A Day in the Life (of a married-with-three-children student in the first phase of training with NTM)

So about six months ago, I did a "Day in the Life" post when Abel was just one month old, Israel was ten months old, and Ivy was nineteen months old.

At that time, we were living in our friends' house back in our hometown for the summer. We have now been back at New Tribes Bible Institute for our third semester, and our daily routine looks quite a bit different than it did six months ago. Ivy is now two, Israel is fifteen months old, and Abel is six months old.

Here's what a normal day looks like for us now:

6:25 am--My alarm goes off, and I usually get out of bed within the next few minutes.

6:30-7:00 am--I get ready for the day (clothes, hair, makeup, brush teeth, etc.). If I don't do this now, before the kids are up, it probably won't happen.

7:00-7:15 am--I get Abel up and nurse him.

7:15-7:25 am--I change Abel, dress him, play with him for a few minutes, and get him ready for the day.

7:25-7:30 am--I get all three kids' breakfasts ready (Ivy-cereal, Israel-cereal or oatmeal, Abel-baby cereal mixed with babyfood) and usually mine ready as well (cereal or a smoothie).

7:30-7:45 am--I put Abel in his jumperoo or exersaucer and go get the older two kids up.

I change and dress Israel and send Ivy out to go potty. She comes back in her room and I get her dressed as well. Then we all go to the table for breakfast.

(I'm sure she will hate me someday for taking a picture of her on her potty...but we are just so proud of her!!)


7:45 am--We all eat breakfast.

7:55 am--Aaron leaves for his first class (Soteriology).

8:15-ish am--The kids and I get done with breakfast. I clean them all up.

8:20 am--I do Ivy's hair. Sometimes I also unload the dishwasher or sort laundry to do later in the day if I have a few extra minutes.

8:30 am--I get two blankets out for Ivy and Israel to do blanket time for the next 20 minutes.

8:30-8:45 am--I get my materials ready for class, get the kids' stuff ready for childcare, and do any last-minute cleaning from breakfast.

8:45-8:50 am--I nurse Abel just a little more (to hold him over during his next three hours of childcare), Ivy goes potty again, and Israel keeps doing blanket time.

8:50 am--Aaron comes back from his first class and helps me take the kids to their childcare classes (just down the hall from our apartment). We leave them for the next three hours with the most amazing women. Seriously. They are awesome. We're so thankful for each one of them.

 (L-R: Israel, Tabetha, Wendy, Ivy)

(L-R: Kayleen, Abel, Sue)

9:00-9:50 am--This hour is "chapel hour." Each day is different. Some days the entire student body is in the auditorium to hear a speaker, some days it is just all the married couples together to hear a speaker, and some days it is just the married ladies together (those are personally my favorite days!). We learn a lot during these chapels!

(L-R: Sarah, me, Hae Jung, Katie) 

(L-R: Kayla, Ali, Natalie, Rachel)

(This particular married-ladies-chapel was a fun Christmas one where we made some gifts for people)

9:50-10:00 am--We have a 10-minute break.

10:00-10:50 am--Right now we have Hebrews during this hour. This is one of those books that I knew almost nothing about, so every day I feel like I am learning tons of awesome new truth.

10:50-11:00 am--We have another 10-minute break. I usually try to run up to our apartment to get something thrown together or ready for lunch.

11:00-11:50 am--Another class. Right now we have Hebrews again during this hour, so we just pick up where we left off in the 10:00 class.

11:50 am--We go to pick our kids up from their classes. We talk with each of their teachers about issues that arose during the day.

12:00 pm--We go home and I finish throwing something together for lunch.

12:10-ish pm--We all sit down to eat. I usually eat fast and then feed Abel his babyfood.

12:30 pm--I nurse Abel, Aaron cleans up the lunch dishes, and Ivy and Israel play.

12:45-1:45 pm--During this time, Aaron usually goes to a classroom (where it's quieter) to start on homework or his next prison ministry lesson. I play with the kids, and we normally read through a whole stack of books during this time.

1:45 pm--I feed Israel a bottle (or sometimes Ivy does!) and they both go down for naps.

2:00 pm--Abel goes down for his afternoon nap.

2:00-4:00 pm--I have TWO HOURS of all three kids sleeping! One day a week I do a language session with my good friend Hae Jung during this time. Usually another day I go to the grocery. The other days, I normally do homework for the entire two hours. Two days a week I do our laundry during this time slot, as well.

4:00 pm--Abel gets up from his nap and I nurse him. Then I play with him for awhile.

4:30-ish pm--I throw something together for supper (Note: making new recipes or spending a lot of time on meals is no longer a priority for us. There just isn't time. So most of our meals are extremely simple!).

4:45 pm--Aaron usually comes back from doing homework. We get the older two kids up from their naps.

5:00 pm--We eat supper. Again, I eat and then feed Abel his food. He is really good at sitting in his highchair and playing with a toy while he waits to eat.

5:30 pm--Aaron usually cleans up the supper dishes. (He is awesome.)

5:30-7:30 pm--Most evenings we either just play in our apartment or go for a "walk" around the building. Abel loves to be in my carrier, and Ivy and Israel love to run around in the halls, the auditorium, and the student center. They also love to climb stairs. So we have a lot of fun just walking around together! Other nights we have plans to go to someone's house or Aaron goes to teach at the prison. But most nights we're just home.

7:30 pm--We get the older two kids ready for bed.

7:45 pm--We put Ivy and Israel to bed.

7:45-8:00 pm--I nurse Abel.

8:00 pm--I put Abel to bed.

8:00-11:00-ish pm--We usually either do homework during this time (most often) or sometimes hang out with Nathan and Rachel or other friends here.

11:00-ish pm--I take a shower and go to bed. Sometimes Aaron goes to bed this early, too. Other nights he stays up until 2 or 3 am doing homework.

So that's it! It is actually far less complicated than my schedule was six months ago, because all three kids are pretty much on the same eating and sleeping schedule now. Also, six months ago I added up that I spent over six hours per day feeding children and changed over 20 diapers! Now it's more like two hours feeding children and only 8-10 diapers or so (it helps that we now have one potty trained and we don't have a newborn anymore!).

I wonder how much our daily routine will change in the next six months!