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mayanjohnsonofficial · 5 years ago

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A Day in the Life with the Johnsons

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Maya Nicole Johnson, and I am a twenty-nine-year-old stay at home mom. I’m married to Eric Johnson, 34, and we have three beautiful children, Jj, 4, and a set of twenty-one-month-old twins, Benjamin and Isabelle. We also have three dogs, Lemon, Stella, and Peppa, whom we love very much. We enjoy growing our own herbs and vegetables in our outside garden and in our indoor greenhouse. Everyone in our home pitches in to help get everything accomplished.

I have been asked many times what our typical day looks like. Looking in on our family from the outside, one might think our schedule is quite hectic most of the time. This very might be true, however, once our twins were born, well, while I was still pregnant with them, Eric and I knew that we would need to have an organized schedule in order to perform day to day tasks effectively. Our schedule that we created when Benjamin and Isabelle were born was not very flexible due to them being premature, but as they have grown older, we are able to change around our daily schedules more, allowing for more free time to go on play dates, go shopping, go to the park, travel, etc.

When thinking about what a typical day looks like in our home, it mainly depends on whether it is a weekday or on the weekend. Because Eric works in Knoxville, our days during the week are quite different from how our weekend days. During the week, I typically break the day up into three sections: morning/breakfast time, lunch/afternoon time, and dinner/evening time. Dividing our day into these three sections makes organizing meals, cleaning, and gardening/yard upkeep, activities, and play dates easier to where I am not feeling overwhelmed or stressed. When I don’t stick to our schedule, it sometimes feels like I am running around with my head cut off. On the weekends, our schedules are a little more flexible because Eric is home with us from work. Having an extra set of hands when you have three small children comes in handy, especially when all of our children are walking and running in all directions around our home.

For our breakfast/morning routine during the week, I usually begin the day by having our oldest son, Jj, use the bathroom and check on Benjamin and Isabelle. While he is checking on them, I take Peppa, our pug, outside with our other two dogs, Lemon and Stella, so she can go potty. Once Peppa and I get back inside, I walk into the kids’ room and get Benjamin and Isabelle out of their pack-n-plays. I also make it my mission to let Jj know how proud I am of him for checking on Benjamin and Isabelle while I was outside with our dogs. Next, we all walk/run into our living room and call Eric to say good morning and to make sure he made it to work safely. After we call Eric and tell him good morning, we head into the kitchen in order to get ready to make breakfast. Before I start making breakfast, I have Jj fill up Peppa’s food bowl, and I wash any dishes that was left in the sink from the previous night. After the dishes are all washed and put away, I cut PBS on the tv and let the kids play until breakfast is ready. To prepare breakfast, I cut the oven on to make toast for the Benjamin and Isabelle and bagels for me and Jj. I then crack open and scramble 5 eggs. Along with toast/bagels and eggs, the kids also eat a variety of fruit with their breakfast and share my yogurt with me. It usually takes me about ten minutes to get their breakfast ready after I wash all of the dishes. Depending on whether we have a playdate to get ready for, it is usually learning time for Jj, Benjamin, and Isabelle after they finish their breakfast. Learning time typically lasts about an hour to an hour and a half for Jj and about a half an hour for Benjamin and Isabelle (usually that is how long they lasts before they want to go play). For Jj, he has daily online preschool lessons with Miss Humblebee Academy and practices his handwriting and coloring afterwards. For Benjamin and Isabelle, I typically focus on one to three new words a week, and I have them color pretty pictures for daddy. Once learning time has commenced, I cut back on a cartoon, usually Sesame Street or The Cat and the Hat, for them and allow them all to practice independent play until it is time for Benjamin and Isabelle to lay for their first nap. While they play nicely, sometimes, with each other, I take that opportunity to pick up/clean around the house, i.e. sweeping, wiping off tables, picking up clothes, and cleaning dishes from breakfast. Once I lay Benjamin and Isabelle down for their first nap, Jj helps me take Peppa outside, check on the other two dogs, Lemon and Stella, and attend to our outside garden and our indoor greenhouse garden. Jj and I usually spend about forty-five minutes to an hour pulling weeds, harvesting vegetables, watering the garden, and checking on Jj’s aloe vera plant. After tending to the garden, Jj and I head back inside to get Peppa and go back upstairs. Once we are back upstairs, before the twins wake up, I have Jj sit down and draw/color and watch his favorite cartoon, Wild Kratts, while I sit working on things for my children’s book and getting some drawing done. Once Benjamin and Isabelle wake up, we get ready for lunch.

