Slice of life.
I was going through my old, unpublished blog posts and found this gem that I drafted back around June of last year. I enjoyed reading it, and thought, aw, heck, I'm-a publish it now!
Minor differences now, but the essentials are the same. Please enjoy this peek into a normal day in the life of your FAVORITE blogger: ME.
Let's have a little slice of life look at what someone who, let's just say, occasionally blogs for the reading pleasure of 3-5 people, has two kids (ages: 2 years, and 3 months, respectively), has a snobby cat, and occasionally remembers to put on deodorant, goes through in a day:
5:55am Alarm goes off. Hit snooze. Repeat every 5 minutes until 6:20 at the latest.
6:20am First thoughts: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE. Action: start coffee maker.
6:20-7:20am
Toddler wakes up. Silliness begins immediately. Spend at least 4 minutes discussing playdoh, who she will play with at school, what she does not want for breakfast (any breakfast food) and what she does want (cake or crackers).
Finally get her still enough to change diaper. Negotiate the terms of breakfast and resolve the issue while changing 5 pound pee diaper. Wash hands, fix breakfast. Wait, toddler wants to wash hands, too. Awkwardly hold toddler over sink while she fails to rinse soap off her hands.
Okay, now you can fix breakfast. While toddler eats, put her hair in ponytail. "You want two ponytails? Good heavens, quit crying! Seriously! I can fix it!" Okay, correct tragic hair mistake and make sure hair is in two ponytails.
At some point during meal, baby wakes. Other parent has been making bottles, checking school bags for appropriate amount of diapers, backup clothes, bibs, etc, making lunches, and so on. Also, other parent is just trying to wake up. Abandon toddler, who is strapped in to booster seat, to join other parent getting baby out of bed and say good morning to the child who is not yet old enough to articulate dissenting opinions. Return to toddler to make sure she is still alive (she is) and hasn't gouged out eye with the metal fork (she hasn't) while other parent changes baby's diaper then gives the baby the first bottle of the day.
Wipe approximately 30-50% of food that was served from toddler's face, hands, and arms at conclusion of meal.
Brush teeth. Toddler must take her turn first. She needs to wet the toothbrush. Hold on, she didn't get it under the water. Try again. Okay, finally. Parent administers toothpaste. Wait... wait... wait... for toddler finish chewing on bristles and swallowing toothpaste. Finally, parent's turn to help brush teeth. Complete job.
Take toddler to room to get her dressed. Toddler decides now is time for hide and seek. Chase frustratingly fast toddler around house. Get other parent to tag in and corner child. Carry her back to room as she laughs/spews venom (depends on day or minute). After 3 minutes of fruitless effort in getting child still, put her in leg lock and begin undressing her. Toddler eventually calms down (maybe). Get her approval on choice of outfits.
Begin dressing child for the day. Start with the shirt. NO, PANTS FIRST. Okay, start with pants. Put on pants. She needs to wear sunglasses now. Go find her sunglasses. Where are the sunglasses? Hon, have you see toddler's sunglasses? Oh, here they are, nearly hidden between couch cushions. Toddler puts on sunglasses. Take moment to bask in how adorable offspring is. Return to room to finish dressing. Toddler wants sunglasses to stay upon her face with no disturbance whatsoever while you pull shirt over her head.
Destroy her feelings when sunglasses move when shirt is pulled over head. Rectify the situation by restoring sunglasses to their rightful location on the face. Give kisses. Better now? Okay. Put on socks and shoes. No, not those shoes. The other shoes. I DON'T WANT THE OTHER SHOES I want the first shoes that, yes, I told you I don't want. I changed my mind. Okay, put on original shoes.
Other parents is also changing diapers and dressing baby, who is surprisingly strong and refuses to hold legs still. Putting socks on baby is like trying to get a angry cat into a cat carrier. First you must capture cat/foot. Then you must bring cat/foot to the entrance of the carrier/baby sock. Then you must use all of your cunning and bravery to get the cat/foot into the carrier/baby sock without blood being drawn, because cat/baby foot has claws/the tiniest toe blades in the world, with which to cut you.
Parent in charge of this task feels warm fuzzies and the glow of success when mission has been accomplished.
