Day in the life: Summer 2020

It’s hard to know when to do these because right now, Olivia spends half her week in daycare, which means those days she’s gone are pretty low key. But I wanted to get one out before July was over, so I chose Wednesday. Which I think was still pretty productive, even if it was just the baby and me home all day with no real plans. Those are the days I want to remember the most, right?

You can read more Day in the Life posts by clicking here.

Day in the Life: Summer 2020

Wednesday, July 22nd

Chris is 37, Risa is 34, Olivia is 4 years 8 months, Emelia is 9.5 months, and Toby is 12 years old.

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12:16 am- I’m heading to bed late because I was focused on working on updating blog posts. I’m texting with my friend C as I get into bed to read.

12:45 am- Lights out.

4:38 am- I can hear the baby fussing. Chris gets up to bring her to bed with us so I can nurse her. She falls asleep next to me.

5:08 am- Chris gets up to his alarm. Emelia is still asleep next to me. He takes her back to her room and gets in the shower. I go back to bed.

8:12 am- I wake up. I can hear the baby out in the living room and Chris grinding coffee. He must have already brought Olivia to daycare. She was supposed to come in this morning to let me show her the steeple thing we do with our fingers. You know, “Here is the church, here is the steeple. Open the doors, see all the people.” She wanted me to show her last night before bed as a stall tactic and I told her to wake me up tomorrow and I’d show her again.

I get up, use the bathroom, and throw up my hair into a ponytail. I make the bed and throw the clothes on the floor into the laundry in the closet. Then, I head out to the living room and as I’m pulling out the bowl of strawberries to cut up, Chris comes upstairs carrying Emelia. I give her a kiss and she gouges my face with her nails. I need to grind them down. He sets her on the floor and comes to grab his coffee. I joked that Olivia didn’t come in this morning and he said that she wasted twenty-five minutes watching TV instead of eating so they were running late. Then she refused to put on her gray shorts and cried and Chris told her that now she was crying and she didn’t have time to visit Mom. We laughed for a minute at her expense, but then I told him that I was kind of sad she didn’t come in. He heads back downstairs and I cut up the strawberries and refill my water bottle. I have a jug with 100 oz of water that I drink down every day. I take the baby to the bedroom and we take a mirror selfie before I forget and I have no photos of myself.

I put the baby in the playpen and run downstairs to grab the protein powder to make a shake with the strawberries.

Then I grab my coffee with some heavy whip and bring it out to the living room and turn on the TV while the baby rolls around on the floor.

8:53 am- I eat breakfast while l watch the news and check my email. I had sent out some new article pitches a few days ago and now every time I open my email I hope to find a reply back from the editors. I reply back to some work ones (invoicing a client for a web design project, and replying back to nail out details with an editor for a pitch that was recently accepted at a new parenting publication) while nursing the baby and simultaneously trying to finish the bowl of strawberries. I let her try a strawberry. She’s a fan.

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Then I put her on the floor and peruse social media for a bit, going to retrieve her from whatever dangerous predicament she’s gotten herself into when necessary.

Chris comes upstairs and tells me we need to make a list for the Mennonite grocery store in Iowa so his parents can pick some spices and pantry items up for us when they come this weekend. I tell him I need to make chicken stock this morning, so I’ll make note of herbs and spices we have that’s running low. He brings the baby downstairs and I make my list while looking at the spices we have piled in the back of the office. I feel vaguely Little House on the Prairie.

10:12 am- I grab the bay leaves and peppercorns and head upstairs to start making stock. I always make this one when we have a chicken carcass from a Costco rotisserie chicken.

I set the Instant Pot to go for the next 2 hours or so and change the baby’s diaper and put her in an outfit for the day. It’s time for her nap, so I put her in her wearable blanket and sit down on the couch to nurse her.

