Hellobee

I wrote a day in the life post almost exactly one year ago. I read it last night and was so nostalgic; Little M will be 17 months old this week. Sigh, my baby is growing up too fast! Since Little M and I were doing a long solo-momma stint when I wrote my last “day in the life” post, and since we’re knee-deep in another long solo-momma stint right now, I thought it would be the perfect time for another day in the life post, toddler edition.

7:00am

I’m snoozing peacefully when I hear Little M talking in his crib in the room next to mine. I turn on the monitor and see him standing at the edge of his crib facing the door and waving his lovey, LE around. I get up, turn off the house alarm (if I don’t do it right away, I will undoubtedly set it off when I open a door or window when we go downstairs), open his door and say hello, and then go brush my teeth before I get him out of bed. We usually sleep until 7:30 so I complain to him that it’s too early. I open his windows, prep a diap and see that we’re out of wet cloth wipes, so I “make” some more by putting a big stack of cloth wipes in a plastic box and wetting them in the bathroom sink.

I finally take M, LE in hand, out of his crib, give him a kiss and bring him to his changing pad. We fight our way through a diaper change and I try not to get frustrated. I see that his PJs are wet so I strip him down and stick him back in his crib. I get rid of the dirty diap, throw his PJs in the hamper and wash my hands. I wrangle a pair of leggings and a long sleeve shirt onto Little M as he wobbles back and forth in his crib and then we sit down to nurse.

He’s not into nursing on the right side anymore. I always start there first, but I just don’t think I have much milk on that side so he wants the left after two sips. He’s all business for a few minutes and then he wants to play. He’ll take two sips, throw LE and then flip over to point to it and say “eh.” He won’t nurse if he’s not holding his LE. So over the next 20 minutes I reach down to pick up LE approximately 50 times. The dog comes in at some point and Little M barks at him. He then reaches out, grabs an ear and squeals.

7:30

When it’s clear that “milkie time” is over, M slides off my lap and walks toward the gate at the top of the stairs. It’s closed, but not latched so he opens it then gets on his belly and starts to slide down. M follows me down and by the time I have the dog’s food dish on the floor, he is standing next to me. He stands and watches the dog eat. I remind him not to touch the dog when he’s eating for the millionth time. As soon as the dog steps away from his dish, Little M swoops in and picks it up. He tries and fails to get the lid to the dog food container open. I hear a lot of “eh, eh” sounds that turn to an “aaah” cry of frustration from the kitchen where I’m opening blinds and turning on the coffee maker. I go out to the living room and open the lid of the dog food container and M puts the bowl (a small Rubbermaid container since M broke the ceramic bowl months ago) inside.

I put M’s kitchen tower next to the counter with a little step stool in front of it, and he climbs up to watch me make breakfast. Today it’s a broccoli and cheese omelet.

When the omelet is ready, I tell him to go get in his chair. He climbs out of the tower and moves the dining room chair with his highchair attached to it away from the table. I put the step stool down in front of the chair and he climbs up and sits down. I put on his bib and hand him his tray, which he pulls in close for me to secure. He devours his omelet before I’m even done putting milk in my coffee. He freaks out and wants out of the chair so I wipe his hands and he climbs down. I move the step stool and he climbs back up into his tower. I make him a smoothie with broccoli, kale, carrots, banana, strawberries, peaches, chia, flax and a Yo Baby yogurt. I expect that he’ll have some now and the rest  with dinner. Over the next 45 minutes he drinks the entire thing while I make his lunch, clean up the kitchen, put away dishes and drink my coffee. He’s super helpful as always and empties out the utensil drawer for me. He’s fairly good at putting stuff back, but there are plenty of dropped forks on the floor for me to pick up.

8:30am

I tell Little M that I’m going upstairs to get dressed and ask him if he’d like to go to. He follows behind me, but not very closely. From upstairs I hear a special laugh that is reserved for when he’s doing something (usually naughty) with the dog. Little M makes his way upstairs, leggings missing. Feeney has pulled them off, but thankfully didn’t eat them. Little M comes up, Feeney stays on the corner step and I lock the gate.

I change M’s diaper and dress him in layers. Then I get dressed in a nursing tank, cardigan and my hot pink skinny chinos because that’s what’s sitting out. I can’t remember if I wore the same outfit yesterday or not. Little M brushes his hair as I brush mine and points and says “eh” as I put on mascara. I hand him my mascara.

I grab three diaps for his daycare bag and head toward the gate. I open it and go downstairs and he follows me. By the time I’m done putting the dog’s collars and leash on, M is climbing into his tower, which I’ve moved out of the kitchen and next to our entry table. I strap on the Ergo and M starts to point at his Crocs and repeat “dees, dees.” I put the Crocs on his feet even though I’ve already put his socks and sneakers in his daycare bag, and he does a little dance in his tower. He loves his Crocs.

I strap M into the Ergo, set the alarm, grab his daycare bag and the dog and we head outside. I put his bag in the car and then we take the dog for a walk around the block. Then we all get into the car and head off to daycare.

9:00am

On our short drive I call my mom to say good morning. We chat for a few minutes, I give her the rundown of how freaking much M ate for breakfast and she tells me what’s on the docket for her day. When we arrive at daycare I say goodbye to my mom and get M from the back seat. I usually carry him inside because if I let him walk, he’ll never go in.