Toddler, now dressed, wants to assist with the changing and dressing of the baby. Toddler hands parent in charge of baby 3 diapers, a diaper cream, and various other items that are of no use to parent. Parent must accept these items anyway. Failure to do so results in tragedy for the toddler. Watch as toddler drops tube of diaper cream on baby's face. Missed baby's eye, so we're okay. While helping, toddler regales you with tale of the booboo on her knee. From when she fell down 2 months ago at her grandparents house. Give the 2 month old booboo a kiss. Very important or it will never heal.
Parent who needs to leave the house at 7:30 looks at the clock and realizes it's 7:20. She has done nothing to get herself ready for the day.
7:20-7:40am Spend 20 minutes in a hurried, scattered fashion, packing your own lunch, reheating coffee you haven't had a chance to finish from when you poured it an hour ago and then still not actually drinking it, taking too long to stop and kiss baby and hug toddler, realizing what time it is again. Throw clothes on, slap on bare minimum makeup, look at hair and decide, "eh, this'll have to do," repeatedly say, "CRAP, I'm going to be late! We need to hurry!" all the while everyone is ready to go but you. Saying so makes you feel like you're accomplishing something without actually helping you get ready.
Finally, parent gets all of parent's, toddler's, and baby's stuff together, ready to walk out door. This is the moment the toddler announces she has pooped. Take 2 seconds to decide if you're the kind of parent who will make your kid wear the poop diaper to school then pretend you only discovered it once you got to daycare. You're not.
Accept defeat--parent will not be on time today--and change diaper. Toddler incapable of sitting still, thus making the diaper change last twice as long as it should.
7:45am Finally get in car, all children and bags accounted for, and head to school.
8:00am The time you should be arriving at work, you arrive at daycare for drop-off. Get toddler out of her car seat, help her put on her back pack. Make sure toddler does not stray into the path of the 15 SUVs in parking lot while navigating to other side of car. Tell toddler for the 1000th time not to touch tires of car because they're filthy. Get 3 month old out of car seat, get her bag. Safely navigate the treacherous parking lot with all children and school bags, get up a set of stairs, and enter building.
Sign kids in. Go to baby's classroom first. Fill out daily report form, wait for teacher to finish talking to another parent. Finally, they take baby, baby's bag, and baby's form. Kiss baby. Let toddler kiss baby. One more kiss for baby. Remember that parent is late as hell, and reluctantly leave baby.
Time to go down a full flight of stairs to get to toddler's classroom. Toddler must walk herself, she shant be carried. Finally get toddler to her room. Spend 30-60 seconds attempting to get her to give a bye-bye kiss. She'd rather go give the teacher a hug. Die a little inside.
Finally get kiss. All is now right in the world, except that you're late. Crap. So late.
Run to car. Speed to work. Fly into parking spot. Wait for slowest elevator in the world.
8:15am-4:57pm Work. Eat. Squeeze in exercise on your lunch break. Look at pictures of kids. Read an article about losing the baby weight while eating cookie.
5:00pm-8:45pm The same kind of insanity from the morning. Begin by picking up kids from daycare. Wonder what disaster occurred that required toddler to have on different pants than the ones you sent her in. Drive home with chatty toddler in rush hour traffic.
Look for buses. Look for stores. Open and close car windows. Spy birds, airplanes, trees, and comment when you see a man or woman walking.
Finally get home. Unload car. Bags first, then children.
Negotiate TV. "Busy Town. No, Bears. No, I don't want Bears. Daniel Tiger?" Put on Daniel Tiger. "I want Busy Town." Turn off Daniel Tiger, put on Busy Town.
Toddler watches 3 minutes of TV before asking to go outside and play. Wreck toddler's whole day by telling her that we can't go outside because parent is cooking dinner. Listen to toddler scream about how she doesn't want dinner. Continue for 5 minutes.
Finally get toddler off the emotional edge by offering snacks. Toddler requests raisins and prunes. She wants them in a bowl. Put raisins and (one) prune in bowl. Toddler needs these on a plate, not in bowl. Put raisins and prune on plate. Toddler realizes terrible error has occurred. She meant to request CRAISINS and prunes. Raisins are horrible and she wants craisins.
Add craisins to plate. Watch toddler eat raisins first.
Realize this snack may be related to the early morning poopings.
Parent begins to prepare wholesome and delicious meal. Toddler, having accepted that she's forced to live as a shut-in, plays in kitchen as parent starts cooking and baby sits nearby watching. Toddler firmly establishes herself under parent's feet just as parent begins using largest knife in the house. Parent continues using large knife with toddler under feet, forcing herself not to think about all the things that could go wrong if parent dropped knife at that moment. Parent goes to living room to turn off the TV that has been ignored for the last 15 minutes. Break toddlers heart because toddler was watching that.
