Day in the Life: Fall 2017

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Day in the Life: Fall 2017

Tuesday, October 17th

Chris is 35, Risa is 32, Olivia is one day shy of 23 months, and Toby is 8 years old.

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7:52- I wake up and get in the shower. I hear Olivia wake up when I come out of my bathroom. She’s been on a kick of sleeping to about 8:00, so of course, I follow suit. I go get her and change her diaper.

8:15- We sit down to nurse on the couch, and then I make breakfast. She’s crying because Toby was bugging her and she’s impatient while her bread is toasting. I ask her if she wants a banana and she ate it while I make her peanut butter toast. (Bananas are a hit right now) Put some blueberries on her plate and we sit down to breakfast. I pour a bowl of strawberry frosted Mini-Wheats.

8:50- We finish with breakfast, I wipe her hands, set her down and clear the breakfast dishes while she watches Curious George. I finish getting ready (blow dry and straighten hair, makeup, brush teeth) and make coffee. I catch Toby licking his tail so he goes back into the cone of shame. This is the third time his tail has been showing these open areas that just get worse with his licking. It’s been treated twice already and was already healed up and OK’d by the vet, and now we discover more open areas. I make a mental note to call the vet.

9:20- I set out frozen leftover mashed potatoes and ground beef on the counter to thaw for dinner tonight. Check Facebook and see a dear infertility sister safely delivered her baby this morning.

9:35- We are packed and out in the car to go to a sporting goods store to meet a friend and her daughter. Olivia brought her sticker and has her water in the car with her.

As we’re driving, Olivia is saying hi brightly, cheerfully, and it’s kind of creeping me out, and so I say hi back in order to make it seem less spirit-like. We’re driving in the country, so I’m glancing around at the fall colors and pass a pretty white farmhouse and feel a touch of nostalgia. Can you feel nostalgic for something you’ve never experienced? One day, I’m going to seriously consider moving to the country. As long as there is a Target nearby. And an Applebees.

10:00- We arrive at the store and Olivia and her friend are confused that all the cool fish in the aquarium are gone, as it’s undergoing maintenance. Olivia is acting a bit off today, scared of the stuffed animals in the display when she hasn’t been before. They explore tents, throw toys all over the floor in the kids’ section, and in general, cause mischief while I catch up with my friend.

We debate eating lunch in the cafe, but with Olivia being so volatile, I decide against it. She took two bites of her fig bar, and scoffed the rest. I have one harrowing moment where she takes off and I can’t find her for a moment. Son of a bitch. It’s time to go home.

11:45- We make it back to the car after Olivia stopped to grab two rocks from the pile by our car. Whatever prevents a meltdown, I’m all for.

12:10- We arrive back home, and head to the kitchen where I make her lunch of cottage cheese, orange slices and baby tomatoes. I do the dishes while she eats. Afterward, I turn on the TV for her while I go change her crib sheet since it was still wet from the water she dumped on it this morning. I’m waiting on her to poop before her nap, so I sit on the couch and answer back some text messages I missed.

12:47- I’m starving and don’t want to wait around for her to poop anymore, so I changed her diaper and start the oven for my pizza. As I’m getting her diaper from her room, she’s currently pooping. I attempt to quietly sit back on the couch, so as not to scare her off. Change her diaper when she’s done and now I can feel good about laying her down without her nap being interrupted by a dirty diaper.

12:56- She doesn’t want to read any books, so we go into her room, I shut her curtains, turn on her lullaby music, turn on her glow bug that lights stars on the ceiling, and we sit in the glider to nurse.

1:10- It’s a hit or a miss if she nurses to sleep and today, she isn’t falling asleep in my arms. I lay her in her crib, she looks at me and smiles, and lays her head back down. I turn on her white noise, say goodnight, and shut the door. I go back out to the kitchen, stick the pizza in the oven and sit down to eat a salad and drink the ice coffee I had made from this morning. I read a blog post from my favorite lifestyle blog Coffee With Summer. When the pizza is ready, I take half of it and go downstairs to eat and watch American Horror Story: Roanoke.

1:56- After I’m finished with lunch, I continue to watch Roanoke, and open up the computer, starting in on the blog post from our family vacation a couple weeks ago. This afternoon, all I accomplish is editing and uploading all the photos.

3:10- Finish with my photos. Shut the TV off. Olivia is up, so I go get her and we sit down to nurse on the couch. She’s getting a runny nose again after just getting over her last cold.

3:25- My plan this afternoon was to go to the gym, but I decide against that since by the time we would return home, it would be after 4:30 and the meatloaf takes an hour and a half to make. So I decide to play with Olivia’s finger puppets and we spend some time running around the house throwing her ball around.

