Thursday, October 15, 2009

Daily Life in Moldova

I can’t believe we have already been living in Moldova for a month now.  By now, we have settled into a generally predictable routine and our week days have a busy rhythm to them.  Here is a sample of what most of my days look like:

5:30am- Josh wakes up

between 5:30-7:00am- Jude and I wake up

We take turns playing with Jude while the other eats breakfast, drinks coffee, and gets ready for the day

8:15am- Josh goes to his office to prepare for class at 8:45

Jude is not a morning person and is usually pretty grumpy until his morning nap, so I play with him until he gets tired.

9am- I start trying to get Jude to fall asleep.  He fights sleep ferociously, so this is not an easy task.  I put him in the backpack carrier and either go for a walk outside if it is nice or sing and pace around the house.  This may take anywhere from 5 minutes to… the rest of the day.

(Assuming Jude falls asleep within 30mins-1hour.) I have my second cup of coffee and rest for a minute.   I then do the morning dishes, straighten up the kitchen/living room, put in a load of laundry, and try to make myself clean something.  Jude usually wakes up by now, but if he doesn’t, I may take a moment to rest and knit.

Jude wakes up from his morning nap usually in a pretty good mood, if it was a decent length.  I let him play in his walker and I clean/do laundry for as long as he will play happily.  Then we play together for a while.

11:45am- I do a quick straightening of the house.

12:00pm- Lilia comes for our Romanian lesson

1:00pm- Lunch in the cafeteria.  We take Jude’s walker and a bib and give him some bread while we eat and he just walks around the big open space so happily.

1:30pm- After lunch Josh will usually play with Jude for a while so I can get laundry off the line or fold laundry or take a shower or something.  Laundry is a lot bigger job when you have to put it on and off a clothesline!

2:00pm- We start the afternoon nap ritual, which is like the morning one.  While he sleeps (if he sleeps), I usually clean/do laundry/knit/nap with him depending on how much I was able to do in the morning (a.k.a. how long his morning nap was, if he napped at all).  Sometimes I will keep him in the backpack and go downstairs to Josh’s office to do my “internetting” while he sleeps.

Jude wakes up and, while it is still nice outside, I try to take him outside to play.  I may put him in the backpack and put more clothes on/off the line.

Josh usually finishes in the office around 4 and plays with Jude while I prepare dinner.  If dinner doesn’t take so long to prepare, sometimes we go for a family walk around campus.

6:00pm- We usually eat dinner around this time.  Then I play with Jude while Josh cleans up the kitchen. (Josh chooses this!)  We used to go for family walks after dinner, but it is already getting dark too early for that now.

8:00pm- Jude usually goes to sleep around this time.  After he’s asleep Josh and I can sit down and enjoy some hot chamomile tea, read, knit, and study Romanian.  We are usually in bed by 9:30 most nights.

Whew!  I know that makes it look like I spend my entire day cleaning and doing laundry, but I don’t usually get that much free time because Jude doesn’t usually nap that well (at least not recently since he’s been cutting teeth).  Some days I literally spend my entire day trying to get him to fall asleep or at least to not be grumpy.

I don’t really know why I felt like my daily schedule would be interesting to anybody except maybe my mom J, but I just felt like sharing.  It feels good to have a busy rhythm to my days, but man, it can be exhausting.

2 comments:

  1. I think hearing about your daily schedule is interesting...and I totally empathize with having a kid that doesn't want to nap. My daughter was the same way when she was small...and walking around with her on my back was about the best thing I could do. I think I wore a bit of a foot path in the grass around the lone tree in our apartment courtyard from circling it during naptime. She still hates to sleep. (She's almost 3). I guess she's afraid she'll miss something if she's not awake. Just remember on the hard days to enjoy it for what it is, before long your little Jude will be all grown up and you'll miss these days. :-)

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