A Day in the Life of Me!

I typically hate guest posts on blogs (because I read a blog to read the actual blogger, not someone else!) but one series of guest posts I have loved is the a day in the life series on The Domestic Wannabe - I love reading about other mom's days to see how they compare to mine! This series inspired me to do my own day in the life - I figured it would be fun to look back at to see how things change, since daily events are already really different than they were when I first went back to work! I decided to do this Monday to show what a work day is typically like for me. As you can see, I was as exact as possible :) Here we go!

4:30am After laying awake for awhile, I realize I have to go to the bathroom. Go downstairs, pee, come back up. Exhausted, but don’t fall asleep. Toss and turn, put the pillow over my head, kind of doze. I’m already super engorged, and I know it’ll be about 2 hours before Annie eats again. Makes it pretty difficult to actually sleep since I’m in pain. Not quite sure why my body STILL thinks it needs to make this massive amount of milk overnight since Annie hasn’t eaten at night for a good 4 months!

6:00am Vaguely hear the alarm through the pillow over my head. Hit snooze. As if Annie could also hear the alarm from a whole house away, I hear her cough on the monitor, but then is quiet again.

6:05am Hear Annie start to make some noise, so I figure I should go shower. Looking at myself in the mirror is frightening - I swear the circles under my eyes are nearly pitch black. Lovely!

6:28am Done with shower and makeup and feeling much better - open the door to see if Annie is awake - nope! Go back in the bathroom and dry and straighten my hair.

6:40am My hair and make-up done, come out and prepare my breakfast.

6:42am Hear a few little coos coming from Annie’s room - wait a few seconds and then I hear Ben moving around upstairs - we go in and say GOOD MORNING!!!

6:48am Annie gets her eat on, quite furiously. She’s pretty ravenous apparently.

7:05am After eating, and stopping to look around, smile and chat a bit, Annie and I come to the joint decision that she’s done with her meal. This is pretty much my favorite part of the day - Annie is SO happy after she’s eaten a bit in the morning - I sit her up to burp her, and she just looks around, smiles hugely at Ben, and just all around seems very pleased with life! Ben then gets Annie dressed after I pick out her outfit, since when he does it he either picks something inappropriate (in my view) or something she just wore, which bugs me even though I know it shouldn’t matter, especially for daycare :)

7:09am We head upstairs to get mommy and daddy dressed while Annie lounges on the bed. Annie gets very excited and kicks around, makes lots of noises, and we play a bit more.

Yup, it's true. We don't make the bed.

7:18am Leave the house - get the stroller out and help Ben get Annie situated and say goodbye for the 5th time :)

7:24am En route to downtown Minneapolis. Park in my usual parking ramp, and exchange the same conversation with the dude there as I do every single morning. "Hi Erin" (takes my credit card, gives me my parking stub ticket thingie) "See you in a minute" me: "Thanks!" and then walk back to him to get my card, and then walk the 2 blocks to my office.

7:42am Get into the office. Offer a bleary hello to Janelle, who seems similarly enthused on this fine Monday morning. Log into my computer, and head to the kitchen to get coffee.

7:45am Sitting at my desk, coffee in hand, ready to start the day! I eat my yogurt now.

9:35am Feel like I’m about to explode, so I’m glad it’s time to go to the Wellness Room to pump. Get set up, pump 14 ounces (No WONDER I was uncomfortable - and seriously? 14 f-ing ounces???? that’s a new record) and read through some blogs on my Google Reader on my phone while pumping.

9:56am Back to my desk to work away. Prepare myself a snack of oatmeal.

11:30am Starting to hit my midday wall - feeling headachy and super tired. It’s going to be a loooong day.

12:07pm Starving, so finally motivate myself to get up and go make my sandwich. The turkey is semi questionable and the lettuce is definitely bad, so my sandwich is pretty bleak.

12:21pm Done eating at my desk. Back to work!

2:10pm Need a mid-afternoon pick me up so I get a coke, and have a very adult snack of goldfish and preservative filled cookies. Yes, I had 2.