Other parent arrives home from work 30 minutes late. Parent tries not to be hateful to late-arriving parent, and instead gives him a kiss and forces herself to be understanding. (Wait, did that give away which parent is home with the kids first?)
Somehow dinner takes an hour to prepare. Parent cooking dinner has dirtied 2 cutting mats, a knife, 3 spoons (of varying sizes), 2 bowls, a skillet, a pot, and a baking dish. This is vexing because dinner is leftovers. Parent making dinner does not know how things went so wrong.
Toddler keeps herself entertained by scattering as many toys, papers, books, and crayons as possible and then ignoring them. Toddler spies pile of folded laundry on the couch that has not yet been put away. (Laundry was folded 48 hours ago. It sat in a basket in the living room for 48 hours prior to that.) She "helps" by pulling as many neatly folded items as possible from their stack and gleefully throwing them about before late-arriving parent catches her.
Parent cooking dinner pour glass of wine and sneak-eats while toddler and other parent isn't looking. Baby sees, but she won't rat you out.
Put dinner on table. Toddler wants something else. Too bad, toddler.
Finish dinner. Tag team the night time routine. One parent takes baby, one parent takes toddler. The one with the most energy take the toddler. Bath, if necessary, the toothbrushing routine, wrangling out of clothes and into pajamas.
Baby requires a bottle, a thorough removal of stinky neck cheese, a fresh diaper and clean PJs.
Negotiate bedtime stories with toddler. Parent declares only 2 will be read. Toddler agrees. Two books are read. Toddler needs two more. Parent says no, prepared for the blowback. Toddler, exhausted, agrees after only minor fussing.
Good night, toddler.
Now, time to put baby to bed, too. Good night, baby.
8:45pm-10:00pm Spend 20 minutes mindlessly looking at phone. Finally decide to get up and clean. Clean kitchen, dinner table, and living room. Clean selves. This takes 30 minutes to an hour. Crawl into bed at 10:00, and hour later than you hoped to go to bed.
Zzzzz to you and yours,
xo
Minor differences now, but the essentials are the same. Please enjoy this peek into a normal day in the life of your FAVORITE blogger: ME.
Let's have a little slice of life look at what someone who, let's just say, occasionally blogs for the reading pleasure of 3-5 people, has two kids (ages: 2 years, and 3 months, respectively), has a snobby cat, and occasionally remembers to put on deodorant, goes through in a day:
 |
| Kisses given on the regs. |
5:55am Alarm goes off. Hit snooze. Repeat every 5 minutes until 6:20 at the latest.
6:20am First thoughts: COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE. Action: start coffee maker.
6:20-7:20am
Toddler wakes up. Silliness begins immediately. Spend at least 4 minutes discussing playdoh, who she will play with at school, what she does not want for breakfast (any breakfast food) and what she does want (cake or crackers).
Finally get her still enough to change diaper. Negotiate the terms of breakfast and resolve the issue while changing 5 pound pee diaper. Wash hands, fix breakfast. Wait, toddler wants to wash hands, too. Awkwardly hold toddler over sink while she fails to rinse soap off her hands.
Okay, now you can fix breakfast. While toddler eats, put her hair in ponytail. "You want two ponytails? Good heavens, quit crying! Seriously! I can fix it!" Okay, correct tragic hair mistake and make sure hair is in two ponytails.
At some point during meal, baby wakes. Other parent has been making bottles, checking school bags for appropriate amount of diapers, backup clothes, bibs, etc, making lunches, and so on. Also, other parent is just trying to wake up. Abandon toddler, who is strapped in to booster seat, to join other parent getting baby out of bed and say good morning to the child who is not yet old enough to articulate dissenting opinions. Return to toddler to make sure she is still alive (she is) and hasn't gouged out eye with the metal fork (she hasn't) while other parent changes baby's diaper then gives the baby the first bottle of the day.
Wipe approximately 30-50% of food that was served from toddler's face, hands, and arms at conclusion of meal.
Brush teeth. Toddler must take her turn first. She needs to wet the toothbrush. Hold on, she didn't get it under the water. Try again. Okay, finally. Parent administers toothpaste. Wait... wait... wait... for toddler finish chewing on bristles and swallowing toothpaste. Finally, parent's turn to help brush teeth. Complete job.
