A Day in the Life

Inspired by other bloggers, I thought it would be interesting to track a day in the life (I’d have done a week, but the kids are too little to bring enough variety to make it interesting...and that’s assuming even a day is interesting). So, here’s Friday, October 25^th:

7:00am: Walter wakes up sometime around 7 and talks to himself until either David or I hear him. I’m usually the one to get up, because I hear him first, and today is no exception. Now that he’s older he’s  generally content in his crib for a little bit when he wakes, which gives me time to warm up his milk & use the toilet. Unfortunately, this morning he’s soaked through his clothing and it means a diaper change first thing, which he rarely handles with grace. We compromise with some milk before & after. Then, wrapped up in his robe, he takes breakfast (cheerios, banana, & milk) in his high chair. Because I’m heading out to Mass this morning I have some tea, toast, & orange juice while he eats. Then we go to David’s office to watch some Baby Mozart, which allows me to check my email & gives Walter an activity to do that isn’t fussing the life out of me.

8:00am: David wakes up and Walter loses interest in his show. We go into my room and Walter plays with his toys, with minimal fussing. Emily wakes up, but she is pretty content in the morning which gives me time to get ready for Mass before she starts crying. I have just enough time to change her diaper & start feeding her before I need to run off to church.

9:00am: I’m off to Mass. Walter sees me getting ready so follows me to the door, howling. I enjoy a brisk walk and revel in the solitude and quiet. I’m happy to be at church and glad to see that it’s pretty full for a weekday.

10:00am: Mass is followed by Adoration. I stay for a bit, enjoying the quiet time with God. I’m so grateful that David takes the kids so that I can do this, because it is the only time I get for prayer and worship that doesn’t involve keeping alert to baby noises. When my thoughts start wandering too much I leave and head home. On the walk I stop at a shop to try on potential dresses for Emily’s baptism, since I’m unencumbered by children/buggy. It’s so nice to be out on my own, window shopping, and if my feet weren’t hurting from my heels I would definitely overstay my time limit.

11:00am: Back home again. The children have fussed David all morning so he disappears into his office to start his work as soon as I get in the door. Walter’s way past his naptime – he’s cutting three new teeth and hasn’t taken a proper morning nap in over a week, so I’d told David not to bother sticking to the schedule & to just put Walter to bed if he seemed too exhausted to stay awake. His gums are too sore for him to eat properly, which I discovered the previous evening, so I give him some baby tylenol and then set him up for his 11am “fruit snack”. While he eats I change out of my church clothes, have some fruit, & see to Emily, who keeps spitting out her soother & sobbing for it to be put back. Then Walter gets a clean diaper and exhibits signs that he might actually nap, so he’s off to bed and it’s time to focus on Emily again – another diaper change and a bottle of milk prepped. I dress her in daytime clothes and alternate between reading a book, soothing her, beginning to type this blog post, and soothing her some more...

12:00pm: I feed Emily &, in between her burping breaks, I heat up lunch. Fortunately we’re having leftover cream of bean soup & garlic bread because it means I can get it ready quickly and don’t need to wash dishes. Walter stays sleeping, which is a victory this week, and it means that David & I can enjoy a relatively quiet lunch as there is now a 2:1 ratio of parent to child. After lunch David goes back to work & I start getting Emily ready for her immunization appointment. Walter wakes up and alternates between helpfulness, playing, and fussing because he knows someone in the house is going outside.

1:00pm: Emily & I head out to her appointment. I decided to use the baby hawk which means I get to enjoy snuggles with my little girl all the way to the doctor’s office. It’s a sunny autumn afternoon and the Cathedral park looks lovely – it’s too bad we have to spoil it with unpleasantness, but needs must and this baby needs immunizing. The surgery is nearly empty, which is nice, but then the immunization nurse rubs me the wrong way with almost everything she says, and my poor baby girl is screaming like she’s being tortured, and by the time I can head home I’m beat.

