A little about me: i’m hill smiley, a nurturing warrior. i am a wife to the funniest guy i know, and a mama of four, two boys and two girls. my two oldest kids (my oldest son and daughter) are off at college, and my youngest son is in his teens and has chromosomal and brain abnormalities and the rarest form of a rare syndrome. my youngest daughter is in her last year of elementary school. i live in california and know in the depths of my soul that real life is messy, but it is also really beautiful. i love photography (so much so that i am on my ninth year of taking a photo a day), salt in my coffee, teaching you how to make sourdough loaves and capturing the never-again to be repeated moments of this precious life.
12:30am: after two of my own wake-ups, i turn off my early morning alarms and make the decision to drive my daughter to school instead of having her take the bus, which has been the situation for months and months even though i convince myself every night that tomorrow will be different and that tomorrow she will take the bus early. which she never does anymore.
4:00am and 4:30am and 5:00am: feeling so glad that i turned those alarms off as my son runs into my bedroom, hoping to make it to the closet (where he watches his ipad before the house is awake) but i intercept him and tuck him back in his bed.
5:30am: my son wins.
7:01am: woke up most abruptly to my alarm going off because i was finally in a deep sleep. realize i have a plugged ear, which honestly is the very best sound machine and noise canceling headphones you could ever dream of. highly recommend.
7:02am: wake up my daughter. i have to stay in her room until she is out of bed, or she will fall back asleep (just like her older sister used to do).
7:07am: brew my heavenly cup of coffee in my all time fave mug and add salt (of course).
7:08am: my son asks what we are doing tomorrow (his favorite question in the universe, and one in which he asks me about 137 times a day - which is way down from that season in life where he asked me what felt like 900 times each. and. every. day. his second favorite question is “why?” which honestly is just about the best question for anyone to ever ask). i told him that he does not get to know what is happening tomorrow until breakfast time. per usual.
7:09am: my son gets out my favorite bracelet and ring and puts them on my bathroom counter because he knows that i wear them every single day.
7:14am: my daughter asks me to help her change her earrings out even though that is technically breaking the rules because she got them pierced in december and the gal said she needed to wait six months before putting different earrings in. did we wait that long when we were kids? i don’t think so. i’ll let you know how it goes.
7:23am: i assist my daughter with a belated april fools day prank since she was on spring break for april fools day (my least favorite holiday besides halloween). she puts (delicious, might i add) homemade lemonade in one of her water bottles to surprise her friends since they all love to drink her water all day long. i can always get behind this kind of prank. i have had to divorce myself from thinking about all of the germs that this involves, daily. i have learned long ago that this girl happily enters into germ-filled situations like it’s her job. she’s always the one who volunteers to take the sick kid in class to the office.
7:42am: drive my daughter to school as we listen to Forrest Frank’s new album. i equally enjoy driving home all by myself with my seat warmer on (always) and the cool morning air pouring in through my open sunroof.
8:15am: the house is a kind of quiet that nearly never happens so my husband and i get caught up on all. the. things. and then we realize that we both fed our dog, Dusty Bottoms this morning. lucky boy.
9:02am: i make my son’s breakfast which is the same thing he has eaten for breakfast every single day for years and years: plain bagel with butter and cream cheese and a banana. i cut the bagel up so that he doesn’t choke. the only new item is the chocolate whipped cream that he has instead of plain whipped cream which is how i give him his 6 morning pills (that he swallows remarkably at the exact same time).
9:14am: my son offers to help me do the dishes, then proudly proclaims “i’m out” about 3 seconds in. this pattern will repeat all day long.
9:16am: i wait for my college daughter to call and give me an update on the newest exciting moments of her life. i need to call and reschedule an appointment but i wouldn’t dare miss her call.
9:19am: i’m on the phone with my daughter and i sit outside for the 45 minute chat that filled me in and filled me right on up.
9:21am: watch the covey of quail have a parade in the backyard.
10:08am: glance at the to do pile and quickly rewrite today’s top hits.
10:12am: add four items to my meticulously color-coded calendar for my daughter’s upcoming ballet performances.
10:49am: every day, i delay my at-home workout (i take a class on an app) even though i really, really, really love to do this workout. there are so many things that i end up tackling before i push play. today, i am reading through my husband’s notes on a super special project that i am working on. later, i will of course be mad at myself that it is so hot during my workout and i will wonder why i didn’t start earlier. but this is what i do.
10:52am my son happily shouts “bubbles” (which means we are headed out to the yard to blow bubbles for the dog) just to mess with me, since Dusty Bottoms understands my son’s limited verbal communication better than most adults. but the dog doesn’t understand bubbles later not bubbles right this very second.
10:58am: make our bed and rearrange the master - move the rolling laundry cart that is constantly filled with unfolded laundry, pull my mat out of the closet and move the dog bed out of the way so that i have enough room to workout. sometimes i feel like the day is getting away from me, but then i have to remember that this is the day. and this is what it is supposed to be filled up with. then i read an email and find out about a field trip for my daughter that i didn’t know was happening on friday.
11:04am: start my beloved workout class. i get sweaty hot (as my oldest used to call it) and this workout (which changes every week) doesn’t include a stretch at the end and so i get to do my assigned physical therapy exercises. the strange thing is that my hip doesn’t hurt when i actually do my exercises. funny, right?
11:52am: walk into my room to dump more clean laundry on my bed (the laundry basket with wheels is full) and the smell of night jasmine fills the air. glorious.
