Week In The Life 2012: Tuesday

TUESDAY, APRIL 24th
Working Mom Day

3:32am
Tory's crying from her crib. I get up, ready a bottle, feed her and I'm back in bed within 20 minutes. We're down to only one wake-up per night and it's usually around the 3 o'clock hour. While I'm not particularly pleased my alarm is set to go off in less than two hours, I know it could be worse. Waaaay, waaaay, worse. Been there. Done that.

5:40am
The alarm on my Blackberry sounds. I reach over and hit snooze.

5:45am
The alarm sounds again. I hit snooze one more time.

5:50am
The alarms sounds for the third time and Andi tosses and turns in annoyance so I get up and jump into the shower. Being wet and cold in the morning is seriously one of my least favorite feelings in the world (first world problem, I know) but I'm making an effort to be more presentable at work these days and showering in the morning is part of that game plan.

I shared a glimpse of my before / after shower routine yesterday, so today I'm only capturing what I wore to work.

6:15am
Today isn't a typical day in that our nanny called in sick with the flu. Poor girl caught the same bug Tory Bean had last week! So, my mother-in-law, Janie, saves the day again and volunteered to watch Tory for us today. I unlock the front door so she can sneak in before Tory wakes up.

6:23am
Never mind ... Tory is awake and making quite a bit of ruckus in her crib. Girlfriend is clearly not going back to sleep - she is ready to play. I walk to the nursery and greet Tory with good morning hugs and kisses. I usually don't get to see her on Tuesday mornings so this is a treat.

6:30am
My mother-in-law arrives and I give her a quick run-down of Tory's eating/sleeping schedule for the day. It's suppose to be gorgeous weather today and Janie says she and Jim (my father-in-law who happens to also have today off work) plan to take Tory and Chloe for a walk later. Andi demonstrates how to use the Baby Bjorn and Tory nearly jumps out of Janie's arms in excitement when she sees Andi putting on the carrier. Apparently she knows it means she's going somewhere fun!

6:52am
I wave to Tory and Janie in the doorway as I pull out of the drive-way. The change in schedule has me late for work today. I'm usually exiting the freeway and pulling into work by this time of morning.

7:10am
I walk into my office and find my desk not as I left it on Thursday. Admittedly, this is one of my pet peeves about working part-time: my desk is always different when I return on Tuesdays and things are always missing (ie: Post Its, stapler, etc). I KNOW! There are far bigger problems in the world, but it still bothers me! I spend the first few minutes of my day wiping off my desk, relocating my chair, changing my now-full garbage can, etc.

7:20am
Not feeling like working quite yet, I finish my Week In The Life: Monday blog post draft from the night before. I also check my personal email and Facebook.

7:45am
Next, I check my day's calendar and write my weekly to-do list.

8:00am
I check my work email, our work Facebook and Twitter accounts and log all the social media activity that's happened since Thursday. Over the weekend, a student actually took a picture of vodka she'd smuggled into the dining hall and posted on Twitter about making hangover-cure mimosas. (NOT ADVISED future teenage Tory. Don't be a dumb college kid)!

More work, work, work at my desk for a few hours ... 

10:10am
I need a coffee and bathroom break. I walk up the stairwell next to our office to the secret private women's bathroom on the floor above our office. Ok, it's not secret, it's a public bathroom but it's a private toilet and those are hard to come by on a college campus. I know it's going to be a good day when I walk all the way up the stairs to this bathroom and find it un-occupied. SCORE! Today's one of those days.

Next, I stop by one of our convenience stores down the hall and grab a coffee, bottle of water, Greek yogurt, chocolate cake donut and a new Burt's Bees lip balm for me and a Greek yogurt for my co-worker. I bring the loot back to our office and get back to work.

10:46am

... like a very boring mandatory web training I complete on my company's Business Conduct Policy. (I guess the up-side is that I didn't have to sit through an entire day of in-person training on the policy).



More work, work, working ...

12:30pm

My co-worker friends have all returned to the office following their morning meetings and we decide to walk down the hallway to the food court for lunch. Today I select nachos and a Diet Coke (of which I eat all of it and then feel like a five-pound brick is in the pit of my stomach).

1:30pm

After lunch, I receive an email containing a survey report recap from earlier this spring. Unfortunately, last year's numbers don't match the document I have on file and I spend the remainder of my afternoon re-analyzing and re-typing the entire document for our client. FUN. (not really)

4:00pm

The work day is done! I rush out the door and into the parking lot and am greeted by sunshine and warm air. Sadly, this is the first time I even realized the sun was shining today. We don't have any windows in our office and I haven't been outside all day. Boo.

I'm 30 minutes late leaving campus so OF COURSE there's backed-up traffic on the freeway.

4:45pm

I'm home! I'm greeted by one smiley baby girl and smother her with lots of hugs and kisses. After a quick run-down of their day, my in-laws leave. I take Tory to her nursery, change her diaper and carry her to my room to change out of my work clothes.

5:00pm

I carry Tory into the kitchen, plop her in her high chair and begin to warm up her dinner. Tonight she's feasting on Sweet Potatoes and Apples. This is the only way my baby girl will eat fruit, by the way, is if it's hidden in a puree mixed with a vegetable. (A little self-timer action to capture the moment... Tory's like "mom, why you takin' pictures of me eating dinner?")

5:20pm

Next, I grab a blanket and some toys and we head outside in the backyard to enjoy the B-E-A-U-TIFUL weather. It is absolutely gorgeous outside! I spread a blanket out in the grass and lay down to play, realizing I've actually never laid in our backyard before!

5:45pm

As we're laying on a blanket in the grass, I hear a bee buzzing around us. Eek! Kind of makes me nervous with Tory outside so I pack everything up and carry it back inside. Tory and I play toys on the three-season porch for a while instead.

6:06pm

Janie's report said Tory didn't sleep very well this afternoon and I can tell - she's kind of fussy. I decide to let her play in the bathtub to kill some time before bed. Tory loves the bath so it's always a good distraction in this situation. 

6:30pm
I towel-dry her off and dress her in her new pajamas. They're size 12 months!! How can my little baby be wearing 12-month size jammies?

6:40pm
We move the party into the play room to read some stories before bed. Tory is being kind of antsy and isn't interested in reading. Instead, she rolled herself over to the activity mat and pulled it on top of her (don't worry, I was right there)! She didn't seem to mind being all tangled up in the rocking chair with an activity mat on her head, though. She was babbling along to herself as she chewed on one of the rattles.

7:00pm

I made Tory a bottle, rocked her to sleep and laid her down in her crib. O.U.T.

7:10pm

Andi sent me a text and saying he was on his way home from work so I started dinner. I browned some hamburger for tacos, chopped lettuce and tomatoes and threw a few tator tots in the oven. We never have tacos at our house for dinner (I never seem to have all the ingredients) so this is actually a nice treat for us. By the way, I totally don't mind I had Mexican for lunch and now for dinner. I could eat it at every meal, I think.

7:30pm

Andi's home and we sit down to eat dinner on the three-season porch. We fire up another episode of Gossip Girl and he recaps a few stories from his day. (Check out this awesome double-decker taco I made with two hard-shells stuffed inside one soft-shell. It was basically like two tacos in one).

*I also plated myself a side salad but didn't eat it. I was too full from my awesome double-decker taco creation.

8:30pm

Andi and I cleaned up dinner and crawled into bed. We watched the latest episode of Mad Men on iTunes. Anyone else think this season stinks? We can't seem to get into it ...

9:30pm

Light's out! (I know, we're lame).