mom of the month! -- a day in the life of Jenny Ford!

Jenny Ford, isn't just a mom; she is a bestie of cupcakeMAG where we chat several times a day, but thats not the reason she is mom of the month. She gained the title because she handles home and work life by running her own business --- she is the designer of the cutest hand painted shoes around, Monkey-Toes Shoes. Check out our previous post here. Jenny is a mother of three -- Ella (8), Rose (9), and Oscar (5 months) yet she still has time to run a successful biz. We love her for making us crack up and laugh along the way.

Let me preface this day with – it was an EXTREMELY busy day. Sometimes I do try to linger and enjoy a cup of coffee (or two, or three) with the hubs and kiddos before I start on my marathon day – today however, was not the case. Even my tweeting was at a minimum (the horror!).

My day started at 5:45 am, when the hubs leaned over me to kiss me goodbye for the next 24 hours. He is a fire fighter and works 24 hour shifts – which I’ve gotta say is really nice. Gives me time to do things I wouldn’t normally do with him around like, linger in front of the mirror and examine my pores, eat dessert in bed – you know what I mean.

5:50 a - I hear Oscar stirring and I’m in total shock because he has slept from his dream feed at 11 until now! (O is totally showing off for you) I actually feel like I don’t need to go back to bed, I contemplate it, but I don’t do it. Some days I put him in bed with me and he will go back to sleep for a few more hours. I choose to keep him up since I’ve got a busy day ahead.

After O’s feeding I start running through my mental list of To-Do’s – these are things I MUST remember to do. I multi-task while doing this by pumping my right side, it’s about to explode from overnight milk build-up, making coffee and brushing my teeth (ya, I am that good).

Things I MUST get done today –

1. Take pics of kids for a Father’s day gift for Grandpa

2. Girls have play dates at noon, one kid needs to be dropped off and one kid needs to be picked up – need to Mapquest the addresses

3. Have got to paint Bee shoes and finish Pig shoes – I personally hand paint these shoes since the bees are a pain in the ARSE and I cannot seem to pay anyone enough to paint them, would love to increase the price of these. Plus, it keeps me real *UGH*.

4. Rose has an ortho appointment at 4:30 and I’ve been known to forget these appointments until right before we need to be there. Nothing like running out the door 10 minutes before an appointment with 3 kids in tow – stress is my cardio.

5. I’ve got 3 international store orders (Prague, Spain & Cyprus) that must be packaged and go out by Friday, and of course they are waiting on the bee shoes to be complete. Work on these when I have the chance.

Not a big list, but things I MUST remember to do…

6:15 a – AHHHH, first sip of coffee, my cup of creativity is what I call it. My fave is regular old Joe with Hazelnut creamer, I know it’s not good for me but don’t care. I look forward to this every morning – I think it is what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning. I get O settled in his bouncer seat (he is a morning baby for sure, so happy and smiley) with some toys so I can make myself some breakfast (the usual, 1 egg over-easy on a piece of toast). They say it’s the most important meal of the day, I totally disagree and think dessert is, but I digress. As I pull the eggs out of the fridge I have a struggle with wanting to devour the Cookies N Crème cupcakes I brought home for the girls last night. I slap my own hand as it reaches for the yummy confections. I can only assume that I can guilt them into sharing a bite with me later.

6:30 a - eat breakfast and check the Blackberry for any important emails and check in with Twitter to see if there are any comments to respond to. I work on getting some giggles out of O – I’d stand on my head all day if it meant I could hear him laugh! After I down breakfast in 4 bites I go change into workout gear and hope it will inspire me to get a workout in (you’ll see how well that works out later).

6:45 a – Start up the computer and try my hardest to stay off of it until I after I accomplish other tasks. Otherwise I will get sucked in and waste a ton of time on it. I get O on a blanket with toys so I can get these final 10 pairs of bees and 6 pairs of pigs painted. The 10 pairs of bees seems easy enough but I dread them because they have to be taped off and take 3 coats of paint. That fabric sucks up the paint so they are very time consuming.