11:57am: i have breakfast, which seems a little more like it should be brunch or lunch. yogurt with protein and collagen and creatine because i am very much in my midlife. my son offers to help me cut the strawberries with a sharp knife, which means hand-over-hand. i am getting very good at not cutting my own fingers.
12:04pm: spend time in God‘s word to remind my heart who He is, and whose i am. and soak up a couple of pages of Henri Nouwen’s Inner Voice of Love and again smelling that night jasmine wafting through the air.
12:41pm: my son steals his favorite Toy Story squishmallow and owl blankie that he still sleeps with every night out of the dryer and walks to my office to proudly show me that he has freed them from the prison of the laundry room.
12:54pm: this is around the time when i usually mildly freak out about all that needs to happen before the school day ends for my daughter. i still need to: shower, blow bubbles, do lunch and fold the laundry. i pray for discernment to know what to do next. oh, and i need to prep dinner but now see that we’re having chicken tacos, which relieves me because that meal is super easy.
12:57pm: i hear my son laughing hysterically in his room. he is always within earshot.
1:04pm: i shower and blessedly, it is a curl refresh day, so i don’t have to start over with my hair.
1:09pm: i am out of the shower. my husband just turned up our hot water heater so now it takes so much effort for me to turn off the water, get out of the shower and face the rest of my day.
1:34pm: i sneak in some laundry folding before my son wants to have lunch. am i the only one who finds it incredibly calming to watch medical tv shows while making order out of the chaos of our unfolded laundry? i quickly fold the four loads of laundry that i washed yesterday.
1:44pm: i check in with a couple of gals from church and then beg my son to have lunch or we will be late. i put 2 bags of popcorn in the microwave (don’t worry, i am not a monster. i heated them one bag at a time). it is neat when you buy microwave popcorn at costco and while enjoying the first bag, your kid shares that they prefer the ultra yellow buttered kernels from your local grocery store instead. so now, we only have about 273 bags to go through until we are finished with the costco stuff. i make my son’s lunch and blend up my perfected daily smoothie in which i call Jet Fuel. happy to share the recipe upon request.
2:21pm: answer a phone call on my watch from my college daughter the moment that i lift the tote bag, my purse, three water bottles, the remains of my smoothie, two giant bowls (with lids) of popcorn and my son’s shoes, socks and his foot braces (AFOs). turns out it was a butt dial.
2:22pm: out the car window, my son yells “we’re coming to pick you up!” as we drive to my daughter’s school, warning her that we are on our way and i think he is convinced that her teacher can hear him from that far away and that he is disrupting the entire class (which of course, he loves).
3:12pm: “Siri, what is on the calendar today?” and then again, “and tomorrow?” which is one of my son’s other absolute favorite things to have me do. i have to intentionally not listen to “you have 21 events…” as it stresses me out. and for some reason, when i try to play music, he yells “silence! i demand silence!” and turns it off. but when my college daughter was in town for spring break and drove him around, he let her music blare. maybe she doesn’t loudly sing along.
3:21pm: we get gas while my daughter is at ballet (side note: i never let my tank get below 1/4 tank but our gas gauge on our old car broke at just above 1/4 tank - which i did not know - so i got to experience what running out of gas feels like. numerous times. and yet, because i never let my gas tank get too low, i still had no idea what was happening, both times) i didn’t have enough time to put my son’s shoes on (with his DAFOs) before we left the house, so i get to fill up my gas tank all by myself. it was like a mini-vacation.
3:32pm: leave voice memos for a few of my people who get to hear the real raw side of me.
3:43pm: park at ballet and get to talk to another one of my people (IRL) as she was able to park right next to me.
4:27pm: arrive back at home and tackle my to do list.
5:17pm: head outside with my boys. i have trained my mind to be grateful. and when you start to notice you can’t stop. even the snail trails on the concrete by the trash cans are beautiful works of art.
6:12pm: blow bubbles with my boys and my daughter comes out to join us. Dusty Bottoms saves us from all attacking bubbles by popping them with his mouth like it’s his main job.
6:45pm: my son is in the hammock. my daughter and i are picking citrus in our mini-orchard and my husband is shooting hoops. this is the perfect (almost) summer evening.
6:51pm: there’s always the moment when i realize oh, i am the adult who needs to start making dinner. i am still adjusting to my oldest two kids being away from home in every away and to top it off, all of my recipes are doubled.
8:39pm: my husband and i enjoy some orange dreams (vanilla ice cream with freshly picked blood red orange juice) with our girl on the couch and watch the finale of a really old Amazing Race.
9:35pm: i help my daughter change her earrings to the flat back ones so that she won’t get stabbed while she sleeps. so far, it doesn’t look like she has any negative reaction to wearing the other earrings for the day. phew. i am still unsettled by us not following the rules so i convince her to stick with the good earrings until the six month mark. then she goes to bed and has the latest bedtime in all the world which is not a bedtime really at all (i still struggle with what a night owl this child is).
10:10pm: my husband and i end the day tonight by watching a spy related movie/tv show in bed. is there anything better? nope. there isn’t.
What was a hard moment?
discerning which of the 15,000 things on my to do list i should do next. or equally, being okay with not actually getting anything on my list done.
What was a good moment?
realizing that this life is better than i could have ever hoped for. and my daily practice of noticing and taking note of things to be grateful for has tremendously helped me become aware of this truth.
What’s something you’re loving right now?
becoming more and more convinced that there is a necessity for me to be creative each and every single day.
If you’re a mom and want to be featured in The 24-Hour Diaries, I’d love to hear from you!