October 3, 2012

a day in the life - michelle

After yesterday I seriously feel like it should be the weekend, but I'm not that lucky and it's only Wednesday.  The good news is that you get to enjoy a day in the life of Michelle today.  Happy reading!

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Hi! I'm Michelle and I blog over at Adventures in Parenthood. I've been following Ashley's blog for a couple years now and she is one of my favorite bloggers! I was thrilled when she brought back her "Day in the Life" series because the first time around, I looked forward to the weekly posts and hoped to participate one day! This past January, I became a mommy to Scarlett who is now 8 months old. She is a mover and a shaker, she doesn't sit still unless she is sleeping, I swear! She is full of love though and everyday I get to stay home with her is a blessing.

*I work part time, three days a week, this day in the life is represented by one of my days off, a Wednesday.*

After waking twice the night before (once at midnight and once around 4), I hear some stirring in Scarlett's crib on the monitor. It's 6:30am, my husband got up at 5am and headed to work already. Scarlett doesn't cry so I try to go back to sleep. I wake again at 7:30am and now I know she is awake but she's not fussing as she normally does. I go upstairs to find her with her paci in her mouth, guess that kept her content!

We do a diaper change and change out of the footie pjams she wore to bed and into her outfit for the day. Then I set up camp on the couch to pump and nurse at the same time, our morning ritual.

After we finish up, I put her in her pack n play to play a bit while I get half ready and then cut a cantaloupe. During this I remember that I need to track my day today for this post! So I run out and take a snap of the little one in the PnP. By this time she wants outta there!
 

Around 8:10am I remember that I need to shave my legs before Stroller Strides (for obv reasons), so I pop Scarlett into her Bumbo in the bathroom with a book and another toy. She ends up playing with bath toys while I finish my legs. At 8:23am, I thaw some fruit for Scarlett for breakfast. She's having a peach cube, a pear cube, an apple cube and small chunk banana mixed in. She is kind of impatient when food is in view and she did not want to pause for a picture.

At 8:35am she finishes breakfast and sits nicely in her highchair while I brush my teeth, pack snacks and the diaper bag for Stroller Strides and then I grab her so I can check my work email really quick.

8:45am we hop in the car and get going. I grabbed the other piece of the banana that Scarlett had for breakfast since I hadn't eaten yet. Luckily, Stroller Strides is at the mall today bc it's cloudy with rain in the forecast and the mall is only about 5 minutes away from home.


9:00am - 10:00 am we workout! This is really the only exercise I've been getting recently, though league volleyball started last week as well. It's fun to get out there with other moms and sweat!

After SS, we head into the mall to change Scarlett's diaper (by the ATM, class!) and then head to Boscov's to see if they're having any sales and to try to find some 12 mo footie pjams since Scarlett is already out of the 9 mo size. (I actually thought she was out the 12 mo size too until I recently discovered I had purchased a 9 mo jammie hanging on a 12 mo hanger, ugh!!) So I bought a couple pairs of jammies, 2 of which I will be exchanging for 12 mo due to the comment I just mentioned (I bought 18 mo). At this point, I knew we were pushing it with Scarlett being hungry and also, naptime, so we headed home.


10:52am we arrive home and Scarlett didn't fuss at all in the car (thanks to an empty water bottle!). She nurses and I eat some of the cut up cantaloupe from earlier. At 11:05am I rock her a little bit and lay her down for a nap. She talks and talks, which turn to cries eventually. I peel a couple potatoes for the crock pot, head upstairs and rock her for approx. one millisecond and she's out. I finish getting the stuff together for the crockpot, put a load of laundry in and head to the computer to check email again and work on my free 8x8 zulilly photobook that needed to be done by midnight (ha!). I also eat lunch at this time, leftover broccoli salad and some V8 splash! mmm!


12:30pm, Scarlett is up! She had a pretty long nap and she's super happy to see me! We head downstairs and change her again, nurse again, switch the laundry and playtime commences.


