change. Start opening wardrobe to get out clothes.

Toddler runs in, back from morning at grandmothers which is meant to give me time to shower and change and be sane.

I abandon clothes search and start playing ‘hug my head I hug your head’ with toddler. An hour later, still in PJ’s and robe, it’s after noon and nap time! Not for me, I wish it was for me. But first prayer time. I wash and pray with Toddler beside me following the moves and saying “Alhamdulilah” over and over and whispering gibberish under his breath.

Then we start our usual banter of “its time to sleep” and “I no like sleep!” And “drink your milk” and “I no like milk!”.

20 minutes later and now BOTH toddle and I are in PJ’s… We’re regressing. Another 15 minutes and he’s asleep. I get up (after a 10 min nap) to shower.

But first I’m starving!! Weetabix with milk and honey. No good to shower on an empty stomach! (Not sure why but let’s just say its no good).

Half way through breakfast/lunch I am distracted by flashing lights on my phone. Let’s check my messages! The unorganized voice in my head says. An hour later I am still answering emails. I am still in my PJ’s. Baby needs to feed again.

I get back into bed! Trying to remember why I ever bothered to get out! Desperately hoping kids don’t get home from school with me still in PJ’s still in bed!

20 minutes later “Mama! You’re still in bed!” Me: Noooo! I’ve been trying to get dressed all morning.

Baby fed and burped and sleeping. Hand over again to lovely life saving nanny jump in shower before big kids finish snack and need help with homework.

Out of shower, in towel about to put cream on. Toddler crying. Out of bathroom into toddlers room. His royal highness, the emperor of the world, is upset I wasn’t waiting for him when he woke up! How dare I! Off with my head.

I tell him when he’s finished crying he can come to my room while I get ready. I walk out the door and stand there waiting. Toddler goes quiet and follows me out “I finish crying mama. I pad?” Me: “no iPad during the week Habeebi” again the crying. Oh how I love our daily traditions.

10 minutes later all is relatively calm. Prayer time. I’ve abandoned the cream idea and am dressed in proper clothes finally. Start to dry my hair because I’m sick of looking like I was playing with an electric socket. It’s past 4 pm now.

Back of my hair half done. A white paper with Math stuff on it is thrust in my face. “I don’t get it” says the eldest. “Neither do I!” Is what I want to say but don’t. Instead “You know this. Its simple. Look at it a bit longer and it will come to you”. If that fails I go to my arsenal of ways to not show your children you have no clue how to solve their math problems. One of them includes the amazing world of The Khan Academy. If you haven’t heard of it before check it out it’s a life saver!

Second eldest has sight words. All three on us are on the floor of my dressing room now, hair half up, half wet. Doing homework.

20 minuets later sight words are over math is still on going. Next subject, Arabic reading for my little girl. Math is finished “will you check my answers?” Me “you check them Habeebi, if there are any mistakes you can ask your teacher to explain it to you again.” My philosophy is I’m not the teacher, I don’t know how to teach, the teacher should know what he is understanding or not understanding from his lessons with her. He moves on to arabic homework. My hair is starting to frizz badly.

5.30 p.m. Baby awake. Not hungry just awake. So we all move to the floor in baby’s room. Hair completely dry and frizzy now and forgotten about to be honest. Homework finished! Horray! More emails to answer.

Someone here about todays problem in the house (new house so you name it its malfunctioning). Go to see man about the problem with huge red hair clip holding my ridiculously big hair on the top of my head. Remember about hair clip as I’m walking back up to my room after seeing the man.

Baby hungry. Feed baby. Mama hungry. Dinner time for kids! Finish feeding baby and run down for dinner. Spend as much of it as possible not nagging kids to sit straight and eat with their mouths closed and take elbows off table. Manage to have half decent conversations over dinner. Bath time for kids.

At this point, had my mental plan for the day worked, I would have had my hair done, cream on, and clothes picked and ready for me to wear as soon as the kids are in bed so I can go see my grandmother before she sleeps. In stead I am in sweats with something that looks like a bird’s nest above my head and not a clue what I want to wear.

In a desperate attempt to get to her before a) baby wakes again to feed or b) she sleeps, I skip bath time and story time with kids and leave it up to nanny (who I am still mentally giving gold and jewels to) and go try to salvage my hair.

Settle for tidying the front of it and tying the rest back.

Go check on kids who are in bed. Spend 15 mins with each shooting random, time-consuming questions at me to delay the inevitable; sleep. The fact that I didn’t do bedtime makes this process longer because of The Guilt. But I would estimate not more than 3 minutes longer that is normally would because I am becoming immune to The Guilt.

Now, back to the ordeal of finding something to wear that is nice looking and easy to breast feed in. End up going back to the same 4 things I have been rotating between in the last few weeks because I’m too fat for all my other clothes.

Kids asleep except for toddler. And we start our little tradition “where u going?” “I’m going to Mama S” “Can I come wid you?” “No” “why?” Then he walks off. He has yet to realize that he should expect an answer to that. Get baby in car seat, car seat in car and head to grandmothers.

Grandmother is asleep. Go see my mother. Have dinner with her, stay till about midnight. Go home. Change, get into bed. Baby is going to wake and feed any minute.

12.30 still asleep. But aaaany minute now, he fed at 9.30 so he is due.

1.30 still asleep. It can’t be much longer now. The second I decide to sleep he’s going to wake… I might as well wait.

2.15 finally awake. I feed baby. 3.10 am baby fed and burped and changed and sleeping. Prayer time is in 30 minutes. I can’t sleep before I pray cause I know I won’t wake up. 4.am I’ve prayed and settled back into bed.

Sleep!

Rinse and repeat.

And this, my friends, is why I haven’t had a chance to update my blog in a while. Miss you all!