Well, I got 15 minutes out of Oscar on the floor. He’s had it so I take a break from painting and move to the floor where I can package one of the orders and play with him until about 7:50 when he goes down for a nap. I hear the 

first stirs from the girls. Thankfully they are old enough to get their own breakfast going. Once breakfast has been eaten I coordinate their hair and outfits for the pics I will be taking once O gets up from his nap. Go back to painting – 2^nd coat and putting the finishing touches on the pigs. Run to get myself looking somewhat presentable for a pic with the kiddos for this project (ya, I totally changed out of my workout gear into normal clothes – my workout scheme didn’t work at all). Grab a snack (handful of peanuts, which turns out is not filling and I’m hungry again after about 15 minutes). Sip on my first cup of coffee which is now ICE COLD. I decide to go ahead and take the individual pics of the girls for the Father’s day collage.

10 a – Still waiting for O to wake up. Girls keep coming into my office and stealing empty shoe boxes (we’ve got TONS around here). They’re explain they’re making some sort house for a “doll” they made out of a latex glove and filled with water. My motto – water dries and whatever keeps them busy makes me happy!

10:20 a – Oscar finally wakes – I pop onto Twitter to see what the haps are while I’m breast feeding O – “breast-tweeting”. Move the little man to his high chair where he will be having a gourmet meal of rice cereal and coconut milk – YUM. I will attempt to feed him the same bite several times until it finally goes down. This takes FOREVER! Break up a “loving” fight between the sisters and thankful they have play dates in about an hour – they need some time away from each other! Starving again, so I grab another snack this time – yogurt, blueberries and granola, a little more filling. Get Oscar changed for his modeling gig and herd the cats (aka, kids) into the backyard. Snap some pics and – DONE. I can check that one off my list!

11:45 a – drop Ella off at her friend’s house. Mapquest takes me waaaay out of the way to Rose’s friend’s house so we are a little late. Oh well. (Check task #2 off the list) Run thru the McDonald’s drive thru for sodas. I gotta have a fountain coke today – kinda fading, and fast! Get home, make lunch for the girls and myself (left over stir fry). Listen to the really interesting stories that 2 - 9 year old girls tell and contemplate gauging my eyes out. Oh joy! That’s my cue to get back to work!

1 p – Lay O on the floor of my office to play on a blanket again. Back to the never ending project - BEES! (can you see why I should charge more for them???) Remember that I need to add another task to my list of To Do’s – Return kids to their respective habitats by 4 pm! I will forget this!!! Hoping Oscar takes another nap at about 1:30. This would be great timing if he did, but we shall see.

1:36 p – just remembered that the hubs has no clean underwear – oops – get a load of laundry going. Run up stairs to put paci back in Oscar’s mouth.

2 p – get stuck in front of the computer looking at the pics I took earlier – it is like a pendulum to me and I find myself in a trance. This is my attempt at avoiding the work that really needs to be done – uh hem, bees. At this point I realize that the little man is not going to be napping at this time so I proceed to feed him and give him homemade applesauce. He’s now being really grabby and I am having a hard time sitting at my desk. He’s grabbing the papers off of it, Lord knows there is a TON, and kicking the keyboard. My attempts at procrastinating is not working out. So I move to the floor, to do a daily inventory at 2:45, where I can talk and interact with him. I want to get this into my system and uploaded to websites but Oscar is not going to cooperate with me so I decide it’s shower time. He loves sitting in his bouncer seat in the bathroom while I shower. I think it’s the white noise that keeps him happy.

3:20p – Out of the shower, lay Oscar on the bed to put a shirt on, I watch him as he rolls over and then proceeds to fall asleep, in a matter of 2 minutes. Yes, that is 20 minutes before I have to run out the door. FIGURES!!!! I lay him down in his bed and run back down to my office to upload inventory quickly and then gather the troops (Rose and her friend) to do the dropping off/picking up and then off to the orthodontist. When walking past a mirror I mentally add another To Do – suck in more/eat less/stand up straight – you’re not pregnant anymore, Jenny. Plus, I’d love to avoid that awkward question of “when are you due”. (check task #4 off the list)

5:15 p – back home from Ortho, Oscar is hungry. Plop onto the couch and nurse him while taking an urgent BFF phone call. Should do Kegel exercises to make this a multitasking trifecta.

