Routine or Rut?

On the days that have me questioning my sanity, the thing that gets me through the day is my routine. Don't get me wrong, the monotony of it sometimes makes me batty, but on the whole- it usually gives me peace of mind.

This is how our day goes.

• Somewhere between 7 and 7:30am: MAAAAMAAA! I have about two minutes to respond before she climbs out and uses her little pointer finger to open my eyes. We cuddle for about 5 minutes before she's off an running.
• 7am- 8:30am: I give her a juice box and some dry cereal while I make her breakfast, either eggs, waffles, or a smoothie. The she gets a sippy cup of milk in her playpen while she watches HI-5.
  
• 8:30am-11am: I eat something for breakfast, get dressed, check my email, etc. Then we go outside and play.
• 11am-12pm- I watch The View, Spencer eats a mid-morning snack and plays inside.
• 12pm-1pm- Back outside to wear out my tot, then lunch- almost always a grilled cheese and apple slices.
  
• 1pm-3pm- Spencer NAPS. Ahh, sweet peace. I write on my blog, surf the internet, read, nap. Many days I spend at least half the time cleaning up the mess Spence has made during the day. Of course there's also the occasional, piss me off, doorbell ringer, who wakes her up and throws off the whole schedule.
• 3pm-5pm: More snacks and juice. We do reading time right after she wakes up, because she's much more willing to calmly sit in my lap while I read to her. We watch some Spencer TV and then go back outside to play. (Can you tell we spends lots of time trying to expel her endless supply of energy?) This is when I also run any errands.
  
• 5pm- 6pm- I make dinner and she eats. I usually don't get to eat until after she's already gone to sleep.
• 6pm-8pm- Watch Reba (I know people!), clean up some more, get baths, get her dressed for bed.
• 8pm- til?- Spencer gets her last sippy cup of warm milk and I rock her to sleep. This is my favorite time of day, or night, with her because she lays on my lap and strokes my face. She likes our faces to be touching, and she won't go to sleep unless they are. On a good night it takes 15-2o mins, on a bad night she'll fight sleep for over an hour. Then I put her to bed, gently- very, very, very gently.
• ?-?: Katie Time! Well, I only have one hour at first. Every night, exactly one hour after Spencer goes to sleep, she wakes up and looks for me. As long as she can see me, she lays right back down and falls asleep, but if I'm not there... we go through the whole get-her-to-sleep process all over again. So I always make sure to be where she can see me whenever that hour mark is up.

For the rest of my evening I eat dinner, watch tv, study (more about that later), catch up on blogs and celebrity gossip, online shop, read, chat with my college friends, or sleep. Saturday night I fell asleep at 8:45pm. Embarrassing! I usually go to sleep somewhere between 12am and 1am. If I don't get at least 6 hours of sleep, you better believe I'm taking a nap with Spencer.
So what about you- do you hate routines or do you cling to them for your sanity?