I get asked a lot these days what I do with my spare time. You know, now that I have nothing to do but stay home all day. So just for kicks, I decided to document a random day and share. I tried to do this several times but started to lose track of the day by mid-morning. This just happens to be the first day where I plodded through for an entire 24-hour period (just this last Fri actually).
4:57 – I woke up, not intentionally but because DZ has decided that it's a nice time to wake up, at least for this morning. I was just glad that it wasn't 1 am like it had been the day before. But of course I would have preferred that it was closer to 7 or 8am like it used to be up until a few weeks ago when al hell broke loose and she stopped sleeping through the night.
6:00 – We went back to sleep, after feeding my darling child, changing her diaper (2x because she pooped after she ate), and letting the dogs out. G woke up momentarily when DZ started wailing, and grabbed her. I had to pee, you see, and was generally not letting her at my boobs fast enough, so the little drama queen wanted to let the whole world know how terrible I was. I doubt G even remembers all this happening because 5 minutes later, he was snoring away like nothing had happened.
6:15 – G's alarm went off; he snoozed and then it went off again. Since he was snoring like an elephant, I hadn't been able to sleep anyway, so until he finally hit the shower around 6:30, I stayed awake.
7:50 – Woke up again, this time to hear Bandit scrambling around trying to get up. She's been having difficulty getting herself up on the hardwood floors at the new place. I ignore her and try to keep sleeping, figuring that since I had just let her out less than 2 hours before, there's no way she should have to go out again. But she continued to scramble so I finally got up. She's already left several puddles of urine for us when she hasn't been able to get up (and then continued to sit in them so not only do we have to clean the floors but also her each time this happens). I looked over and saw that DZ has woken up also and is staring at me wide-eyed through the mesh of her bassinet. Figuring it's now a lost cause, I finally get up and help Bandit up and outside. She stared blankly for a bit before proceeding to just come back in without peeing.
8:05 – Nurse, change diaper (for the baby, not me).
8:50 – Feed the dogs. This is more of a project than one might think. For one, it takes Bandit forever now to get up and down the hallway. She also seems to get lost. I brought the baby with me and poked into her room to grab her bouncer so that I can set her down while going out to the back patio to feed the dogs. Bandit took this opportunity to go back to the bedroom and lay back down (meaning I again have to help her up and coax her down the hallway). Mia, meanwhile, started growling at Bandit pretty much right when we got up, so every time Bandit got up, Mia would try to rush her, I'd push her back and we'd go through this process over and over again. Also today, we were out of dry food, so I grabbed a can of wet dog food to mix in. Even Bandit kept trying to poke her head into her food before I was ready. Mia, on time out from her growling, was supposed to be laying down in the hallway but kept trying to rush out for the food, especially once she realized they were getting the good stuff for a change. So the whole thing was broken up with me rushing back inside to put Mia back to where I had left her in the hallway and then coming back to finish getting the food ready (as taught by our hundreds of dollars worth of training classes).
9:10 – Finished feeding dogs. Yes, it took me 20 minutes. Left Mia out with the empty dog food can (maybe I shouldn't tell you that I spent a good 2 minutes trying to shake the lid loose from the bottom of the can before realizing that I had already thrown the lid away anyway – the dogs can't have the lid because it's sharp).
9:15 – Hopped in shower, leaving DZ in her bouncer. Then came rushing out thinking she was falling asleep and god forbid she actually falls asleep in her bouncer because then what? Would I move her or keep her there? These types of decisions plague me daily: is she ready for a nap or isn't she? Crib or bassinet? Cloth diaper or disposable? Walk now or later? The best thing is to try to avoid pretty much any situation that might involve any conflict whatsoever. Turns out, though, that she's not sleeping anyway, so basically I'm still soapy for no reason. I'm just excited that I'll be able to knock shower off my list of things to do for the day. Yeah, showering is on my list, don't you dare judge me. Deciding to dress up for a change, not wanting to feel like an slob, because the pair of jeans I had worn a few days before was still laying around, I put on pair of jeans instead of my usual sweats.