3:00pm Time to pump again. I have decided to finally cut back to 2 pumps per day instead of 3, since I seem to still get the same amount. Watch videos of Annie while pumping - keep going back to this one of her laughing - it’s still my all time fave :) Pump 9oz for a total of 23oz for the day.

3:24pm Back at my desk to finish up some things before leaving.

4:02pm Leave the office, sit in the elevator bay for a few minutes waiting awkwardly with a few coworkers. Have a bit of stilted conversation and then whip out my iPhone to pretend I'm busy.

4:26pm Arrive home, get milk out of pumping bag, drop one of the bottles on the ground. The lid breaks, but thankfully it doesn’t come off. Still annoying because I need that dang lid!

4:35pm Leave the house to go retrieve Annie from daycare! Luckily we get no stupid comments from neighborhood folk about pushing an empty stroller.

4:43pm Get to daycare - it was very hectic there today! Apparently Annie had a lovely day, slept the same as usual (short nap in the morning, long in the afternoon) and had one “really hard BM” :) Annie was in her jumper and bounced happily when she saw us coming down the stairs. Apparently Imogen (nearly 2) and Annie had lots of conversations throughout the day. Sienna (nearly 3) and Imogen both say “Bye Bye Annie!” as we walk away.

4:50pm Put Annie in the stroller - she LOUDLY screams her protest, but is silent as soon as we get going and she finds her strap to inspect and chew on. We walk through the park on the way home, but it’s pretty hot so we don’t take too long of a walk.

WAH!!

5:06pm Get home, get Annie inside and situated in the high chair. She pretty much immediately starts fussing and whining. GREAT - so it’s going to be one of THOSE nights!

A painful video to watch. WHINE WHINE WHINE! Poor little Annie.

5:10pm Ben feeds Annie her carrots and she seems none too pleased about it, although she keeps opening her mouth for more. She whines in between bites and hits her tray. I busy myself with preparing the bottles for the next day - two 6oz bottles and one 2oz container to top off a frozen bag, since most of those are older when I was only making 4-5oz bags. We switch midway through since Annie is just not feeling Ben’s methods of feeding her, apparently :) I try singing some stupid songs (the only ones I can ever remember are Row Your Boat and The Wheels on the Bus) while feeding her and that seems to do the trick. Ben refuses to sing to her, which is probably why she was pissed ;)

My overflowing freezer stash

5:35pm Annie nearly finished her carrots, and I call it good. Wipe her and the high chair down, change her diaper, and get some toys and her sippy cup of water ready.

5:40pm We go outside while Ben grills some chicken. Annie is happy with her sippy cup for a few minutes, but then it becomes a little game of just trying anything to get her to not whine/cry. We try reading, sitting up, playing with different toys, not playing with toys. Talk to Nate, Molly and Mia for a bit which Annie seemed to tolerate the best. Sometimes it seems like she hates us?? :) (I know she doesn’t, but it is a little disconcerting how she can be super fussy with us and then other people come over and she’s all smiles)

We try a frozen washcloth, which Annie seems intrigued by, but doesn't keep her happy for too long

6:07pm OK, meltdown happening, so best to go inside for that. We try the living room floor, sitting on the couch, and walking around. Walking around seems to be the best, obviously, since it is the most work for me :) I start philosophizing (bad idea) about why Annie is so cranky on weeknights always... what we could do different that might make it better... etc. Ben reminds me that she is a baby, and is just cranky sometimes, and has a super stimulating day at daycare so is probably just ready to crash when she gets home. Hopefully it’s a little more low key once school starts up and half the kids are gone most of the day. Ben also reminds me that any attempts at “figuring Annie out” are exercises in futility, so best to just attempt to go with the flow, since not all nights are like this. (Whenever Annie is having a good weeknight, Ben points it out to me several times throughout the night)

6:20pm We continue our game of “what might make Annie the least pissy tonight” by sitting in the kitchen watching Ben prepare his curry. Annie sits fairly nicely in my lap - attempts to grab several things around us, but is mostly content.

