This winter so far has been pretty freaking cold and it makes me so happy Olivia’s daycare takes her outside to play so I don’t have to. Normally, I wouldn’t have waited so long to do this post, and January was coming to an end quickly and I wanted to get this done before February hit.
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Day in the Life: Winter 2019
Thursday, January 31st
Chris is 36, Risa is 33, Olivia is 3, and Toby is 10 years old.
6:30 am- Olivia comes into the room. This is the first time she’s let me sleep past six. She wants to nurse. Her nursing has consistently been in the morning only and even then it’s not every day. I know this is coming to an end soon, so I let her. Midway through I have to pee, so I head to the bathroom. Apparently, I’m on day one of my period. I pee and head back to bed for a little longer.
6:51 am- We get out of bed and go to Olivia’s room. We play catch with her Minnie for a few minutes while I sit on her bed. That lasts for a minute before she’s asking to watch Storks so we head to the living room with Toby following close behind. I put it on the movie for her. She gathers all her PJ masks with her.
7:10 am- I get in the shower. There’s frost on the inside of the window. I’m so sick of the cold weather. I get dressed, make the bed, and pick up the bedroom a little, throwing the clothes on the floor into the hamper. I run through my to-do list in my head as I clean. We’re going to the Children’s Museum today. I head to Olivia’s room and grab her clothes. I go out to the living room and pause the movie. She resists going potty for me, but I win the battle. She tells me she doesn’t want to get dressed, but finally lets me put on her clothes. I put a black sweatshirt on her that was one of my favorites of hers, and it’s looking a little small.
7:45 am- I leave her watching her movie again and go finish blow drying and straightening my hair and throwing on some makeup. Olivia wants makeup too, so she comes to the bathroom with me. She never calls me out that I’m not actually putting it on her, but I think she just likes the idea of it.
“I like dis eye shadow, Mama,” she says Very Seriously, “I like pink and purple.” For the record, I was NOT wearing these colors. It was a brown.
8:04 am- She decides she wants oatmeal for breakfast. I head to the kitchen to make coffee and oatmeal for her. She wants to help, so I set her up on the counter and she scoops the coffee into the grinder. While the oatmeal is cooking in the microwave, I peel the last two boiled eggs and a blood orange for me. I make some toast with butter and some sausage for both of us and bring it to the table.
“Yeah, pink and purple is still my favorite,” she says out of nowhere.
I take a bite of my toast as I listen to her talk. I rinse the dishes and she runs circles around the kitchen and living room.
“Mama!” she says excitedly, “I want to watch that movie with the man and the woman and the monkey.” I thought for a bit. “The jungle book?” I ask her.
She shakes her head. “No. You know, with the monkey?”
I give her a blank look. “Tarzan?”
“No,” she said, “Wit the man and the bird on his shoulder? With the tiger.?”
I’m trying for the life of me to figure out what movie she’s talking about. “Are you sure it’s not Tarzan, baby?”
“No!” She laughs, “Like With Jasamin!!!?”
“Oh!” I burst out laughing. “Aladdin? Were you talking about Jafar with Eogo on his shoulder?”
She jumps up and down in excitement, laughing because I’m laughing, “Yeah!” We could have gotten this figured out MUCH soon had she said Jasmin in the first place.
8:45 am- I pour a cup of coffee and put Aladdin on for a little bit so I can drink my coffee in peace. I text back Chris because he was asking how our morning was going, and log into my clinic portal to send a message to the nurse that I got my period. I’m doing a mock cycle this month for the ERA procedure.
I know I should go downstairs and grab my laptop to sneak some work in, but reading and drinking coffee sounds a lot better. I check the weather. It’s -23° out. I don’t want to drag in our coats into the museum, but I think even the dash from the parking garage into the building would be too much with that cold of temperature. I pack a little bag that I can strap over my shoulder with some extra clothes for Olivia and some water.
9:10 am- I sit down to read for a little bit. Olivia found a pencil she got from a grab bag at a party. I check to make sure it’s not sharpened and let her run off to her room with it. Hopefully, I don’t regret doing that. I read for a few minutes. Olivia brings out her little sticker book. I’m having some bad cramping and gas pains. Cycle day one is always rough, and it seems rougher since I had Olivia. I finally cave and grab some Gas-X.