10:35 am- I put her in her crib and she only protests a little. Check on the Instant Pot, and it hasn’t come to pressure yet. I head downstairs with my water. Chris has the patio door open in the basement and it feels cool downstairs. I answer some emails and do some admin work, before logging into my site and drafting this post. Then I spend the rest of the time going through my old posts and fixing the formatting issues. Today, I updated my post where I found out I was pregnant with Olivia, up to my second beta with her. It brings back a lot of memories, knowing that that little embryo I pinned so much hope on is now almost five years old.

1:00 pm- I can hear the baby is up. I check the monitor and see Chris is changing her. I finish what I’m doing and head upstairs. Chris is making lunch. I ladle out the stock into a big steel bowl to cool.

There’s leftover hamburger from Sunday that I need to eat, so I make a hamburger on the George. Anybody who says open face lettuce burgers are good is lying. Eye on the prize, eye on the prize. I put some lettuce on my plate with Famous Dave’s pickle slices and set the burger on top with some cheese and sugar-free BBQ sauce. I set Emelia in her high chair with some shredded cheese and I eat while reading articles on my phone and occasionally giving her some attention.

I check my email again and see my one and only source for a medical article I’m working on had backed out of an interview due to the “controversial nature of the topic.” Well fuck. I ask Emelia how I’m supposed to find two experts on this particular topic when I can’t even find one. She stuffs some cheese into her mouth and shrieks at me. I feel the judgment.

She had thrown her cheese everywhere and wants more, so I hand her one of those dissolvable biscuits while I clean up the kitchen. She does well for the most part until she’s done and is slamming her hands down angrily. I clean her up and set her in the pack n play until I’m done wiping the counters. I wipe the coffee table down too and decide while I’m at it, I’ll vacuum the carpet since the baby is covered in dog hair.

2:25 pm- I vacuum the basement too and then bring Emelia downstairs to roll on the carpet. I have to wash Olivia’s clothes because she needs a swimsuit for the beach tomorrow. We’re meeting some friends we haven’t seen in ages. I run upstairs and grab both kids’ laundry to bring down and throw them in to wash.

2:37 pm- I sit down to work on this post. Emelia and I decide together to watch The Babysitters Club.

2:41 pm- I’ve just barely sat down to work again when Chris comes out of the office and tells me the Imperfect Foods box came. I go upstairs and he tells me it feels like a 20-lb box. I ask if he can watch the baby while I put the stuff away. All the things I ordered are there but there’s a bunch of extra things like two things of celery, red potatoes, what looks like a sweet potato, and a gigantic hairy thing that I’m assuming is fennel. I check my order and realize it was correct but I’m not sure where all this extra stuff came from. I have to prep some of it in order to fit it all in the fridge.

I cut up the celery, broccoli, cauliflower, and lop off most of the fennel to store. I wash up the lettuce and Chris comes upstairs with the baby. She’s been trying to eat his chair legs while he’s working and he thinks that it’s time for her nap. I pour the chicken stock that’s cooling into a freezer bag and leave it sitting on the counter to finish coming to room temperature before freezing it. My kitchen is a mess again, but I settle for wiping down the counter and leaving the dishes in the sink.

3:30 pm- I change the baby’s diaper and put her in her sleep sack and sit on the couch to nurse her. I need to look up some recipes with fennel. Decide with the amount I have, I’ll probably make a fennel and potato side one night this week. I put the baby in her crib and say goodnight and she immediately starts crying. I tell her I love her and close her door.

Oy. In the kitchen, I cut up two plums, grab a granola bar, and head downstairs to put the clothes in the dryer. I realized I left one of Olivia’s swimsuits hanging in the bathroom. Oh well, at least there’s one for tomorrow. I eat my snack while doing more notes for this post.

4:24 pm- I look up and realize it’s almost time to get Olivia and start dinner. I still need to try to find a doctor for this godforsaken article that no one wants to help me with. Fuck it, I’ll do it later. Instead, I keep working on this post.