2:00pm: We arrive home to a happy Walter. Emily crashed after she calmed down so I put her into her crib and hope she takes a long nap. Walter is content to play with his toys so I snatch the opportunity for a break and sit down with a novel. Emily wakes up, screaming, so there is the usual fluster of feeding & changing her while trying to keep Walter entertained. Fortunately he is in a loving mood and spends most of his time trying to kiss & hug Emily or me.

3:00pm: Emily is still doing her “eat & fuss” routine when Walter starts his own afternoon performance of milk-whining. I manage to put him off with some vague promises of my undivided attention once Emily settles down, but he calls my bluff by dirtying his diaper. So off I go, to heat up his milk & make myself a cup of tea, changing his diaper while I wait for the water to boil. Emily is put out by this sudden change in the direction of my attention and decides to give her lungs a good airing. She gets so tired of waiting that she cries herself to sleep. I take the opportunity to give Walter his milk and put him down for a nap. Not sure if the nap will take, as there is a lot of banging & murmuring going on from his room, but it should buy me up to an hour of relatively quiet time. I should take the opportunity to nap, but I’m never able to fall asleep if I know he’s awake, even tho’ he’s happy & playing in his crib, so I take my tea, grab & apple and make some toast, and settle down next to Emily. If I’m really, really lucky both kids will be asleep at the same time and I’ll be able to take a nap. I could always go and do dishes but I am feeling really tired and could use the down time to read a book.

4:00pm: Walter didn’t sleep, but he was content to have quiet time in his room. Emily stayed sleeping and I used the break to chat a bit with David and read. At half past four we grabbed Walter and David went back to work while I dealt with yet another stinky diaper.

5:00pm: Walter was content to play until twenty past five, at which point he wanted supper. It’s Friday, which is pizza night in these parts, so he accompanied me to supervise (ie whine at my feet) the making of his mushroom, tomato, & onion pizza. I tried to keep him entertained while his pizza baked and then I did some very light housework while he fed himself.

6:00pm: Walter gets around an hour of playtime after dinner to help his food digest. Just as I was putting him down and encouraging him to run around, David’s parents called and we ended up chatting with them on Skype for an hour or so. It was one of those rare times when both kids were awake & able to go on Skype and where David & I were also relatively free to join in the conversation at the same time.

7:00pm: At 7, Walter was sure to let us know that he was ready for his evening “fruit snack” and bedtime routine. I left David & Emily to continue chatting on Skype while I cut up Walter’s orange. He devours fruit like there’s no tomorrow so I’d barely gotten his bedtime milk ready by the time he was done eating. Then it was off to the bathroom for another diaper change, jammies, and brushing teeth. He said his goodnights, blew kisses to everyone, and I took him off to his room for prayers, songs, milk, & sleep. Then I sat with Emily & chatted with David’s family while he went to the kitchen to finish making the pizzas.

8:00pm: Emily needed a change and her supper so I got off the computer and went back to work. Normally by the time Walter is in bed I am done for the day, and this is when I really feel the hard work of having a newborn in the house. Emily’s really been struggling with a gassy tummy for the past week or two so feeding her is far from pleasant as it usually involves a lot of fussing and crying before she’s comfortable again. Still, there’s no reason to let fussiness spoil our evening, so we juggled the baby back & forth while watching Fight Club (I’d never seen it until now!) and eating pizza. Eventually David calmed her down.

9:00pm: Still watching Fight Club, still enjoying my pizza & beer, and eventually moving onto some Macadamia Nut Crunch ice cream. Love our Friday Pizza Nights!

10:00pm: Emily was ready for her last bit of milk. I’m trying to get her onto a 10pm bedtime (because it has been creeping towards midnight more nights than I like), but on evenings when we’re watching a movie it’s difficult. Unfortunately the milk didn’t sit well with her, so instead of her drifting off with a milk-induced sleep, it was more juggling of a fussy baby.

11:00pm: Emily finally falls asleep. I swaddle her and move her into her crib. Then I take some time to wind down. I wish I could go to bed as soon as the baby does but I always need to unwind first. Finally it’s time to prep the kids’ bottles for morning, get ready for bed, and tidy up what I can.

12:00am: Lights out, finally!