Today in our "A Day in the Life Of..." series we have another working mama, Leslie, "I work full-time in higher education administration. Some days I feel like I’m crushing this working mom thing, other days I feel like it’s crushing me. Most days are somewhere in between. Proud mom to two boys and an old Weimaraner. Welcome to my day!" You can follow Leslie on her busy adventures on Twitter.
4:35: Baby is crying. Lay in bed for a few minutes to see if he’ll go back to sleep on his own. He does not.
4:40: Get up to nurse baby. He falls right back asleep.
5:00: Go back to sleep.
5:30: Husband’s alarm goes off. He goes downstairs. I listen for the familiar muffled sounds of NPR and wait for the coffee smell.
5:45: My alarm goes off. Snooze.
5:55: My alarm goes off. Snooze.
6:05: My alarm goes off for the third time. I get up and start my morning routine.
6:10: Husband comes upstairs and gets in shower. We talk about what we each have going on that day at work.
6:25: Wake up the baby, bring him into our bedroom to nurse.
6:30: Husband wakes up the two-year-old. I can hear them negotiating about what color shirt to wear, the two-year-old asking for a book, husband agreeing to one book but ONLY one.
6:35: Put baby on the floor of my closet (off the bathroom) while I get dressed and brush my hair. Give him his big brother’s truck to play with, hope big brother does not come in and see this betrayal. Consider straightening my hair but decide just to pull it back in a low ponytail.
5:00: Go back to sleep.
5:30: Husband’s alarm goes off. He goes downstairs. I listen for the familiar muffled sounds of NPR and wait for the coffee smell.
5:45: My alarm goes off. Snooze.
5:55: My alarm goes off. Snooze.
6:05: My alarm goes off for the third time. I get up and start my morning routine.
6:10: Husband comes upstairs and gets in shower. We talk about what we each have going on that day at work.
6:25: Wake up the baby, bring him into our bedroom to nurse.
6:30: Husband wakes up the two-year-old. I can hear them negotiating about what color shirt to wear, the two-year-old asking for a book, husband agreeing to one book but ONLY one.
6:35: Put baby on the floor of my closet (off the bathroom) while I get dressed and brush my hair. Give him his big brother’s truck to play with, hope big brother does not come in and see this betrayal. Consider straightening my hair but decide just to pull it back in a low ponytail.
6:45: Come downstairs with baby. Hug two-year-old, get baby’s bottles ready for daycare. Realize I’ve gotten up too late to make myself a bagel to eat in the car.
6:55: Pour coffee to go, check that all bags are packed and ready. Put jackets on the boys.
7:00: Run outside with two-year-old to see the school bus pick up neighbor kids. Wave frantically. “Hi school bus!! Bye school bus!!”
7:05: Help husband put kids in his car, kiss everyone goodbye, leave for work. Am five minutes behind. Enjoy the peace of a solo commute, the sounds of NPR. Traffic is bad, but hey, it’s me time. I’ll take it.
7:45: Get to work. Leaving five minutes late adds fifteen minutes to the commute, yuck.
8:10: Realize I still haven’t had breakfast. Consider the options in my desk drawer--oatmeal, various bars, Easy Mac--decide on a fig bar, bought in a bulk pack from Costco because of course. Congratulate myself for eating it rather than running to the café next door to get an egg and cheese croissant, which is what I really wanted.
8:40: Take a break from going over my to-do list for the day to eat a donut a coworker has brought in. I have no willpower over donuts.
9:00: Negotiate with husband over gchat who will take baby to his next pediatrician appointment. Use my trump card, which is that I have barely any sick leave because I used all I had saved up toward my maternity leave.
9:30: Pump. Curse my pumping bra, which has gotten stretched out over time. Think about buying a new one, but don’t want to spend the money because I’m hoping to wean off the pump within a month or two. Lament how little milk I’m getting lately. Schedule and reschedule several meetings while pumping, making sure I leave enough time for my twice daily pump sessions.
11:00: Walk across the street to the store for a teacher birthday gift card. Feel smart when I buy a three-pack of Amazon gift cards, so now I’ll have two more handy for the next birthday, teacher appreciation day, etc.
11:45: Eat lunch at my desk while pumping. It’s too early for a second pump, but I have to head to a training from 12:30-3:00 so it’s my only option. Feel grateful to my husband for cooking a bunch of food yesterday—the leftovers will get us through a couple days.
3:20: Get back from a training I coordinated for a group of staff—it was great! I felt so validated! Moments like this make me feel better about my work/motherhood juggle. I really should pump now, I really should…but I don’t. Take a look at the cute pictures of my boys above my desk, get excited to see them in less than an hour.