5:00 pm- I shut the TV off and head back upstairs to start the salmon and asparagus for dinner. I get it in the oven and run to the bedroom.

5:25 pm- I hear Olivia come home. She has mail and she’s in her room, waving the envelope around. I let her open it and see it’s a grad party invite for a friend’s daughter who I’ve known since she was two. I feel old. I remind Olivia she needs to change out of her clothes from daycare and wash her hands. She’s not happy about it and whines and complains. Luckily, she snaps out of it by the time she comes out from the bathroom. Chris gets Emelia up from her nap.

Olivia lays on the floor with Emelia and plays with her. I open up the box I got from Grove Collective and show Olivia the glass foaming soap dispenser that has a silicone sleeve with stars. Dinner will be done in a few minutes. I slice some of the whole wheat bread Chris had made a few days ago and put some on each of our plates. Chris has the baby on the chair next to him while he checks his phone and Olivia is bouncing around them both.

5:40 pm- The oven timer goes off and I pull out the salmon and check that it’s done. I make a plate for Emelia to try some salmon and asparagus. Chris gets Olivia’s plate ready, while I pour milks and get mine situated. We get the baby stripped and in her chair.

5:48 pm- We all sit down to dinner. I have to tell Olivia four times to lower her voice when she’s talking. Emelia is digging the asparagus and fisting her salmon. Olivia is telling us the ins and outs of daycare today. She tells me it’s my turn to tell the bedtime story tonight. I ask her for any requests. She thinks for a minute.

“Worms, lemons with eyeballs, a chicken…and Elsa and Ana. And Olivia and Emelia. And Christophe and Sven.” I told her I’ll have to think about that.

6:22 pm – We get done with dinner and clear the table. I take Emelia to the couch and grind her nails since it looks like she scratched herself. Olivia wants me to do hers. After I finish her nails, I help Chris with the dishes.

We talk about how masks are now required here in Minnesota. I help him dry the dishes and then I go back to the living room to be with her girls. I have to tell Olivia again several times not to smother her sister and we talked about germs. “The coronabirus?” she asks. We talk about not putting our feet on Emelia’s toys and smashing your face into hers.

We’ve had this talk 7,392 times since the baby was born. She doesn’t like that and stomps to her room. I hear her turn on Hamilton. I decide to get the bag ready for the beach tomorrow morning, and make Olivia’s and my lunch while Chris reads to them and helps Olivia brush her teeth. I realize it’s getting late for putting the baby down, even though she woke up later from her nap. I also realize I don’t know how I’ll get the baby down to bed before I go do my bedtime story for Olivia.

7:18 pm- I get Emelia ready for bed. I realize I’m not going to have time to tell the story tonight so Olivia agrees that it’s her dad’s turn and I give her a kiss good night from her bed. She waits in there for Chris and I go put Emelia in her sleep sack in her room and turn on her white noise. I sit in the glider to nurse her. Chris tells the story with Olivia and they say prayers and say goodnight.

7:45 pm- I put Emelia down in her crib and she starts fussing right away. Olivia’s door is closed, and I feel bad I wasn’t there for her prayers and story. I go downstairs and tackle folding the towels and then I take out the kids’ clothes from the dryer and sit on the couch and fold that. I get my exercise ball out and start doing my exercises from physical therapy for my knee. Chris does them with me while we watch Married At First Sight.

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8:40 pm- I get done. Chris is doing homework for his management training, and I’m working on this post. I eat some popcorn.

10:06 pm- I get some yogurt and my brownie mix to stir in and eat it while we watch Married at First Sight and make comments to each other. I start updating old blog posts again.

10:57 pm- Chris goes upstairs to start getting ready for bed. I’m finishing up a post, and come up a few minutes later. I brush my teeth and get into pajamas and get into bed. We talk for a few minutes.

11:10 pm- I decide to read for a bit to get myself tired. I need to stop being on the computer so late at night.

11:22 pm- I check on both kids on the monitors and then shut the lights off to sleep.