10:00 am- I get an email with my lab order so I get on the phone with my satellite clinic to schedule an appointment for tomorrow for blood work and a baseline ultrasound.
10:30 am- We put our coats on to leave the house. I throw on my navigation to the children’s museum.
11:14 am- We arrive. I find a spot on the 6th floor of the parking garage and I (barely) wedge myself into a spot. We get inside and find my friend and her mom. Olivia has a blast. We ate Subway for lunch (Olivia’s favorite) and did have one potty accident because she was having too much fun.
3:00 pm- It’s time to go. Olivia passes out in the car, much to my disappointment. I really was looking forward to her nap.
3:34 pm- We arrive home and Olivia wakes up as I carry her in the house to take her coat and shoes off. She whines for a snack, so I get some cheese and crackers and we eat some at the table.
3:48 pm- Finally got her to lay down in her room, even though it’s getting late. I decide to try to nap as well, but I can’t sleep. I get an email about sending in a W-9 for a client, so I get out of bed and go downstairs to print it off and scan it in to email. Then I print off my orders for tomorrow for the US and blood work. I check my phone and see my small group was canceled for tonight. I text Chris to suggest dinner plans for my favorite Mexican Restaurant. He says yes.
4:54 pm- Olivia is still sleeping, so I decide to let her go another few minutes while I catch up on some notes for this post on the couch in the living room.
5:00 pm- Chris walks in the door while I am waking Olivia up. He’s brought her home a hat that he got from work.
I change her pants and she goes potty and gets back into her underwear and we head out to the restaurant.
5:35 pm- We arrive and choose a table close to the buffet. I load up on chips and queso and tacos with their deep fried taco shells.
7:00 pm- We get back home. Olivia sits on my lap on the couch and plays with her Minnie for a few minutes. Chris takes her to the bathroom to brush her teeth.
She wants to read books with me out on the couch, so we go through her little bible and a pop-up picture book. Then Chris takes her potty and helps her with her pajamas and puts lotion on her. I go in to kiss her goodnight and she wants me to lay with her for a little bit so I do. I stay for a few minutes, pretending to sleep while she rubs my face and says, “We go to seep now, Mama.”
8:11 pm- I slip out of her room after kissing her one more time and head downstairs. Chris tells me still has work to do tonight, so I’m on my own in the family room. Which I suppose that’s my cue for me to get working on my own stuff. Before I can, Olivia runs down the hallway. She is sitting on the potty when I get upstairs. She pees I put her pajamas on and she gets back into bed. I tell her I love her and give her another kiss.
“Wuv you too, Mom,” she says. I melt.
8:24 pm- Chris has left the fireplace on for me. I turn the TV on and open my laptop to work on some edits for two different articles.
10:00 pm- I finish working. It took longer because I also was watching Call The Midwife on Netflix. Chris comes out to talk a few minutes later. We talk about our day until I’m yawning.
10:30 pm- I head upstairs to brush my teeth, take my folate supplement, and get into bed to read for a bit.
11:07 pm- Lights out.
Oh man, those tacos look delicious!! That’s so cool there is a Mexican Buffett by you, we don’t have anything like that here.
And holy moly I can’t believe Olivia can nap that late and still go to bed at a decent time. None of my kids has ever been able to sleep past like 3pm or they won’t go to bed before 10. In the fall my 3 year old decided if he got any nap at all, even at noon and up by 1, he would be up for another 8-10 hours, so we basically nixed the nap and made bedtime earlier. Now he only naps on days he really needs it or if he’s sick. I miss naps, but I was missing my alone time at night much more.
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I’m craving them right now. Maybe I can convince the husband to take me there again… 😉 And I know. Usually, she’s pretty good about that, though I hardly ever put her down that late. When I do, it’s to try to sneak a nap in myself. 😉 And that’s a good way to look at it. Nap time is amazing, but so is that evening time. I would have done the same thing.