5:30 p – Put Oscar in his swing, Rose plays on computer, Ella disappears to her room - Make dinner – Turkey Enchilada Casserole (girls LOVE) and spinach salad. Get the casserole in the oven and give O a bath. He loves his night time bath! And I cringe as he sits in the water and grabs, scratch that, squeezes the life out of his “man part”. Oh how it begins way to early! Get him out of the tub before he really does damage to himself. I have the girls set the table outside – it’s so nice out – and empty the dishwasher. Ah, I do love that they are old enough to help out like this!

6:15 p – sit down to dinner – we always eat dinner together. This is Oscar’s fidgety hour before bed. He won’t let me set him down so he sits on my lap and grabs at everything within reach – flinging my salad bowl and spilling my water, only to play in it after it’s all over the table. It’s like a one-baby food fight. Oh fun. Which now means – it’s 6:25 p and WINE TIME! I invite my friend Merlot to join me for dinner and Merlot so politely obliged. I defrost carrot sauce (homemade mushed carrots), add some rice cereal and coconut milk all to try and load him up on the calories before bedtime, put Oscar in his activity center car and feed him while I finish my dinner semi-peacefully. He makes a mess getting carrot stuff everywhere. Which is great for the dog, he’s such a helper and loves cleaning up after Oscar. The girls gulp down their cupcakes…I was apparently off my guilt game and was not able to coerce them out of a bite of them. DANG it!

7:30 p – work to get the girls showered (this is work, it’s a lot of vocal work) and get Oscar down for the night. At this point I feel an overwhelming sense of anxiety because everywhere I look it’s been kissed by a giant mess. I tackle the smallest place first – my bathroom, where a small cosmetics store barfed. Easy enough. But then I run out of energy because the wine is catching up with me (surprise, surprise). Find the dog laying across Oscar’s activity mat and toss him and his fur off (darn dog and his fur). Contemplate another glass of vino…Thanks! Don’t mind if I do! Look into the living room and find the girls playing “orthodontist” meaning Rose has her hands gloved and shoved down Ella’s throat – I keep waiting for the bill for her services. I head back down to my office, with my glass of wine in tow, either to get work done or stare blankly at the computer, whichever happens first. End up going through emails and find Cupcake Mag’s latest blog post and giveaway – which I proceed to read and enter, of course. Which is pretty much the demise of any further work from getting done. I’ve checked out mentally.

8:01 p – I hear loud noises coming from upstairs (aka the orthodontist’s office), but the wine I’m drinking keeps me from caring. I think, as long as no one is shouting or crying, it’s all good. Share a few wise text messages with my BFF (love her), laughing hysterically.

8:30 p – the hubs calls from the fire house. We have 8 minutes of deep conversation (NOT), mainly it’s just hitting the highlights of our days. Nothing of major excitement. I do however get a thrill over what they eat over there. While we usually have boxed mac n cheese for dinner, they’re eating ribs that have been smoking all day and falling off the bone with just glancing at them. So not fair!

8:55 p – Staring blankly at the computer screen = done. But, I swear there is glue stuck to my butt and the chair…cannot get up. Think about putting the kids to bed.

9:13 p – sweet text from the hubs (LOVE him!) still sittin here at my desk. Still cannot get up, so I tweet a little. Still haven’t put girls to bed (they’re probably sitting in the other room snickering because they’re getting away with staying up late) Eh, it’s summertime, what do I care?

9:27 p – FINALLY shutting down the computer. Get girls off to bed. Contemplate my next exhausted move. I know I have to stay up a little later to dream feed Oscar (I usually feed him coconut milk while he is sleeping so he will let me get some solid zzzz’s.), so tired, but I get the bottle heated up anyway. Get myself ready for bed.

10:10 p – Dream feed done. Smear lotion all over my feet. TV off. Eyes SLAM shut.

How do I do it all? I don’t know….Literally, I don’t remember!

where the magic happens, sorry my office is so messy.  I just didn’t have ANY time to get it cleaned up before I took this picture.  Ok, I’m a big fat LIAR, this is not my office, but I dream of an office like this one, one day.  This one just happens to be attached to a $3 mil home – that I’m completely in enamored with.  My regular office (aka, the CAVE) truly is a mess, a shoe bomb went off in it.   And it’s not very photogenic…

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