Take toddler to room to get her dressed. Toddler decides now is time for hide and seek. Chase frustratingly fast toddler around house. Get other parent to tag in and corner child. Carry her back to room as she laughs/spews venom (depends on day or minute). After 3 minutes of fruitless effort in getting child still, put her in leg lock and begin undressing her. Toddler eventually calms down (maybe). Get her approval on choice of outfits.
Begin dressing child for the day. Start with the shirt. NO, PANTS FIRST. Okay, start with pants. Put on pants. She needs to wear sunglasses now. Go find her sunglasses. Where are the sunglasses? Hon, have you see toddler's sunglasses? Oh, here they are, nearly hidden between couch cushions. Toddler puts on sunglasses. Take moment to bask in how adorable offspring is. Return to room to finish dressing. Toddler wants sunglasses to stay upon her face with no disturbance whatsoever while you pull shirt over her head.
Destroy her feelings when sunglasses move when shirt is pulled over head. Rectify the situation by restoring sunglasses to their rightful location on the face. Give kisses. Better now? Okay. Put on socks and shoes. No, not those shoes. The other shoes. I DON'T WANT THE OTHER SHOES I want the first shoes that, yes, I told you I don't want. I changed my mind. Okay, put on original shoes.
Other parents is also changing diapers and dressing baby, who is surprisingly strong and refuses to hold legs still. Putting socks on baby is like trying to get a angry cat into a cat carrier. First you must capture cat/foot. Then you must bring cat/foot to the entrance of the carrier/baby sock. Then you must use all of your cunning and bravery to get the cat/foot into the carrier/baby sock without blood being drawn, because cat/baby foot has claws/the tiniest toe blades in the world, with which to cut you.
Parent in charge of this task feels warm fuzzies and the glow of success when mission has been accomplished.
Toddler, now dressed, wants to assist with the changing and dressing of the baby. Toddler hands parent in charge of baby 3 diapers, a diaper cream, and various other items that are of no use to parent. Parent must accept these items anyway. Failure to do so results in tragedy for the toddler. Watch as toddler drops tube of diaper cream on baby's face. Missed baby's eye, so we're okay. While helping, toddler regales you with tale of the booboo on her knee. From when she fell down 2 months ago at her grandparents house. Give the 2 month old booboo a kiss. Very important or it will never heal.
Parent who needs to leave the house at 7:30 looks at the clock and realizes it's 7:20. She has done nothing to get herself ready for the day.
7:20-7:40am Spend 20 minutes in a hurried, scattered fashion, packing your own lunch, reheating coffee you haven't had a chance to finish from when you poured it an hour ago and then still not actually drinking it, taking too long to stop and kiss baby and hug toddler, realizing what time it is again. Throw clothes on, slap on bare minimum makeup, look at hair and decide, "eh, this'll have to do," repeatedly say, "CRAP, I'm going to be late! We need to hurry!" all the while everyone is ready to go but you. Saying so makes you feel like you're accomplishing something without actually helping you get ready.
Finally, parent gets all of parent's, toddler's, and baby's stuff together, ready to walk out door. This is the moment the toddler announces she has pooped. Take 2 seconds to decide if you're the kind of parent who will make your kid wear the poop diaper to school then pretend you only discovered it once you got to daycare. You're not.
Accept defeat--parent will not be on time today--and change diaper. Toddler incapable of sitting still, thus making the diaper change last twice as long as it should.
7:45am Finally get in car, all children and bags accounted for, and head to school.
8:00am The time you should be arriving at work, you arrive at daycare for drop-off. Get toddler out of her car seat, help her put on her back pack. Make sure toddler does not stray into the path of the 15 SUVs in parking lot while navigating to other side of car. Tell toddler for the 1000th time not to touch tires of car because they're filthy. Get 3 month old out of car seat, get her bag. Safely navigate the treacherous parking lot with all children and school bags, get up a set of stairs, and enter building.
Sign kids in. Go to baby's classroom first. Fill out daily report form, wait for teacher to finish talking to another parent. Finally, they take baby, baby's bag, and baby's form. Kiss baby. Let toddler kiss baby. One more kiss for baby. Remember that parent is late as hell, and reluctantly leave baby.