6:30pm Annie and I go into the basement to retrieve some paper towels. I put her in her exersaucer, and she is smiley and happy for the first time. So, many may think I should just plop her in that all night. NO! I am stubborn, and refuse... although I know it would certainly be easier. She’s in that damn jumper probably 60%+ of her awake time at daycare, so I am not going to put her in the exersaucer at night for longer than 10 minutes because I think she needs time on the floor to roll around and practice her motor skills, or at least just be held by us. Clearly she likes it though, which makes me kind of sad. Times like these I start to wonder if it would be “better” to have one of us at home, since Annie is very rarely cranky on weekends ever, and is perfectly content to be on the floor with a few toys. I banish those unproductive thoughts away and just watch my cute little babe for a few minutes.

6:45pm I take Annie out of the exersaucer, and we go upstairs. I am STARVING by this point, and know I won’t have dinner for awhile since I’m meeting Kate at 7:30. I cut up a few cucumber slices and have them with hummus while Ben holds Annie. I give her a cucumber slice and she seems to enjoy chewing and sucking on that. We usually TRY to wait until 7pm to start nursing, but at this point it’s just time so we go to the couch.

6:50pm Annie very excitedly nurses, and pretty much immediately appears to be passed out. She eats/snoozes very peacefully and I snuggle her as much as possible now that she is relaxed. I used to nurse her twice when I got home, but she wasn’t eating well either of those times. Now we have Sue give her the last bottle no earlier than 3:30, so that she should be able to make it until 7 when she nurses again as she does when we’re home. It does seem like Annie wants to go to bed earlier, but that just makes me sad since we already don’t see much of her in the evenings. However, much of the time obviously isn’t exactly fun and savoring ever moment, it’s dealing with a cranky baby. Plus I have an irrational fear that if she goes to bed before 7, she’ll wake up at like 3am ready for the day to start. Ugh, it’s tough to know what the “right” way is - so we’ll continue to just hope somehow Annie gets used to going to bed around 7.

7:05pm Annie appears to be done and is MUCH happier after her short snooze/nursing session. I give her many hugs and kisses, she is very wiggly but smiley too. I pass her off to Ben to complete the bedtime process. Ben changes her diaper and puts on her jammies, they read Goodnight Moon, and then she goes into the crib. I hear a half of a little wail as Ben leaves the room, but less than 30 seconds later she is apparently asleep. Guess she was tired :)

Annie less than a minute after Ben left the room

7:15pm After making myself presentable to the outside world, I leave the house to go meet Kate for our dinner date.

7:30pm Arrive at Muffuleta to enjoy some wine, dinner and adult conversation as a thank you to Kate for taking Annie’s 4 month photos! We have a great time - it’s a beautiful night and we are on the patio. Here is a summary of our dinner over at We Got Served.

9:03pm After a heavy dinner and wine, I’m even more exhausted. I get home and immediately take out my contacts, which is one of the happiest moments of my day :) Finally, I am on the couch with my BFF, the internet. I read some blogs and message boards and chat with Ben who is watching Sherlock Holmes. I inform him that movie was also on my netflix queue (we have a shared account, but 3 queues (mine, Ben’s TV shows, and Ben’s movies) which is the best invention ever, except on the very rare occasion that our choices intersect) so he stops the movie and we make a firm plan to watch it on Tuesday night (I have a history of saying I will watch a movie/show with him and then keep putting it off. He put it on the Google Calendar though, so that means it WILL happen :) (note: It DID happen :)

What Annie is doing when I get home

9:54pm Barely able to keep my eyes open, so I go to bed. Lay awake for awhile but manage to fall asleep eventually, only to wake up again at 3am due to... nothing. (I think amalah summed up my sleep issues even better than I did here) and thus starts it all over again :)

And here is Annie when I go up to bed

Whew, hopefully someone enjoyed that extremely mundane view into my life :) You'll notice it did not include any cleaning beyond washing the dishes - that is typically reserved for weekends or immediately before someone comes over. If I hadn't gone out to eat with Kate that night, the rest of the night would have included finishing preparing dinner, washing the dishes from dinner, and perusing the internet for even longer than I did that night, watching a movie, or hanging with neighbors. An exciting life I lead! :)