Thursday, November 20, 2008

12 Hours in the Life

12 Hours in the Life of a Working Mom...

Midnight: I finally fall asleep after staying up working on laptop.
12:15 M wakes up for feeding.
12:45 M falls back to sleep.
1:00 I finally fall back asleep in bed.
3:15 M wakes up cranky with wet diaper. I change her, feed her and burp her.
3:45 Both of us fall back to sleep on futon in nursery.
5:00 M wakes up smiling and ready for the day.
5:15 I finally get up, feed her, change apoopy diaper, sing a few songs, and read her a book.
6:00 Decide to wake up W to take shift while I sleep for extra hour.
7:30 W wakes me up to feed her before leaving for work. I try to feed her, she's not interested.
8:00 Need to pump so I have enough for daycare. While pumping, W tells me he needs to leave- argument begins about insensitivity.. and house-cleaning.
8:15 W leaves to take M to daycare. I shower, do dishes, pick up house, make my lunch, get ready for meeting with funder, wash bottles and pump accessories and pack up laptop bag, pump bag, and back-up drive from work- carry all bags to car....back aching. Reminder myself to make massage appointment.
9:00 Drive to St Paul for meeting with funder.
10:30 Drive back to office for rest of 5 meetings of the day.
11:00 Pump
11:30 Meet with new accountant about coding records for new software.
12:00 Quickly eat dry cheese sandwich while running between meetings and checking email
1:00 Online training for new software- eat banana while on speaker phone and try not to make banana noises. Talk about kids and ski conditions to trainer in Utah.
2:00 Pump
3:00 Lead staff meeting.
4:15 Head out door to pick up M at daycare, sit in traffic.
4:35 Home from daycare and sit in traffic.
5:00 Arrive home, carry M's carseat, my laptop bag, the back-up drive, and bottle cooler in from car..back really aching now.
5:00 Try to get computer set up to print out documents for board meeting with M on my lap. Computer dies, unplug light under desk, digging around under the desk while M pukes on my work clothes.
5:30 Sis shows up to babysit. Both change clothes, M starts to cry. I make a bottle while E tries to calm her down. We trade off feeding her, calming her while I print board notes.
6:00 Grab ice cream out of freezer for potluck and finally leave house to drive to board meeting.. 30 minutes late.
6:15 Arrive and lead board meeting.
8:30 Leave board meeting for home. Arrive home, talk to E about work and kids. Wash bottles and pump accessories for tomorrow.
9:00 Watch TV show while eating snack and answering emails.
10:45 Head to bed after long day
11:15 Wake up to feed M.
12:00 Back to bed thinking about the last 12 hours.... 5 hours of sleep, an hour and a half in the car, 12 hours of work and meetings, 1 hour washing bottles and accessories, 30 minutes eating, 2 hours feeding, changing diapers or pumping, and only 2 waking hours with my 4 month-old beautiful little daughter today.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Milestone! I spent my first night away from M and W took on the full-time daddy duty.. the whole night! I was incredibly nervous when I took off on the 30 minute drive to my friend's new digs in exurban Minnesota. With music blaring and foot tapping, I resisted calling W every three minutes to see how things were going. When I arrived, I poored a glass of wine and wolfed down some pizza with my girlfriends, we watched a cheesy horror movie and I slept my first night alone and baby-free in four months. Ahhhhh... sleep (actually I didn't sleep well but probably to be expected). I woke up in the morning, called W and everything was A-OK. What a relief! Now I know I can get away, get some time to myself and all the world won't fall apart :-).

I attached a photo from the "game" that I was in charge of for my friend's baby shower this weekend. I bought plain white onesie's of different sizes, fabric markers and we had a decorating contest for the new baby. My friend J will be able to keep all the new one-of-a-kind creations and think about us each time she dresses her little one this spring. I think it went over well and would recommend it for anyone looking for a unique shower game.