The first week of September I documented a "Day in the Life." This project is something Ali Edwards got me hooked on. Ali documents one day towards the end of each month and includes them in her Project Life album. I decided to do one every four months this year. I took a day at the end of April, the beginning of September and ideally, I get one at the end of December. In April, I used all iPhone photos and shared on Instagram. This time around, I primarily used my DSLR. For the photos that I am in, I used either the built in timer or my camera remote.
So here we go ... this is Thursday, September 5th 2013.
6:00 AM / wake-up to an alarm. Head to the kitchen where Paul is making coffee and eating breakfast. This photo, the first of the day, is my favorite from the project.
Head back to our bedroom to pump breastmilk. Bring it back out and prep Ellerie's first bottle. (Since Ellerie was five weeks old, I have been primarily pumping and bottle-feeding. She's thriving and I am happy so for us, this method of feeding is working very well.)
Eat breakfast in front of the windows, read blogs, drink coffee.
6:45 AM / Ellerie is still asleep so I start a load of laundry. Sit down at the computer. Deal with email. Check in on the Big Picture Classes message board (my Project Life Lessons workshop went live this morning). Prep photos for my "around here" blog post that will go up tomorrow.
7:30 AM / brush teeth & get dressed. Back to the office where I write thank you notes, deal with email & print shipping labels for stamp orders that will go tomorrow when they arrive.
7:50 AM / hear Ellerie starting to stir. Grab her from the bassinet in our room and change her.
Bottle feed her in front of the windows. Breakfast is the very best in that space.
Change her clothes. Play on her floor and do some tummy-time. We've been doing tummy-time since she was a week old and she loves it.
She starts to get fussy so we walk around the house a bit.
9:00 AM / Ellerie is asleep on my shoulder.
I put her in the her chair, shake the blood back into my arm, move laundry and have a snack of apples and almond butter.
9:15 AM / she is still asleep. I work on my Quilting eCourse. (I am hoping to launch this "go at your own past" online course in early October. More information to come.)
9:43 AM / she wakes up in her chair. Diaper change and feed. I pump a bit more after she eats.
10:10 AM / move laundry and head to Target. Ellerie does really well on errands and I like to get them done in the mornings while she is awake. I keep her in the carseat and push the whole thing in the cart. We run errands to get stuff done (obviously) but also just to get out of the house on days where we don't have something else planned.
11:05 AM / home from Target. Ellerie is asleep in carseat. I move her to her crib and she says out (this happens about 25% of the time). I quickly tidy the house, unpack bags and check email.
11:30 AM / upload photos, work on blog posts (I tend to do bits of them at a time - this time it's the Project Life update and a pizza post). I check and respond to blog comments (I have stopped receiving them via email and I have noticed it's much more productive to just check in once or twice a day as opposed to responding as they come in).
12:00 PM / eat lunch of leftover Thai quinoa salad and a peach.
12:15 PM / more Quilt eCourse progress - ironing and laying out fabric while watching old episodes of the The Office on netflix.
1:20 PM / check email and the BPC message board.
1:30 PM / hop in the shower. Afterwards, pump.
2:00 PM / sit back at the computer to work, but Ellerie wakes up. She's super happy post-nap. I change her and bottlefeed her then we wander the house so she can digest.
2:25 PM / Ellerie is again asleep in my arms. It usually takes her a few tries to really "wake-up" after her nap. I lay her in crib. While she is out I work at the computer.
2:45 PM / she's awake again. We read and play in her room then I bring her to her chair while I have another snack. More play and baby babble.
3:30 PM / Ellerie eats a bit.
3:45 PM / after feeding, she's asleep on my shoulder. I browse pinterest on my iPad and find a recipe for no-bake "energy bites". I'm thrilled to discover we have all the ingredients. I set her in her chair and mix the ingredients. (I ended up throwing in some sliced almond too - they were fantastic though difficult to get to hold together.)
4:20 PM / E's awake from another cat-nap. Some afternoons we get one long nap, other days we get short cat naps. Some days we get both. Regardless, she always seems pretty content and thankfully my schedule makes it easy to just roll with it. We go into her bedroom where it tends to be the coolest (this Southern California heat wave is awful).
4:40 PM / after some more playtime and reading (obviously Ellerie is super interested in why Gerald the Giraffe cannot dance), Ellerie gets fussy so I feed her a bit more and she's good.
5:00 PM / get Ellerie into the ergo and clean up the house. Call my mom and we chat for about 20 minutes.
5:30 PM / put Ellerie into her chair on the kitchen floor while prepping dinner. We're having leftover pizza and a big spinach salad. I am chopping ingredients for the salad and finishing my no bake cookies.
5:45 PM / pump quickly
6:00 PM / Ellerie and I go for a short walk outside in the ergo and I regret it almost instantly...it's so hot out.
6:30 PM / Paul gets home. We give Ellerie a bath in the big tub. She's still not sure how she feels about bathtime, but I think they are growing on her. Never any tears, just wide-eyed stares as Paul and I both wipe her down.
I get her changed into a bedtime onesie and Paul feeds her while we chat about the day.
7:00 PM / we eat dinner with Ellerie on the table in her chair. (You might notice I am in my third outfit...no wonder we have so much laundry.)
She falls asleep toward the end of dinner.
We bring her into our bedroom, swaddle her and put in bassinet.
A few minutes later, she cries and we both go in, Paul feeds her a bit more and she's out for good.
8:30 PM / we watch Sons of Anarchy (we were re-watching season 5's last two episodes so we could be ready for the start of season 6) and fold the laundry.
9:30 PM / we brush teeth and get ready for bed. I pump one last time. Paul falls asleep almost instantly and I read my library book for about an hour. We are all lucky to sleep through the night and start the song and dance over again Friday.
Thoughts / It's hard keeping track of the times of things and remembering to take photos all day. It reminds me a bit of when I worked for a PR firm and I had to account for every 15 minutes of my time. Not so fun to do it in such detail, but I think this sort of thing is interesting to document and will be very cool to look back on. Life with an 11 week old baby = little chunks of time here and there and my goal each day is to be as efficient as possible with work and as present as possible with Ellerie and Paul.
ps...I am planning to write a post soon about how I have found some balance and how I am meshing motherhood and work. Look for that in the next week or so.
