A Day in My Life - April 13, 2011

Usually these types of posts have a picture for every step of the day. If that's what you're looking for...look elsewhere. Maybe someday I'll create a post like that. For now, I just wanted to document what my days are like (weekdays - weekends are another animal entirely) for those who are curious.

7:25am - The alarm goes off. We all stir. Someone hits the snooze. We sleep for 5 more minutes, give or take.
7:30am - We're all up. The kid is taken to the potty by daddy; I run upstairs and throw on clothes, throw in contacts, slap on makeup to cover the biggest problem areas (WHY am I almost 40 and still getting pimples? UNFAIR), and dash back down. Sometimes in here I lay out her clothes, sometimes daddy does it. Lately, I make sure her school bag is stocked with what she needs - most days, happily, it needs no additions from the day before. Sometimes I need to toss in a spare pair of pants and undies and possibly a cloth diaper. Sometimes (most times) those are all there, unused, from the day before - hooray!
7:45am - Grab a coffee in my travel mug (thanks Keurig!) or not. Grab the kid while daddy throws on his clothes and grabs his coffee. Ask her if she needs potty 10 times, then take her anyway.
7:55am - Hit the road. School starts at 8 and we're more than 5 minutes away, but...well, we try.
8:00am (ish) - Drop the kid off at school. That's where she has breakfast, in case you noticed we didn't feed her and thought I was really really mean. She has lunch there too.
8:15am-11:45am - This is the time I have to get everything done. I always:

• ...check the following sites: Yahoo mail, Gmail, Etsy, Facebook, Livejournal, this blog's blogroll.
• ...grab my Swagbucks of the day (survey, NOSO, daily poll, toolbar, and a few searches). I might also start running SBTV in the background for bonus bucks.
• ...check that first list again and again.

Then, I also write the articles I'm getting paid to write (I have a new gig with our local Patch and am hoping to slowly over the next few months get more work in writing/editing/proofreading), drive to the grocery store or YDFM - I have a driving phobia/issue but over the past three-ish years - not coincidentally the same amount of time I've been a mom - have managed to push myself and now drive at least once a week or more to places I need to go, with goals for improving this further this year, eat breakfast, eat lunch, do laundry, make a half-assed effort toward neatening things up, fill my Etsy orders, dink around on the Internet, wear my Snuggie, and...I don't even know. 

11:55am - Pick the kid up. OK so sometimes we leave a bit later.

12:30pm-3:00pm (approx) - The hard part of my day. She's usually crabby but lately is refusing to nap consistently. She wants to watch Signing Time but...NOT THAT ONE OR THAT ONE OR THAT ONE or she only wants to watch the special features or the sign review or something. She asks for bed, but when we get settled she's kicking and waving and signing things to me. Most days she does eventually nap or settle and play with her toys. Upon waking she's often crabby all over again. During her nap I answer emails or something.

Alternating Mondays (hopefully every Monday soon), we have physical therapy from 3:30 to 4:30.

Wednesdays for the next few weeks we have Kindermusik from 4:30 to 5:15, and today as I type this I'm planning on going there at 3:30 because it's held at a bouncy place and I think she'd like to bounce around for a while.

We used to have chiropractic appointments but we are discontinuing that for the time being - another post for another time. 

Sometimes I take her for a walk into town, where we visit the bookstore at which I used to work and play with the train table, get frozen yogurt, and wander. The library used to be a great destination, but now she wants to touch the computers and tantrums until I drag her out, blushing. Sometimes we go to the playground - there are three options, and all have pros and cons. Sometimes - like right now - daddy emerges and takes her and plays with her for a bit. Very rarely I brave the car with her and we go to the farmer's market (a far easier task without her but she loves going and it kills some time and is the best place for vegetables anyway). (PLEASE if you read this do NOT offer me suggestions of what to do with her. It's very likely that we either have considered it, have tried it, or can't. Trust me on this. I won't even approve your comment, but I'll probably be annoyed for the day.) I'm thinking of seeing about going to the work-and-play cafe on Thursdays if they're consistently on the empty side in the afternoons, although that could get expensive. But it would be good for both of us and would force me to...drive. 

5:00pm-ish - Daddy starts dinner. We eat. Then Daddy takes her and they play, she usually gets a bath, and he takes her out - to the mall to practice walking, to the music store to play keyboards, to the pet store for whatever, or just...out. They bond, it's good. I do not usually get anything done in this time period. I watch TV, I read, I sometimes fill an Etsy order if it came through in the afternoon, I play online, I am tired.

9:30/10:00 pm - Bedtime. It's late but it's what works. I go to bed with her. 

oy.

I was going to add some links in this entry but now...I'm not. So there.