A Day in the Life: What, When, & How I Read Now

     Does reading BabyCenter.com on my iPhone while changing diapers count as reading? For me it does.  Life as a stay-at-home mother of two boys still in diapers, while going to graduate school full-time doesn’t leave much room for romance novels.  The majority of my reading is educational in one sense or another.  Some days I feel I should have a PhD in medicine for all of the reading I’ve done on strange rashes, viruses, and fevers.  At home, I have to make every minute count in order to be able to manage all of my responsibilities and feel as if I am doing my job half-way decent.  Luckily, my children are early risers, so we start our day with the sun.  The majority of my daytime reading comes in heavy duty cardboard books with bright pictures and happy endings.  My children still take naps, so on a good day I can squeeze in an hour’s worth of school readings in between cleaning up spilled milk and prepping dinner.  By seven pm, they are tucked into bed which gives me the time I need for my school work.   
     I can’t deny it, I do read intermittently from my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds.  I justify this guilty pleasure as my way of remaining current so that I can relate to the world of my students.  Working in the teaching profession and being a parent have allowed me the opportunity to focus on teachable moments, with an attempt to understand a variety of motivational methods.  I view my children as my full-time students and am constantly taking advantage of every opportunity to teach them something new.  A small part of me longs for the day when I can sit on the couch and read leisurely, but I know I will miss the hustle and bustle of being a full-time Reading Mama!