For our lunch/afternoon routine during the week, I start out by getting Benjamin and Isabelle out of their pack-n-plays once they wake up from their first nap. We all sit down on the floor and talk about what everyone wants to eat for lunch. I usually ask Jj first, his request is always a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chips, then I proceed to ask Benjamin and Isabelle what they would like for lunch, with their usual response being “Yea! Yea!”. Once we figure out what everyone wants to eat for lunch, we march on into the kitchen to cook it up. Jj likes to help make lunch most days, so I let him help assemble the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with my supervision of course. Once I fix everyone’s plates for lunch, I sit them down, hand them their food, refill their water cups, and cut up a variety of fruit for them to eat with lunch. While they are eating their lunch, I use that opportunity to take Peppa out again and to fix myself a little something to eat for my lunch, granted half of it typically goes to Benjamin and Isabelle. Once we are all done eating, I clean up the dishes and change the twins’ diapers. Once that is completed, I come up with a fun activity to do with them for the afternoon. If the weather is great, we would do the activity outside in our backyard. We love doing our activities outside in the fresh air. Around 3:00 in the afternoon, we clean up our activity and get ready for Benjamin’s and Isabelle’s second nap/rest time and Jj’s quiet time. For the twins, they do not always take their second nap, so I consider it rest time in order for them to have energy for the evening time. For Jj, because he has sort of grown out of his daily nap, I cut on his favorite movie or cartoon and allow him to have quiet time on the couch until I get Benjamin and Isabelle out of their pack-n-plays. Once everyone is up from quiet/rest time, we get ready for dinner.

For our dinner/evening routine during the week, I typically let Jj and the twins play together while I prepare/warm up their dinner. Eric is usually off of work around 4:30 and gets home around 6:00 depending how heavy the traffic is and whether he leaves work late. As I am preparing dinner for the kids, I also go ahead and prepare Eric’s dinner as well because he sometimes skips his lunch. I always try to time everything to where we are all ready to eat as Eric is walking into the door if it is not too late. Jj, Benjamin, and Isabelle all get very excited to see Eric when he walks into the house. Once Eric gets home, we all sit down at our dinner table and enjoy eating together. After we finish up with dinner, we clean up and proceed to bath time. Bath time in our house gets pretty hectic because not only do all three kids get a bath, Peppa also gets a bath in order to control the shedding. Eric and I typically tag team bath time. I set out the diapers and clothes, and he sets out the towels. I give them all baths, and he gets them all dressed. I typically give Benjamin and Isabelle their baths first, then I will give Jj his bath, and Peppa gets hers last. By the time I get through with Peppa’s bath, all of the kids are dressed and ready for story/play time before bed. Eric likes to sit down with all of the kids and read books with them. While he is reading to them, I am putting up towels and setting up their beds for the night. Both Benjamin and Isabelle go down for bed at around 7:30 and Jj usually goes to bed around 8:45. When the twins are down for bed, I take Peppa out one last time, and Eric takes Lemon and Stella out one last time before we get ready to relax for the rest of the evening. Once Jj has fallen asleep, Eric and I put him in his bed watch television until we get ready to go to bed, usually around 10:00, if we can make it that far.

Now for the weekends, things are a little different. We usually don’t do the kids’ learning time after breakfast. We usually use that time to clean, do laundry, run errands, and work out in the yard together as a family. Having Eric’s help on the weekends makes things a lot easier on the weekends.

In a perfect world, our days would run this smoothly every single day. Having a household with three young children and three dogs has the ability to make things pretty hectic half of the time, especially when we think about doctors’ appointments, nicu follow up appointments for the twins, dentist appointments, traveling out of town to see family, and when we have company visiting. Yes, things can get very hectic in our home, but we cherish each and every moment of every single day. This is us. This is the Johnsons.

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