M is all smiles to see his daycare momma. The babies are all sleeping so he has her full attention. I kneel on the floor in her living room and chat for a little while. Meanwhile M is off toward the bedrooms looking for her husband. When he finds him, he starts to squeal “bal,” his daycare dad tosses him a ball and M kicks it all over the apartment. He puts his arms up to be held and goes in for a hug, then he leans down to his daycare momma so she takes him. I say “ok M, mummy’s has to go to work” and he waves and sings “buh-bye” in his cute little voice like he could care less that I’m leaving.

9:15am

I’m at my desk and ready to work for the day. My employment situation is changing and I’m leaving my current job at the end of the month, so I mostly just have wrap-up stuff to do each day for the next couple weeks. Today I grab a quick lunch of leftovers, but mostly sit at my desk until after 3.

3:15pm

I have nothing left to do today and am feeling like a sloth from sitting all day. I contemplate running with the stroller to pick Little M up from daycare but decide to do a Jillian Michaels DVD instead. I’m still about 10 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight despite my best efforts, which gets me really down (mostly because I really want to wear all my clothes.) But exercise makes me feel good, so instead of throwing in the towel I try to motivate myself to do something most days. Try. I shower and get dressed in my hot pink skinnies again.

4:30pm

I arrive at daycare and two other moms are there too (there are five kids total.) M flips out when he sees me and starts to laugh and dance all around. He puts his arms up so I pick him up and give him a big hug. Then he lunges out of my arms and is off and out the door. The other kids aren’t walking yet so their moms stand around and chat. I chase M down the sidewalk, drag him back inside and repeat twice before I finally grab his bag and we say goodbye. I let him walk to the car even though it takes 10x’s as long because he runs up and down the sidewalk 50 times before I finally pick him up and bring him to the car.

He laughs when he sees the dog in the back and lunges to grab his jowls.

5:00pm

We’re home and Little M is STARVING even though I packed him a big lunch and I know he ate a banana, a yo baby and probably half his daycare momma’s lunch. I pull his tower into the kitchen and give him half of a banana to tide him over.  On the menu tonight is split pea soup and roasted sweet potato rounds. Little M eats nearly two adult servings of soup and at least half of a sweet potato. His little belly sticks out so far!

5:30pm

I clean up while Little M empties out the cabinet behind me. I practice patience.

At least he has clean hands and we have cleanish floors….

5:45pm

We sit on the living room floor and read a few board books then head upstairs for bath.

Bath time is daddy’s time when he’s home and usually lasts forever. While they’re doing bath I’ll usually start dinner, clean up, put some laundry on, etc.  Mr. S and I have an agreement that I’ll do “chores” during bath and then he does the same for the entire time I’m breastfeeding and putting M to sleep. This works out most of the time and helps keep clutter from collecting around the house. Nothing frustrates me more than coming downstairs from putting Little M to bed and seeing Mr. S on the couch with his laptop. So our arrangement keeps the peace too.

Since I’m alone, bath time is all me today.

5:55pm

I strip Little M down and sit him on his potty. He does nothing. I stand him in the tub and he pees. Awesome. I soap him up, wash his hair and rinse him down. Then he plays with his bath toys while I rinse diapers from the day. Every time I open the toilet to rinse a diap M stands and says, “bye-bye.” I’m so amused.

6:15pm

I’ve rinsed all the diaps, cleaned the sink, toilet and floor and Little M stands and tries to climb out of his tub. I scoop him up in his towel and sit him in my lap while we brush our teeth. We use three toothbrushes – one for me to brush my teeth, one adult one for him to hold in one hand and one child sized one for him to hold in his other hand. At least one of his two tooth brushes makes contact with each of his teeth so I deem it a successful toothbrushing night. One toothbrush ends up in his bath tub.

6:20pm

I put Little M in a disposable diap and some footie PJs. I sit him in the glider with his LE and a book while I close the blinds and turn on the white noise machine. We nurse in the chair switching from one side to the other several times. I hold a paci in my hand and after a while he grabs for it, sticks it in his mouth and covers his face with his LE. We rock for a few minutes and then I put him in crib and say goodnight.

6:45pm

On the monitor I watch Little M pull his bears around him and get cozy with his LE.

When it seems like he’s falling asleep, I take the dog outside for a quick walk. We can go about a half a block before I lose a signal on the monitor, so we turn around and walk home.

7:15pm

I make my dinner, watch the news, makes Little M’s lunch for tomorrow and clean up. Little M is really into putting things into containers lately and I found his other LE (we have three) in the dirty diaper bin earlier, so I put a load of laundry on and toss in his two dirty LEs so he’ll have a clean one for daycare tomorrow.

8:45pm

Once the house is tidy, books and toys are put away and mail is read, I sit down on the couch with my laptop. It’s been ages since I’ve had time to turn on my computer in the evening.  I send Mr. S a detailed email telling him everything we did that day. Two minutes later Mr. S Skypes me – it’s first thing in the morning where he is and he’s getting ready to go out for a run. We talk for a couple of minutes, but we just talked yesterday, we’ve emailed several times today and I’m tired, so our conversation is short.  Then I check Facebook, which I can’t do while nursing anymore, update our budget program, read Hellobee, and before I know it, it’s after 10pm so I set the house alarm and head upstairs to bed. I write in my little sentence a day book, turn out the lights, read on my phone for a while and then finally go to sleep and hope for 8 hours of sleep. (It doesn’t happen.)