Time to go down a full flight of stairs to get to toddler's classroom. Toddler must walk herself, she shant be carried. Finally get toddler to her room. Spend 30-60 seconds attempting to get her to give a bye-bye kiss. She'd rather go give the teacher a hug. Die a little inside.
Finally get kiss. All is now right in the world, except that you're late. Crap. So late.
Run to car. Speed to work. Fly into parking spot. Wait for slowest elevator in the world.
8:15am-4:57pm Work. Eat. Squeeze in exercise on your lunch break. Look at pictures of kids. Read an article about losing the baby weight while eating cookie.
5:00pm-8:45pm The same kind of insanity from the morning. Begin by picking up kids from daycare. Wonder what disaster occurred that required toddler to have on different pants than the ones you sent her in. Drive home with chatty toddler in rush hour traffic.
Look for buses. Look for stores. Open and close car windows. Spy birds, airplanes, trees, and comment when you see a man or woman walking.
Finally get home. Unload car. Bags first, then children.
Negotiate TV. "Busy Town. No, Bears. No, I don't want Bears. Daniel Tiger?" Put on Daniel Tiger. "I want Busy Town." Turn off Daniel Tiger, put on Busy Town.
Toddler watches 3 minutes of TV before asking to go outside and play. Wreck toddler's whole day by telling her that we can't go outside because parent is cooking dinner. Listen to toddler scream about how she doesn't want dinner. Continue for 5 minutes.
Finally get toddler off the emotional edge by offering snacks. Toddler requests raisins and prunes. She wants them in a bowl. Put raisins and (one) prune in bowl. Toddler needs these on a plate, not in bowl. Put raisins and prune on plate. Toddler realizes terrible error has occurred. She meant to request CRAISINS and prunes. Raisins are horrible and she wants craisins.
Add craisins to plate. Watch toddler eat raisins first.
Realize this snack may be related to the early morning poopings.
Parent begins to prepare wholesome and delicious meal. Toddler, having accepted that she's forced to live as a shut-in, plays in kitchen as parent starts cooking and baby sits nearby watching. Toddler firmly establishes herself under parent's feet just as parent begins using largest knife in the house. Parent continues using large knife with toddler under feet, forcing herself not to think about all the things that could go wrong if parent dropped knife at that moment. Parent goes to living room to turn off the TV that has been ignored for the last 15 minutes. Break toddlers heart because toddler was watching that.
Other parent arrives home from work 30 minutes late. Parent tries not to be hateful to late-arriving parent, and instead gives him a kiss and forces herself to be understanding. (Wait, did that give away which parent is home with the kids first?)
Somehow dinner takes an hour to prepare. Parent cooking dinner has dirtied 2 cutting mats, a knife, 3 spoons (of varying sizes), 2 bowls, a skillet, a pot, and a baking dish. This is vexing because dinner is leftovers. Parent making dinner does not know how things went so wrong.
Toddler keeps herself entertained by scattering as many toys, papers, books, and crayons as possible and then ignoring them. Toddler spies pile of folded laundry on the couch that has not yet been put away. (Laundry was folded 48 hours ago. It sat in a basket in the living room for 48 hours prior to that.) She "helps" by pulling as many neatly folded items as possible from their stack and gleefully throwing them about before late-arriving parent catches her.
Parent cooking dinner pour glass of wine and sneak-eats while toddler and other parent isn't looking. Baby sees, but she won't rat you out.
Put dinner on table. Toddler wants something else. Too bad, toddler.
Finish dinner. Tag team the night time routine. One parent takes baby, one parent takes toddler. The one with the most energy take the toddler. Bath, if necessary, the toothbrushing routine, wrangling out of clothes and into pajamas.
Baby requires a bottle, a thorough removal of stinky neck cheese, a fresh diaper and clean PJs.
Negotiate bedtime stories with toddler. Parent declares only 2 will be read. Toddler agrees. Two books are read. Toddler needs two more. Parent says no, prepared for the blowback. Toddler, exhausted, agrees after only minor fussing.
Good night, toddler.
Now, time to put baby to bed, too. Good night, baby.
8:45pm-10:00pm Spend 20 minutes mindlessly looking at phone. Finally decide to get up and clean. Clean kitchen, dinner table, and living room. Clean selves. This takes 30 minutes to an hour. Crawl into bed at 10:00, and hour later than you hoped to go to bed.
Zzzzz to you and yours,
xo
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