Typical Day {aka the really long post}

Do you read Kelly's Korner blog?  I started following her last year, and recently she's been posting "a day in the life" with her two little girls.  I was inspired to write about my own day....so looking back I'll remember what my days were like with a four-month-old baby while I'm still home with her.  I'm sure my days will change so much once I'm back to school in August....boo. :(

Note:  This is kinda long...if you aren't nosy like me, you probably won't enjoy reading this. :)  Feel free to skip ahead to the cute baby pictures....I sprinkled them in throughout the post. :)  I realized when I finished typing that this is more about Natalie than me...well, because, my life revolves around her! 

Natalie was up to eat around 6:00 this morning.  This is pretty typical for her.  When I go into her room in the morning and she sees me, she starts kicking and grunting because she is so hungry.  She eats around 8:30 the night before, so I don't blame her for being starving in the morning!  I nurse her with the lights out....just a little morning sun streaming in.  I burp her, change my first (of many) poopy diaper of the day, then swaddle her back up, plug in the paci, and she's back to sleep by 6:30 for the next 3 or 4 hours.  She likes to sleep in. :)

I've been going back to sleep when she does and sleeping in as well, but I've decided I need to start getting up earlier -- we'll see how long this lasts. :)

Today I decide to spend a little time while the house is quiet checking e-mail, browsing facebook, and some blogs that I currently follow.  I know, I know.  I spend entirely too much time on the computer....

By 7:05, my tummy is grumbling.  My favorite breakfast lately has been yogurt (Stonyfield organic french vanilla) with sliced fresh strawberries (or peaches) and granola sprinkled on top.  Yum.  This is like eating dessert for breakfast. :)  Today we are out of strawberries and peaches -- bummer -- so I just eat the yogurt and granola.  Not as good.  This is also a sad reminder that I need to go to the grocery store, so I start jotting down a list.  I have to make baked beans for our 4th of July get-together, and I also want to try my hand at cake balls (have you heard of these??)....so I make sure to add these things to the list as well.

I've been walking in the evenings with Natalie.  We go to the park close to our house that has a really nice walking trail - including a rose garden and lots of trees so it's nice and shady.  However, today the high is going to be 101, and we are under a heat advisory.  I'm not going to do that to either one of us....so I decide to head downstairs to my dusty trusty treadmill to get my workout done this morning.

I do 30 minutes on the treadmill while I watch the Today Show.  I walk while the show is on and run during commercials.  I realize that I should probably do the treadmill everyday, as I am getting a much better workout.  When I walk at the park, I probably spend too much time admiring my baby and the scenery to really push myself.  I follow up the walk/run with 5 minutes of stretching.  When I unroll my yoga mat, a spider scurries out....lovely.

By now I am very hot and sweaty so I head upstairs to shower and get ready for the day.  I throw on my "uniform" -- yoga pants and a T-shirt (these are my favorites!).  I debate about blowdrying my hair...it is SO hot, but unfortunately my hair looks scary horrible if I don't dry it... I turn the hairdryer on low heat and go at it.  By the time I'm done, I feel like I need a shower again!

I have a little time before she'll be up again, so I start making a packing list for Natalie (with Food Network going in the background).  Tomorrow night Mark and I are celebrating our anniversary with our first night away since baby was born!  She's going to my sister's for the night, and we are off to dinner/movie and a night at a hotel (courtesy of my Chick-fil-A Teacher of the Year award).  I don't want to forget anything, and I'm sure I will be taking WAY too much for her to be away from home for less than 24 hours.  I also start writing up my Natalie "instructions"....this is more for me than for my sister.  She's got two kids and has been doing daycare for several years, so she definitely knows what she's doing.  This is just my control freak side coming out. :)

At 9:45 I start hearing the babe stirring, so I tiptoe in and peek over the crib railing --- HUGE smile!  She wakes up so happy this time of day.  So cute and sweet!  I feed her, change her diaper, and get her dressed for the day.  Then we play!

At 10:30 the power goes out.  It's not even raining or windy!  I don't know....it's annoying.

By 11:15 Natalie is fussy and rubbing her eyes, so I put her down for her morning nap.  Then I go get in bed with my hubby. He's been working nights...but usually gets up around 11:30 or 12.  So, I decided to have a little snuggle time while Natalie was asleep.

