A Day In the Life

So a few days ago a guy family member asked me "what do you do all day now that you're home, don't you get bored?" and after I stabbed his eyeball with a fork in my mind, I said calmly in the phone, "we manage".

And then when I got off the phone I thought to myself, "What the HELL do you DO all day?" because I realized I really didn't know. I mean I'm sort of in a blur sometimes.

So to answer the age old question... what did I do today... I'm going to be updating this blog periodically throughout the day.

6:30 am... the laylabug wakes up because daddy is in the shower and begins playing with my nightgown trim, poking my nose and eyeballs and rolling over repeatedly next to the edge of the bed until I feel I might actually have a heart attack if I don't get out of bed.

When daddy gets out of the shower, I go to the bathroom because if you pick the child up out of the bed before you go pee you will spend most of the morning wishing you could go pee. Then I change the first of many diapers for the day.

6:50 am... laylabug breakfast... mushy oatmeal mixed with peaches and formula. She eats for about 10 minutes, with occassional interupts as she contorts her body to try and see Neesie Nash on clean house. Then she says "uffs" repeatedly until I let her have 3 gerber banana puffs.

7:00 am... laylabug playing on the floor, again with the constant rolling & now getting stuck on things like furniture and toys, so I assist occassionally by pulling her out of the frustrating spots, I also get up 3 times to pull her away from the highly fascinating stereo buttons and then twice from the colorful and there for must be touched DVDs on the bottom shelf.

7:15 am... a the sound of instant screaming in the morning... the EVERY SINGLE morning at 7:15-7:30 stinky diaper, which I change and while I'm at it I dress the laylabug in very cute girly clothing. We were going to go to the flea market but I'm not feeling it now that it's actually the day of so instead I stick the baby who is now rubbing her eyes in the swing and I go get dressed.

7:30 am... ok appareantly swinging is worse than death and the constant baby yelling "hey" from the living room isn't as cute as you might think so I tote her into the bedroom and try to finish getting dressed. She is not enjoying waiting for me to get ready. I put my hair in a ponytail and don a baseball cap with no makeup to avoid a laylabug meltdown. I then take her to the office and she rolls around on the floor (which she loves) while I check my email. I also pack a diaper bag with one hand and prep 3 bottles.

8:00 am... I put the laylabug for the first time in her new upright car-seat and we head to the store.

8:10 am... arrive at store, I get the laylabug out of the car (thank you baby jesus it's so much easier without that bucket car seat). I put laylabug into a cart. And realize two very important things, 1. I do not have my list. 2. I do not know how many people are coming to mother's day brunch. I look down at all the things I got out of the car and into the cart...you know the baby, my bag, a bottle, a toy etc and decide I will wing it.

8:20 am... we are only ten minutes into our grocery shopping and 5 old people have stopped me to talk to my adorable laylabug. I remember it is seniors day at Savemart. Damn it. Now the 20 minute grocery trip takes almost an hour.

9:07 am... arrive home, and unload car while laylabug plays in carseat which she loves. In fact she talked the whole way home from the store and kept touching the window she can now see.

9:10 am... with grocery bags all over the counter, floor and table stop what you are doing to feed the laylabug the first bottle of the day. It takes awhile for mush breakfast to wear off but once it does she's very loud about wanting a bottle. After the bottle, do a diaper check and put the laylabug in a crib for a nap, checking the fishy toy to make sure it's on and giving her a bunny to play with in the crib.

9:19 am... finally finished putting groceries away- look at the grocery list and figure out that despite spending $80 you have forgotten 3 vital things, make a seperate list for the hubby when he gets home to run to the store, put the reciepts in the quicken, remember you forgot to deposit a PFL check and go looking for it to add to the hubby list.

9:20 am... you can hear laylabug in the crib turning on and off her fish toy (her new favorite game) so you go start doing dishes.

9:35 am... When the water stops running and you walk out of the kitchen you realize that the baby is now SCREAMING. You find her stuck in a corner of the crib, with the toy off, tear streaked and covered in snot. You pick her up, calm her down in the rocking chair, give her 2 ounces left over from that bottle earlier and take off her shoes. At which point she begins to talk and sing to herself. Mental note to self, won't nap in shoes.

9:45 am... play with baby on your lap for 15 minutes, assorted games of peek a boo, patty cake and baby bouncing up and down. then let her play with the rivets on your rock and roll tshirt while you try to drink a pepsi because you suddenly remember you haven't had anything to eat or drink yet today and you've been up for over 3 hours. She grabs your cup mid drink and you decide wearing pepsi on a black shirt is easier than changing.

10:00 am... the now calm baby is rubbing her eyes again. Fearing the crib will cause a flashback followed by screaming you put the now happy baby in the swing, crack the sliding glass door, point her towards nature, turn on the fan so she has something else to look at, turn on a country music station on the radio through the cable box channel and walk away slowly so she won't notice you're gone. Toss her a carebare and a jingling baby doll to play with from a distance and she laughs.

10:05 am... someone knocks on the door and tries to sell you a lawn mowing service despite not having any lawn.

10:07 am... get brave enough to walk to the front side of the swing because the jingle toy has stopped making noise, baby crashed out in an akward position, remove all toys and lower swing back so she is laying down. Scared to turn on the TV to a real station you make yourself a small salad with avocado and ranch dressing.

10:17 am... tip toe to the office. You look for jobs online and read your favorite websites while eating salad and drinking pepsi with reckless abandon...

10:45 am... start writing this post

11:07 am... baby still sleeping, decide to spend some time cultivating the babies wardrobe due to the california change of seasons most of her clothing is too hot and some of it is out but too small, although the other day you did pull out the next size up. Spend 15 minutes tossing things that are not 'right' into a box to be sorted between keepers, favorites and charity items later.

