Day In The Life: Fall 2011

Thanks to Navigating the Mothership for hosting another "Day In The Life" blog series. I love doing these every season to document what's new in our life! And obviously since the last one, a lot's new with the addition of Tory Girl to our family.

Thursday, October 6

2:03AM
Baby's awake. I walk into her nursery, change her diaper and head to the living room to nurse her. I don't snap any photos of this because A) it's dark B) it's 2AM. Too much work!

3:45AM
Damn it. Fell asleep in the rocker again. I hate when this happens! Now I only have an hour or so of REAL sleep in a REAL bed until Tory's up again to nurse. And, OUCH. Fairly certain my neck is broken. I lay the baby down in her crib and head to bed myself. I watch the baby monitor for a minute or two to make sure she's asleep.

5:15AM
Baby's awake. Repeat of the 2AM session. I change her diaper, nurse and rock her to sleep. Tory's becoming much more efficient at eating these days and nursing only takes about 15 minutes. Getting a burp out of her is a different story. This time I luck out and she releases one after a few minutes.

Andi's traveling for work this week, and I'm missing him about now. For the last few weeks, he gets up with the baby at the 5AM/6AM feeding and it's REALLY NICE to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep from 3ish to 7ish.

5:45AM
I lay the baby down in her crib and then lay down myself. She's stirring quite a bit so I say a quick "please, please, please go to sleep baby" plea inside my head. She eventually does just that.

8:00AM
Baby's awake. Repeat of the 2AM/5AM routine. I change her diaper and decide to bring her back to our bedroom to nurse. On most days, Andi's already at work and I turn on the TV to watch the news while I nurse her. Obviously, today doesn't matter since Andi's out of town but I still stick to the same routine.

8:30AM
Tory's still sleepy (and I definitely am too!) so I let her doze on my chest in bed while I watch the news and fall in and out of sleep myself. She isn't sleeping too heavily at this point, and every 10 minutes or so she fusses and then falls back to sleep. I love this snuggle time in the mornings.

9:00AM
Tory's growing tired of laying on my chest and starts to cry. I decide it's time to get up for the day. I take her into the nursery to change her diaper and get her dressed. (Funny how she always looks cute in the morning, but I've yet to brush my teeth!). I pick a pink one-piece from Old Navy for her to wear. She loves to lay on her changing table and stare at the black "Tory" frame on the wall. As soon as I change her clothes though, she starts to cry. She HATES that part.

9:30AM
I lay Tory down on her activity mat and pray she entertains herself so I can go to the bathroom and brush my teeth. And SCORE! She seems happy to lay there by herself for a minute or two.

9:45AM
CRAP! It's Thursday and I forgot to put out the trash and recycling. Usually Andi takes care of this so I totally spaced it. I hear the truck driving up so I haul ass outside and drag ours to the curb.

9:50AM
Tory's screaming her head off when I return inside. She apparently noticed when I left her side for a hot second. Wasn't the nice vibration of her bouncy seat enough to keep her occupied?

10:00AM
I rotate Tory between the activity mat, bouncy seat and rocking her in the glider. She's a little fussy and I know she's tired. JUST GIVE UP BABY! She finally closes her eyes and falls asleep after staring out the window (that's one of her favorite things to do).

10:15AM
I quickly make some toast and a cup of coffee and head back to the rocker so I can pump, scarf down my breakfast and check Facebook / Twitter / email / read blogs. I'm sure I look quite fabulous - I hold the breast pump with my left hand, surf the Internet / eat my toast with my right hand and give her bouncy seat a rock with my left foot. It's called multi-tasking and you do whatcha gotta do.

Andi's mom sends me a text and asks if she can stop by for a bit. YES! I was hoping to take a shower during Tory's next nap time, but now I can for sure squeeze one in when Janie's here.

10:30AM
Baby's awake. I change her pants, nurse her in the rocking chair and burp her. Janie knocks at the door so I get up to let her inside. She wants to hold Tory and I ask if she minds if I jump in the shower while she does.

10:45AM
OH SWEET HEAVEN! A 10 minute shower with no worries, no responsibilities. It's wonderful. One of my favorite things to do after having Tory is to take a shower all by myself. I blow dry my hair, apply makeup, get dressed and put a pile of clothes away in the closet.

11:00AM
Janie's outside in the backyard walking Tory around (it's gorgeous outside today!) so I take advantage and throw a load of laundry in the washer, put away some gift bags I bought at Target the other day, wipe down the counter tops and do the umpteenth round of hand washing breast pump pieces and bottles.

11:30AM
Tory's asleep so I talk with Janie in the living room for a while. She stops by most Thursday mornings and it's nice to have the company to break up the day.