3:40: Scramble to get some final tasks done for the day before leaving to pick up the boys. Trying to keep my focus, but my mind is already on wishing the teacher happy birthday, needing to check the diaper and spare clothes stock at daycare, figuring out if I can go one evening without doing laundry, wondering if my husband remembered to make the baby a doctor’s appointment, vowing to throw away this nursing bra I’m wearing that is SO uncomfortable.
4:05: Leave work.
4:20: Get to daycare. Pick up the baby first. He’s outside in the covered infant play area, doing some tummy time and watching the older babies. Chat with his teachers about the day. Go find big brother on the playground, give him the card he made for his teacher’s birthday and watch him proudly deliver it. Sign out and say goodbyes.
4:35: Talk with the two-year-old’s former toddler classroom teacher as we walk out. Lots of hugs! Discuss how we are excited that the baby will probably be in her class a year from now. Walk out to the car, silently cursing how heavy the baby carrier is with him in it. Try to convince the two-year-old to stay close to me in the parking lot.
5:05: Arrive home. Carry in the baby in his carrier, my purse, my lunch bag, my pump bag, diaper bag, and kids’ jackets. Try to keep the dog from knocking over the two-year-old in her excitement that we’re home. Play with both boys in the playroom for a while. Two-year-old wants to hold baby in his lap and hug him, gets mad at me when I ask him not to squeeze his brother.
5:20: Baby suddenly decides he is starving. Put him in high chair and feed him some peas and some yogurt. Two-year-old sits on my lap and watches, and, er, helps. Soon he decrees he wants some yogurt, too. If I stop feeding baby to get big brother’s dinner ready, baby will freak out, so I try to distract big brother in hopes husband will be home soon to help.
5:40: Husband gets home, two-year-old is distracted by the arrival long enough for me to clean up the baby and put together big brother’s dinner. Wash hands, get two-year-old strapped into his booster seat. He scarfs down the applesauce (already forgot about his yogurt request), eats a little jambalaya and then starts spooning his cottage cheese into it. Gets mad that I put his milk in a pirate cup instead of a blue cup, is satisfied when I offer a straw for the pirate cup.
6:00: Clean up two-year-old and pass him off to husband, take the baby back. Change baby into PJs and clean diaper, nurse him lying down in our bed. Carry him into his room when he’s done. He wakes slightly, but quickly rolls on his stomach and finds his thumb. Fingers crossed that he falls right asleep—it’s unpredictable.
6:25: Come back downstairs and join husband and two-year-old in playroom. Discuss the day at school, who he played with, what songs they sang, how they celebrated his teacher’s birthday. Read a few books, play with Matchbox cars.
6:35: Make myself some dinner. Sit on couch to eat it (bad move). Two-year-old comes out of playroom and demands some of my food. Gets mad when I won’t hand over my entire plate but instead offer him a small bite. Husband comes to distract him so I can scarf down the rest of it.
6:50: Say goodnight to two-year-old, husband takes him upstairs for bedtime routine. I start the nightly chores: unpack the day’s bags, dishes, bottle and pump part washing, wiping down table/highchair/counters.
7:15: Finish the kitchen chores, take several loads of laundry upstairs. Put away my clothes and husband’s clothes, put the boys’ clothes in piles to be put away when they are awake (which means they won’t be put away till the weekend). Pick up and put away various clothes and shoes in our bedroom and the hallway. Start a new load of laundry, even though I said I would skip a day.
7:40: Finally sit down on the couch with husband, check in briefly about our days, discuss tomorrow’s logistics. Pour myself a glass of wine, notice last night’s wine glass still on the side table. Eh, I’ll wash it later.
8:00: Husband goes upstairs to watch football. Flip through TV channels, check Facebook and Twitter on my phone. Nothing good on. I flip between SVU and a Lifetime movie because that’s all the brainpower I can muster.
8:30: Go upstairs to shower. Think about how I have hardly taken any pictures for this blog post. Oops. Well, at least it’s authentic!
8:50: Get in bed with my glass of wine and my Kindle. Start reading Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. Saw her speak a few weeks ago (one of the perks of working on a university campus) and have been meaning to start her book.
9:10: Husband comes to bed. A very early bedtime for him, but it’s Monday. We’re all wiped out. He’s asleep within a few minutes.
9:30: Turn out the light.
9:45: Hear the baby stirring and fussing, hope that he’ll settle himself back to sleep—he does! Small victories.
