Well, we’ll have a 10-month old on Monday, but I wanted to get a day in the life done while she’s still 9 months. Last week, we were all battling colds, so things were pretty off. But this portrays a pretty usual Wednesday for us right now.
Lately, C has been pushing for a later bedtime and therefore waking up much later. This started as a later bedtime with the same early wakeup, and that was pretty grueling. But now she often sleeps from 8 or 8:30 to 8 or 8:30. And she’s also pushing pretty hard to drop to one nap. On this day, she needed two, but most of the last few weeks, she has just taken one. We’ll see what happens after the time change this weekend.
12:03am – I go back to bed after comforting C. She’s been getting up between 11:30 and 12 quite a bit lately, and I feel very lucky that this was a quick wakeup.
4:15am – C is up. I feed her quickly and go back to bed a little before 4:30.
5:30am – I wake up, I brush my teeth and put my contacts in and then head downstairs to pump. I pump and write until 6:30 and then go up to take a shower.
6:40am – Get in the shower.
6:45am – C is crying before 8am for the first time in about a week, on the day I decided to take advantage of her sleeping in by taking an early shower. Cool. I towel off super quickly and put on enough clothes to go cuddle her.
6:47am – C is no longer crying. Also cool. I hop back in the shower for a couple minutes.
7:05am – I’m about to drop the monitor off with Jack when C starts crying. She doesn’t usually wake up upset these days, so I go try to nurse her back to sleep for a little bit.
7:20am – C is back down. I didn’t really think it would work, but I’m glad it did.
7:30am – I work out. I haven’t lifted anything remotely heavy in almost two weeks. A couple weeks ago I had (self-diagnosed) knee bursitis flaring up, and I’ve been fighting a cold for the last week. I keep my weights pretty light, but it’s nice to get back in the routine.
7:55am – Done working out and very hungry. I eat some cottage cheese and make myself peanut butter toast with honey, cinnamon, and salt. Usually, I hold off on breakfast till C is up, so we can eat together, but we have Little Gym this morning. I’d rather let her sleep than wake her up for breakfast.
8:03am – C starts babbling happily and I go up to get her. I change her into clothes and brush her hair, then bring her downstairs and pass her to Jack to play for a few minutes while I get ready to go to Little Gym.
8:20am – C and I head out the door. It’s weirdly foggy today and we pass three accidents on the way. Somehow, still make it on time.
8:45am – Little Gym! C enjoys hanging on the rings, walking on the beam, shaking the shakers, and doing somersaults.
9:30am – We head home. I read a couple books to C and then she mostly plays independently in the living room and play room. I sit very still on the couch because if I move, I distract her and ruin the independent play.
10:15am – C whines a few times in the playroom, but I didn’t hear any crashes, so I’m confused. I go in and find her trapped in her toybox.
Then, I stay with her and we read Giraffes Can’t Dance, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (three times), Don’t Tickle the Bear, The Nosy Lion, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
11:06am – C is getting a little crabby, and it’s almost nap time, so we go for a walk.
11:45am – We’re back from the walk, and we head upstairs to get her a nap. She plays with her sound machine and the doorstops, and then we read Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs and The Wish My Heart Makes for You.
12:11pm – She fought going to sleep harder than she has been lately. I put her down, switch over some laundry, and heat up lunch for Jack and part one of lunch for me. With C napping in the middle of the day a lot lately, I tend to get hungry during her nap, but I also want to eat with her, so I eat two smaller lunches when our day works out like this. I made this One Pot Cheesy Mushroom Spinach Beef Pasta on Monday and we’ve been eating the leftovers. Only thing I did differently was use bison instead of beef because I was pretty sure C had never had bison.
12:55pm – She’s up. That’s unexpected. With her waking up at 8am or later, she’s been taking one hour-plus nap for me in the middle of the day. I go try to nurse her back to sleep, but she’s not having it. I suspect today might be a two-nap day. Anyway, we hang out in her room and she explores for a while.
I mostly read (currently reading On a Quiet Street) while she plays.
1:45pm – We come downstairs and I set her in the play room while I heat up lunch for her and part two of lunch for me.
2:02pm – We sit down to eat.
2:30pm – She is done eating, so I wipe her face and hands and then go play with her while the dogs take care of cleaning up the floor. Then I go back and wipe down the table and mop the floor before returning to read the same books to C.
3:30pm – C is big-time crabby, so I decide we’re going to try another nap. We go upstairs, read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and I nurse her to sleep.
4:15pm – I start chopping veggies for dinner.
4:40pm – C is up. Not a long nap, but hopefully it helps with her mood.
4:45pm – It didn’t, really. She’s climbing all over me while I cook the chicken. I settle her for a little bit with a breastmilk popsicle. While she almost always devours one when I give it to her, she never wants a second one. So that distraction lasted all of 5 minutes. But after that, I’m able to entice her to play in the playroom until she sees Jack packing for drill, which lets me cook most of dinner. When he’s in an okay place with packing, he hangs out with her while I update the calendar for November and start cleaning up the kitchen while dinner cools a little.
5:40pm – We sit down to eat way earlier than usual, but C taking an afternoon nap let me start dinner prep a lot earlier than I’ve been able to lately. I made this One Pot Gnocchi Chicken Pot Pie and it was so good. I doubled the chicken and veggies and adjusted the seasonings accordingly, but otherwise kept everything the same.
6:20pm – I take C up for a bath while Jack feeds the dogs.
6:40pm – Naturally, the bath is C’s favorite place to practice standing independently, and most baths end when she starts doing it repeatedly. Because safety. I drain the bath and wrap her in a towel, change her into pajamas, and bring her downstairs. Jack and I read to her for a little bit, and then she crawls away to play with her toys and babble at herself in the mirror.
8pm – I take C up to get ready for bed while Jack preps milk for me.
8:38pm – I put C down and go wash my face.
8:45pm – She’s mad. I try to give her the bottle and she wants nothing to do with it. I need to start making smaller bottles for nighttime. She used to drain 5 ounces almost every night, and she leaves 2-4 ounces in the bottle more nights than not lately.
8:49pm – I put C back down and go change into pajamas. Jack and I watch half of something he picked out on Netflix while eating popcorn. I could try to figure out what it was, but it wasn’t that good.
9:40pm – C squawks and I startle because I was falling asleep watching the movie. But she settles herself before I make it to the stairs. I gather up my water and the monitor and head up to bed. Neither Jack nor I expected me to make it all the way through the movie, and I didn’t.
9:50pm – Brush my teeth, take out my contacts, and crawl in bed.
10:02pm – I read for about two minutes before I’m asleep.