9:50 – Start trying to put the baby down for a nap. We're working on taking away the swaddle these days so naps are more inconsistent than they used to be. The process has been more drawn out than I expected, largely because I am inconsistent about when I choose to wrap her up and when I don't. It used to be too that DZ would get wrapped up and then just doze off on her own, especially in the mornings. But without the comfort of her swaddle, she needs a little more help. So I walk around and rock and bounce her until my arm is about to fall off.
10:10 – She was asleep and swaddle-free, so I gently laid her down in her bassinet. She woke up but tossed for just a minute or so before falling back asleep.
10:11 – Mia, who is still outside, decided to bark at something or another. She was practically next to the bedroom window when she did it, so the baby woke up with a start and looked wide awake. I let Mia in, gave her a couple of good whacks, and started the napping process all over again. (I found out later that she had been barking because Jehovah's Witnesses had been outside our door. I felt bad then for whacking her).
10:30 – my arm is officially dead and I give up and lay DZ in her bassinet wide awake. She started yammering about something but isn't crying so I go make myself a bowl of spaghetti for breakfast (again, no judging). I came back every so often and she still looked wide awake and thrilled and smiley every time I walked in. I swear, the only reason the kid gets away with everything is because she's so darn cute.
10:50 – My noodles were done and I was just about to take my first bite when the kid decides to stop chatting to herself and decided to start crying instead. So I went back to the bedroom with my bowl and let her stare at me gulping down my spaghetti.
11:00 – Deciding it was pointless to continue trying to get her to nap, I picked her up, made myself a cup of chai (yes, some sort of caffeinated beverage is also on my to-do list and I was way over-due this particular morning). We grabbed my cup and started nursing because this whole process had taken so long that it was time to eat all over again. I drank my chai while nursing, usually not my preference since the whole point of a coffee break is to, you know, actually have a break. I also was so fed up this morning that I turned the tv on while nursing (usually a no-no these days because the kid decides that she'd rather watch tv than eat and nursing takes way longer than it should).
11:45 – Finished nursing, the kid promptly pooped. Oh, I should probably mention that there have been several diaper changes already this morning. But anyway, she pooped and looked like she was ready to nap again. So I changed her, wrapped her, and started the whole napping process all over again. This time, decided to just wrap her up in the damn swaddle and be done with it. Except that she fought me the whole time and had it off almost before I finished wrapping her up. So I wrapped her leaving one arm out, walked around and bounced.
12:00 – No sign of napping, so I did another no-no, brought her all wrapped up, laid her on my knees facing towards me, and turned the tv back on.
12:15 – She began to fuss and again looked tired, so decided it was time to go again. This all happened several times so I think I'll just leave it at that instead of telling you how many times I wrapped her, re-wrapped her, changed her diaper, rocked her, left her, etc etc. The problem is that once she doesn't nap once, she's super tired and cranky and it just gets harder and harder to get her to sleep.
1:15 – Napping at last, completely swaddled. All dogs kicked out. It had been close call there at least once because just as she was about to fall asleep, I heard Bandit struggling to get up in the living room and by the time I went to help her and came back, the kid would be wide awake all over again.
And after that, she slept for an unprecedented 4 hours!! So she must have needed it. I grabbed a rare 2nd cup of chai and some lunch before beginning to attack the boxes still hanging around in the kitchen.
5:00 – Woke up. Changed and nursed. Dad came home at 5:30 (early for a change) and she briefly looked up before going back to my boob. Then promptly pooped.
6:30 – Bath!
7:30 – Nursed again while G went to go pick up dinner (sadly, we still have no food at the new house).
8:00 – G started walking around with her and rocking. Usually, this takes approximately 10-15 minutes. That night, we're at it for over three hours, with numerous moments when we think she's out but then she woke with a start and the process started all over again. I threw a fit because G started making “oh my back” motions within half hour or so. He didn't complain aloud, but I took it personally since I had been walking around all morning and how dare he start getting fed up almost immediately. So at least a half hour of this was spent with “No, I have here; here I got her” between us.
11:15 – Finally asleep, but not before we realized that she was awfully warm, so now we were concerned that she was getting sick AGAIN (or still?). So we finally went to bed, as well, but worried that it would be a fitful night.
11:15 – 8am ASLEEP
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