It’s taken me several weeks to get around to writing this… and I didn’t write down any notes, so the details might be fuzzy, but you’ll get a sense of a typical fall day… although this was more like a weekend day. It was MEA weekend which meant that Riley had Thursday and Friday off of school so Jesse and I took some time off of work as well.

Thursday, October 18th, 2018

Riley is 8 and 3/4

Jesse is 43 and I’m 45

Lucy, the cat, is 14

The evening before, I went to bed a few minutes after 10 PM and didn’t wake again until 4:49. If you know anything about my sleep issues you might see this as a small miracle. I’m on a new medication and I have been sleeping better since I started taking it. I thought I was sleeping ok as it had improved compared to years ago, but turns out it got even better.

4:49 - I get up, go to the bathroom, and fall back asleep.

6ish - I hear Riley come out of her room, but don’t look at the clock as I’m not ready to wake up. She often rises at 6 on the dot.

7:03 - I decide I might as well get up and start my day. Jesse already woke and went to work for a half day. I put on some work out clothes to make sure that I exercise and then I head downstairs where Riley is on her tablet. She’s already had a breakfast bar so I cut up an apple or two for her. I do my usual morning stuff including eating granola for breakfast.

7:45 - I pull up a Yoga with Adriene YouTube video and work out. Riley and Lucy like to hang out nearby when I do yoga.

8:30 - I take a shower and Riley and I both get dressed for the day.

9:25 - Jesse said he’d probably be home around 11 so we could go to Sever’s corn maze at that time. I decide that will leave Riley and myself enough time to go grocery shopping and to pick up a prescription.

While at Target I decide to get Riley a couple more pairs of black pants as the ones she has have holes in the knees. It should be a quick stop to the kids clothing department, but Riley wants everything. I tell her that Christmas is coming up so she can put all these items on her list. She insists that I take pictures of multiple items and then we’re off to get food.

We do our grocery shopping and then I pick up a prescription. They ask if I want a flu shot and I tell them yes. The lady hands me a coupon and then tells me to wait for the guy at the end. When it’s finally my turn, I’m informed that they only give shots to those over 18 so we’ll still need to go to the Minute Clinic for Riley. I decide I’ll just get my flu shot there as well. I pay for our groceries and then sign in at the computer at the Minute Clinic. It’s not until I get both our information in when I see the wait time is 105 minutes. Lol, no.

We walk the groceries out to the car, come back in and go to the bathroom, and then decide to wait for a little bit just in case someone doesn’t show up. There is one guy in the waiting room and, I presume, everyone else is shopping.

10:50 - Jesse texts to let me know that he just got home. We give up and head home too. Once home, I pack up, buy tickets online, and we head out to Sever’s corn maze. Turns out that Riley’s child care is there so we’re hoping to see some of her friends. On the way to Severs, the Minute Clinic calls to let us know that they are ready for us. Oh well, eventually we’ll get our flu shots.

11:45 - Sever’s is packed. between field trips and kids not having school it’s a bit of a zoo. We see a sign that they are moving next year and will include an apple orchard. I’m not sure this place needs to be any bigger than it is as there are almost too many things to explore and we never get to everything as it is.

I’m hungry so the first thing we do is get corn dogs and corn on the cob. Once my hunger is satisfied, we find a corn pit to play in.

This may be the first year that I didn’t get in the corn pit myself and I’m ok with that. There were far too many screaming children so I was happy to stay on the sidelines.

After the corn pit, Jesse and Riley went down the big slide, Riley explored the hay bale maze, and then we conquered the corn maze. This was the first year that Riley did most of the navigating on her own. We usually wander around until we find one of the signs and then look at the map to figure out where we are, but Riley guided us to each sign and marked off each one as we continued on. You can’t tell by the pictures below, but even without the map it would be fairly easy to find a sign since everyone was pretty much following each other. Still, it was a lot of fun.

Next, Riley explored the firetruck, rode a pony, and we visited the animal tent before heading over to the other corn maze.

We see multiple groups from Riley’s child care, but they are all younger kids. We never do run into her friends.

2:30ish - We’ve been here at least a couple hours and are ready to head home. Once at home, Riley goes on her tablet for a little bit until I suggest that we watch an episode of The Voice. Riley sings all the time so I’m not sure why I didn’t suggest watching this earlier. We sit on the couch and watch an episode together.

Jesse starts packing for our camping trip. Since we all had some extra time off this weekend we decided we should go somewhere, but Jesse and I decided that it might be nice to just go somewhere together as we rarely do so. The day after this, Riley went to her grandparents while Jesse and I drove up north to camp and hike.

4:15 - I feed Riley early since she has swim tonight. After dinner, she puts on her swim suit and we head off to her swim class.

5:15 - Swim class starts. We’d taken a break from these classes over the summer so it was good to be back as this is something that Riley really likes and is a useful skill to have. Jesse had been taking Riley to her classes, but she’s been asking me to go so I go with her this time.

6:05 - Swim class is over so we head home for a shower.

7:30ish - I have no idea what we did besides put on our pajamas after getting home from swim class, but eventually Riley and I make our way upstairs to go to bed. Riley’s working on a story so she sits at her desk and writes while I read The Mysterious Benedict Society to her. We always have at least one book we read together and this is the one we are working on right now. It’s an interesting story and we are both drawn in by it.

8:00 PM or so - I say goodnight to Riley and head downstairs. She usually stays up a bit later and reads. I’m not sure what I did, but most nights often include watching TV, editing pictures, picking up around the house, and lately I’ve been going to bed at 10 by the latest.

9:39 - I get in bed and hope that I have another great night of sleep.