Around 12 I ran to Subway to get some lunch for us.  I had a gift card from when Natalie was born (thanks, Allison!) so lunch was free today! :)  Ate lunch, watched the news, talked on the phone to dear cousin Danica....enjoyed some leisure time while Natalie continued to nap.  Power came back on around 12:30!!  Wahoo!

Natalie slept til 1:15....after she got up I fed her and then we loaded up in the car to go to Walmart.  Oh, Walmart....how I love and despise you at the same time.  I love that they have the cheapest prices in town.  I loathe that I have to wait in line for 15 minutes, then the cashier spends FOREVER bagging my items oh-so-meticulously, while all I want to do is GET THE HECK OUTTA THERE!  And their parking lot is a mess.  And people stand in the middle of the aisles with no awareness of those around them.  And it is a holiday weekend and there is a boil order in the county ere so people are stocking up on bottled water like it's the END OF THE WORLD.  (Ok, that's the end of my Walmart rant.)

Back home at 3:00.  Unload groceries.  Unload baby.  She is fussy and ready for another nap, so I change her and put her down around 3:30.  She has trouble sleeping and keeps whining every 20 minutes or so.  But she doesn't seem ready to get up yet so I just put the paci back in and she goes back to sleep each time.

I sit down to have a snack with Daddy and chat with him a little before he has to get ready to go to work.  I start a load of laundry and also load up the dishwasher.  At almost five, Mark leaves for work and Natalie wakes up for good...I'm not sure how much she really slept.  We do the nurse/burp/change routine, then we play for awhile in the living room -- I turn on some music and dance around the room with her and she just laughs and giggles!  So cute!

Needed to get some packing done for tomorrow, so I put Natalie on my bed.  She fell asleep, so I curled up next to her and finished the end of a movie I started watching last night.  I should have been doing laundry or something else, but I don't feel bad about taking the time to snuggle with my little peanut.

She napped til almost seven.  Then I put her in her bouncy seat to play while I got some little chores done around the house and uploaded some pictures onto my computer.  We didn't fix dinner tonight since Mark had  to be at work at five, so I heat up a Lean Cuisine and fix some celery with peanut butter.  Scarf it down quickly as Natalie is beginning to get restless!

By 7:45, she is fussy/sleepy/crying....this is the result of her on-and-off napping this afternoon. This child needs her sleep!  She is like her momma!  I put her in jammies, read her a couple of books, then nurse.  She is fighting with me and trying to rub her eyes while she is eating.  Then, of course, she spits up all over her clean jammies after she eats, so we have to get her cleaned up and changed -- which she is not happy about!

Bedtime is a struggle tonight, which is extremely uncharacteristic of Natalie.  I rock her and sing to her like usual and she has her eyes closed when I lay her in her crib, but starts to cry when I put her down.  I quickly soothe her and slip out the door.  The phone rings (great timing!) and I stupidly answer.  She begins to cry louder and louder....by the time I'm off the phone and back in her room she is hysterical and sweaty.  Shouldn't have done the onesie + the nightgown.  Unswaddle.  Take off nightgown and leave the onesie.  Reswaddle.  Re-rock.  Re-sing.  Mommy exhausted.  She's still crying -- get out the good ol' Tylenol, thinking maybe her gums are bothering her...

Natalie finally drifts off to dreamland and I spend the next half an hour or so packing her bag for her sleepover at her auntie's tomorrow.  I sneak in to her bedroom to get her baby monitor to pack and drop it on the floor.  *facepalm*  She begins to cry again.  Sigh.  Comfort/soothe/shhhh/paci/yadda-yadda-yadda.

Finally I am sitting down now to blog.  I tell ya - I don't know how single mothers do it.  If I had to work all day, then come home and take care of Natalie all night by myself I would go crazy.  These past couple of weeks have made me thankful for my husband for sure.  I will probably watch a little TV, enjoy a Skinny Cow ice cream bar, and go to bed early.  I'm tired!

Whew!  That was a LOOONNNGGG day!  If you made it all the way to the end, I commend you!  At least there were cute Natalie pictures along the way.... :)

(It's just not a typical day without a little spit-up.)

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