NOON
Janie leaves and I move Tory from her bouncy seat to crib, at the risk of waking her up. I'm training her to sleep in her crib this week and it's working really well. Yesterday I packed away her bassinet (Yelp! My baby's growing up so fast!). It's her afternoon nap time and I'd rather her familiarize herself with sleeping in her nursery vs. the bouncy seat. Before I lay her down, I swaddle her up so she sleeps better.

12:15PM 
Tory's not very excited about sleeping in her crib this afternoon. We go through several rounds of me laying her down in her crib ... Tory falling asleep ... Tory waking herself up ... me letting her cry for a minute ... me going in there to soothe her back to dreamland ... and repeat. We're following the Baby Wise Parent Demand Feeding method where I follow a routine of feed / awake / sleep time. Part of the theory is training Tory to fall asleep on her own and I'm working REALLY HARD to allow her to do this.

1:30PM
After laying in her crib half-asleep for a few minutes, Tory finally falls asleep. I watch her on the monitor for a minute or two and then make myself some lunch. Usually I have a sandwich, chips and fruit or yogurt but today I re-heat some lasagna from last night's dinner and pair it with a side salad. I usually hate leftovers, but this sounds good to me for some reason.

2:00PM
I eat lunch and surf the Internet for a while. Tory SHOULD sleep for an hour or two based on our schedule so I'm crossing my fingers she's a good lil' baby and plays along today. (Yesterday - not so much).

2:30PM
Baby's still sleeping! I change a load of laundry and start this blog post. With Andi traveling this week, I take advantage of any responsibility-free moment I can get.

3:00PM
BABY'S STILL SLEEPING! I relax and watch some Dr. Phil.

4:00PM
I hear the baby stirring on the monitor and see she's awake. I walk into her nursery to see a very happy, smiley 5-week old. She took a THREE HOUR NAP which is something new she's doing this week. I heart three hour naps. I change her pants and take her out to the sun room to nurse her.

4:45PM
Lindsay (my SIL) sends me a text and says she's on her way over. Was she coming over today? I give her a call. Turns out, she left me a voicemail last week saying she was bringing over dinner tonight. Oops, I  never check my voicemail and never got the message. Nice surprise, nonetheless.

5:00PM
Lindsay knocks at the door. She was in the area for an eye appointment and decided to spend the evening with us. She brought homemade vegetarian chili for dinner with homemade apple sauce for dessert. Sounds awesome.

5:15PM 
We chat for a bit in the sun room, then she warms up dinner for me while I burp Tory.

5:30PM
I sit down to eat dinner while she holds the baby. The veggie chili is really tasty and so nice I didn't have to make anything for myself. I also treat myself to a Summit Octoberfest which I've been craving the last few weeks and some cheese and crackers.

5:45PM
Switch - She warms up some leftover lasagna from the fridge (after deciding not to eat chili after all) and I hold the baby.

6:30PM
I change Tory's diaper and warm up a bottle from the fridge. There's about an ounce and a half left from Andi's last feeding with her yesterday and I want to use it up so Lindsay offers to feed her.

Afterwards, I nurse her for the remainder of her feeding. Tory's nice and alert now and listens to us intently as Lindsay and I share some girl talk in the living room. I miss these days. Lindsay and I used to chat a lot more when we lived a few blocks away from each other in St. Paul. We have lots to catch up on today.

7:15PM
I pass Tory off to Lindsay so she can rock her for a while. That is after all, the reason people come over to visit, isn't it? I'm sure it's not just to see me! Tory falls asleep in Lindsay's arms and we continue to chat about life, work, boys (Lindsay's, not mine), etc. She's coming back over on Saturday to hang out and we're planning to make a bunch of freezer meals. We brainstorm various recipes, especially ones with apples and potatoes (not together, of course) because I have an abundance of each from my CSA.

8:30PM
Lindsay lays Tory down in her bouncy seat and gets ready to head home. Tory's wide awake and lays there contently as I check Facebook and rock her bouncy seat with my left hand. I clean up a few things around the house, start the dishwasher and get ready for bedtime.

9:00PM
Time for another nursing session (and I'm beginning to see a pattern here ... that's about all I do these days). I nurse the baby and she begins to fall asleep. Enjoying this quiet moment with her, I read a few pages from my Kindle while she sleeps in my arms.

9:30PM
I transfer Tory to her crib and she stays fast asleep. I fill up two glasses of water for my middle-of-the-night nursing sessions. I'm always so thirsty when I nurse so I need water by the rocking chair in the living room and by my bedside table.

10:00PM
I crawl into bed myself after changing into my pajamas. I'm not very tired, but I know if I don't go to sleep, I'll be sorry tomorrow morning. If Andi were here, he'd turn off the TV and tell me it was time for bed. I hate when he does that, but he's always right. If not, I fall asleep and the TV flickers in our room all night long.

TV off. You're welcome, honey.
Good-night!