Scarlett reads her books and crawls all over the house for a while. I am down on the carpet with her playing and also watching the new season of Private Practice (can you believe that season opener?!!). At 1:05pm she is hungry for lunch so I cut up some small cheese cubes and let her grab them from my hands and eat. She's getting good with those little pinchers.


We play more and at 1:45pm she wants more food, so she sucks on cantaloupe in her mesh net thing. Then at 2:00pm she nurses again. This girl loves to eat! At 2:30pm I attempt to take her 8 month pictures (since she was 8 months two Thursdays ago, the 20th) and she was not having it. I also stole a shot of her in the PnP, I must've had to pee or put in more laundry or something.


3:00pm and she's sleepy again, I can tell. She does the whole, I'm tired but when you lay me down I will wake up and cry. So I let her tire out for a couple minutes, rock her for another millisecond and she's out. Her afternoon naps are short so I need to get working on the Alphabet book I'm making. 3:45pm, She's up! I grab her and she plays in the computer room while I work on the Alphabet book some more.



4:35pm, Daddy is home!!! I hand her off so I can keep working on the book. My husband, Alex, takes Scarlett outside for some fresh air and then gets ready for his Tennis game. Around 5:15pm, Alex's parents arrive because he plays tennis with his dad and his mom is going to hang out with me and learn Scarlett's bedtime routine, for nights when my volleyball and his tennis overlap.


5:52pm, Grandma feeds Scarlett dinner of broccoli, squash and pear. Then Scarlett and Grandma read books and play while I fold some laundry, tidy up the kitchen a bit and get ready for volleyball.

At 7:00pm, we start Scarlett's bedtime routine. I let Alex's mom do it, so she could try it with me there in case she needed me. Scarlett can be tricky at bedtime. Sometimes she cries and fights it, sometimes she doesn't. She fought it a little bit, she had a bottle, she had some burps, eventually she was asleep (around 7:20pm) and all was well. (Normally, I change her dipe and put her in pjams, nurse her, take her upstairs, rock her and lay her down half-asleep).



At 7:45pm, I headed to my volleyball game. I freakin' love playing volleyball and my team is a blast! Unfortunately I was 2 minutes late and missed the first game bc I couldn't sub in, silly ref! But we won 2 out of 3! I headed home, hopped in the shower, finished the photobook and hit the hay around 11:00pm. Of course, Scarlett was up and hungry, so it starts all over again!


Ashley's Questions:
-What is the most surprising thing to you about being a mom?

How much I love her. I didn't get that warm, gooey, super emotional delivery and post-delivery flood of emotion that I heard a lot about, and I'm okay with that. But I do love her immensely, every single ounce of her. I could eat her (not literally) and sometimes I can't believe I created a little life.

-What advice would you give to new or soon-to-be mamas?
 She's your baby, you are her mother and you (and her father) know what is best for her. Don't be afraid to let other people know what you want and how you want things when it comes to your baby.

-What are your top three baby products?
Cloth Diapers- because they save us money, feel soft and comfy, and are easy to wash. We do them about 80% of the time and when we're out of the house we use disposable.
Moby- I didn't use it as much as I could've when she was a newborn (next baby I will), but at 7months we started using it sideways for the times she didn't want to be put down as well as at the grocery store before she could sit well in the cart. It's nice to use two hands while still holding her.
iPhone or Camera- I have taken SO many pictures with my phone over the last 8 months. It's crazy. I can't imagine not having something so portable to take pictures with. (I have the 4 and the pictures are good enough, looking forward to upgrading!)

Thanks, Ashley!! :)

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Thank you, Michelle, for sharing your day with us!

4 comments:

Caitlin MidAtlantic said...

Thanks for sharing your day! What platform are you using to make the Alphabet book - that's a super cute idea, and I want to steal it!

Michelle said...

Hi Caitlin! I used adobe elements to crop the images into squares and add the text, then uploaded the images to the shutterfly website and made the images full page. :) hope that helps!

JessF said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JessF said...

Great post, wish there was a stroller excersise group near me, sounds like fun!