3:50- I turn on the TV for her, so I can get the meatloaf in the oven, giving her a cup of Cheerios to eat.

4:20- She wants to nurse again. Cue toddler acrobatics.

4:31- She’s done nursing. We watch Arthur together for a few minutes. I call the chiropractor to reschedule my appointment for tomorrow but was put on hold too long. Start emptying the dishwasher and Olivia wants to help. I stick the still frozen hunk of mashed potatoes in the oven with the meatloaf. Olivia’s pulling at her diaper so I change it and ask if she wants to go potty. I take her to the bathroom and she sits on the toilet for 2 seconds and wants to get down. Stick her diaper back on, wash my hands and open the oven to stir the potatoes. Call the chiropractor again and finally get ahold of them to reschedule.

5:05- Chris walks in the door as I’m finishing up the dishes. I hear him tell Olivia to “take the mail to Mama.” She runs into the kitchen and flings the mail into the sink before I can stop her. At least it’s just junk mail. He takes her to the room to watch her while he changes out of his work clothes.

5:15- I take the meatloaf out of the oven and skim the fat off, pouring the ketchup mixture on top before sticking it back in the oven. Stir the potatoes and Olivia comes into the kitchen and finds my hair ties on the floor, carefully putting them on her wrists like bracelets. Always the imitator. Chris starts getting to work on the sink. Our faucet was loose, so it was just a quick tighten underneath the sink.

5:35- Meatloaf is cut, I stir the potatoes and declare them done. We sit down to dinner and I’m curious if Olivia will eat it. She eats some mashed potatoes and a few bites of meatloaf. Smashes all her peas. Pretty much what I thought would happen.

She slides her plate away after a bit and Chris cleans her up. We continue to finish dinner and he tells me about his day while she runs away to climb on the couch and starts playing with the cord blinds. I go over there and tell her no, we don’t play with cords, feeling a “whoops” moment, when I realize I didn’t tie them up. I go sit back down at the table and she climbs up and does it again. We’re finished, so I put her in timeout for 2 minutes in the pack and play while we clear the table. She’s angry, and Chris and I try not to laugh. When I take her out, I explain to her why she went in time out and if she will be a good girl now. She says yes. Celebrate my win. I rinse the dishes to finish later.

6:00- She wants to nurse again. Clearly, she is teething. Chris then puts her pants on and I change into capris because it’s 70° and I just had a hot flash. We are going to try to make it on a short walk and to the park before it gets too dark.

6:13- She’s refusing to put her shoes on. I let Chris deal with the drama and then we head out with the dog on a walk. It’s gorgeous out.

6:37- We arrive at the park and it’s already starting to get dark. We only get to play for about 10 minutes. I decide to take a selfie with Toby while Chris plays with Olivia. He is less than amused that I am taking him away from the Most Important Job Ever of keeping an eye on his mini-master.

6:50- We start the walk back after Olivia said “Bye!” to the wood chips, playground equipment and lone dandelion in the field. The light is fading fast.

“Remember when we’d take walks all the time in the dark?” I asked Chris, a bit wistfully. It sucks that our family walks in the evening will be coming to an end here soon for quite a while.

7:02- We arrive back home. I finish the dishes while Chris brushes her teeth, changes her diaper and gets her pajamas on to read books before bed.

7:25- He is done reading to her, so I start nursing her while he goes and draws up Motrin to give to her for her teething. Chris sits on the footstool and we say prayers before he turns down the lights and leaves us. I scroll through Facebook as she nurses.

7:42- She’s done nursing, so I put her in her crib and turn her white noise on. She takes a drink of water and then lays down with both her lovies (she started wanted to sleep with her usual one and her spare two weeks ago when she had the stomach bug) and her light-weight blanket. I say goodnight and I love her and head downstairs. Chris is watching Star Trek. I sit on the couch next to him and reply back to some emails and Facebook messages.

8:15- Send my notes for this post to my email to input into my blog and then get to work on my family vacation post. I’m determined to get this post live tonight.

9:30- Chris breaks out the Ritz crackers and peanut butter for us to snack on. I may have eaten all the lime tortilla chips and cream cheese salsa dip…So crackers it is. He hands me crackers with peanut butter while I write. Once Star Trek is over, he switches it to Friends reruns.

10:40- I finally hit “publish” on the vacation post, push it out to schedule on Facebook, and finish inputting the notes for this DITL post. Head upstairs to bed, brush my teeth, and wash my face.