11:22 am... laylabug wakes up. change ANOTHER diaper and put her on the floor to play with a few toys while you finish up the baby room.

11:30 am... play with baby on office floor, using a vibrating bunny baby toy to make her laugh, decide to call mom so she can enjoy baby giggles at which point my daughter becomes fascinated with the phone and ignores the bunny all together until the phone call is over... talk to mom for 5 minutes about grandpa's health issues.

11:35 am... get off the phone with mom and check my voicemail, I have a message from the Drs office, I call them back... arrange payment for something I didn't know I had to pay for.

11:40 am... move to the living room and the baby starts saying "uff" over and over... decide if she wants puffs it's probably time for lunch.

11:45 am... laylabug eats lunch, mixed veggies and a few banana puffs for good measure, outside at the patio table then we dip her feet in the kiddie pool for a few minutes... meanwhile the landlord and her husband watch on while they do yardwork occassionally talking to themselves...whatever-dorks!

12:00 high noon, we come back into the house so no one gets a sunburn, I put the baby in the exersaucer in the kitchen while I clean up the kitchen counters with a bleach product, I break occassionally to keep the squeeling child entertained by the bouncy aspects of the exersaucer and also fork over a few cheerios which I got at the store today.

12:10 laylabug wants a bottle. I can tell because she keeps making suction noises with her mouth, I prep a 4 ounce bottle (the biggest she will drink by the way) and we go to the living room where she insists on sitting up like a big girl while she drinks, she then plays with my baseball cap for 2 or 3 minutes until I put it on her head.

12:15 remove dangling earrings to prevent permenant ear damage.

12:16 take baby to office floor and encourage crawling which she won't do... instead hand her the calculator (her favorite office toy) and type update on this blog

12:22 frustrated baby just started crying... I picked her up and calmed her down, she was grinding her teeth pretty badly, after some inspection (and almost getting my finger tip bitten off) I discover we are cutting yet another tooth (#9 or 10).

12:23 gave baby tylenol and put her in the swing with a pacifier to chew on so I could go pee... came back to find her asleep.

12:30 begin watching Nanny 911 on CMT and eat a piece of sour dough bread, then I go get the mail and discover 1 bill, 2 pieces of mail for people who don't live here and the weekly free classified ad with sales ads, so I look through the sales ads and the paper, discovering there are no jobs available I am summoned out of my seat by my inner demon the stress eating and find some fritos to munch on.

1:30 pm... the landlady asks why the geranium is dead, I remind her a fence fell on it a few months back and she proceeds to tell me a long list of all the plants she pulled up to make the yard in the front look less cluttered... 10 minutes of my life I would like back.

1:40 pm... go check my email for a job and try making a few phone calls for my mom's business that she asked me to make.

1:45 pm... check on baby who is still having a mystery nap, use the time to look through mail piles on the desk, counter and table to eliminate some things that can be filed or thrown away.

2:15 pm... the baby finally awakens from a nap due to a stinky diaper, which I change. We then spend some time trying to sit up unassisted without panicking (her sitting, me panicking).

2:30 pm... juice in a sippy cup and cheerios for a snack... not that we will drink much juice (she doesn't seem to like juice much anymore). I begin looking at the 2 hour nap my child just took and find myself wishing I had taken a shower because today the hubby won't be home until after 4 pm.

2:31 pm... decide to move laylabug in the exersaucer to the office and attempt to fill out goverment job application while giving her cheerios and juice at regular intervals... instead she begins to play.

3:15 pm... laylabug remembers there were cheerios and juice and I start giving her some whenever she signals she wants one of either... this trick earns me 30 minutes of online surfing job sites and reading blog info... because really trying to fill out an application with an infant home alone is ridiculus and can not be accomplished by mere mortals.

3:30 pm... stop focusing on computer and resume trying to get laylabug to say "mmmm" when you put something good in her mouth... feels rather like training a puppy really.

4:00 pm... hubby gets home from work and we talk for awhile in the office and marvel at how much the baby likes cheerios and how well she drinks from a sippy cup now.

4:05 pm... the baby starts to cry when hubby leaves the room so we follow him to the bedroom and she spends a good twenty minutes trying to crawl, rolling around and playing with both of us.

4:30 pm... wander back to the livingroom and try to put baby in the swing. Nope. On the ground. Nope. Decide baby might want dinner, three spoonfuls into squash with rice. Nope. Try walking in a circle and she starts giving me fish face... a sure sign she wants a bottle.

4:40 pm... give baby 4 oz bottle and hubby leaves for the grocery store to get the things I forgot and drop off a deposit at the bank.

5:00 pm... start dinner prep so I'm ready once hubby gets home to light the BBQ

5:20 pm... abruptly stop dinner prep due to screaming child that rolled herself on to cold tile and can't figure out what the "cold" problem is on her feet.

5:45- 6:20 pm... husband gets back from shopping, lights BBQ and I finish making dinner.

6:25pm... dinner, BBQ chicken, white rice and green beans. I feed the baby green beans and rice off my plate and she eats so much I actually cut her off.

7:00 pm... after dinner we start watching NCIS, put the baby to bed and I start doing dishes.

7:05 pm... frantic baby has rolled herself into a bad situation in the crib, after a bottle and some time in the swing she'll be fine.

8:00 pm... put the baby back to bed and this time she actually goes to sleep...

this is my last update for today but tonight there will be american idol watching and possible the 100th episode of ECW before bed... and then we'll sleep on it until tomorrow.

And for the boy who asked what i did all day... here is the male translation... "the baby got up early, we went to the grocery store and then we spent the day at home...and the evening watching tv."

LOL I think that about sums it up.