A Day in the Life Autumn 2017

These events occured on Friday 13 October 2017. 

It was an unusual day, so I thought it would make an intersting DITL post 

Jane 41 years

Husband 43 years

Kate 2.25 years

Tyler 4 years 

0105 I wake up to the sound of Kate's baby gate rattle and I can hear the white noise machine getting

louder. She's not making any noise...

0107 ... yet. "mommy!" "Mommy!!" "MOMMY!!!"
0108 I get up and open the gate and usher Kate to the bathroom and help her on to the potty. Surprisingly, the Pull Up is only minimally damp.
0110 She successfully pees in the potty. I wash her hands with a baby wipe and walk her back to her room.
0111 Lie down on the pull-out mattress in her room.
0115 She falls back to sleep quickly, I head back to my bed
~0120 drift off to sleep
0435 Kate wakes up again. I ask if she has to go potty and she starts to cry and sits down on her floor. I take her hand and lead her to her bed
0438 She falls asleep and so do I
0525 I'm woken up by Kate getting out of her bed and walking on to my mattress. "I have to go pee-pee" she announces.
0526 We walk into the bathroom, she sits on the potty, but doesn't produce.
0528 As we leave the bathroom, she points toward our room. I decided to let her go back to bed with us
0533 I think we are both fast asleep

0600 This is when I should be waking up and leaving for the pool. I've taken the day off from work as I have a three-day SCM swim meet. However the meet was cancelled due to the poor air quality due to the NorCal Wildfires. I don't feel right feeling disappointed in light of all the devastation caused by the fires; but our team was poised to win this meet! Something good that came out of the meet being cancelled was that the host team organized to let swimmers donate their meet fees to the Red Cross rather than receive a refund and they donated all the bottles of water, sandwiches and cookies that would have been fed to meet Volunteers and Officials to first responders.

0709 Husband wakes up in a panic thinking that I've overslept. I must have told him at least a dozen times that I was off today...
0710 I grab Kate's milk and let her drink it in our bed. I change into my gym clothes.
0715 I go back into the kitchen to make my protein shake, while Husband and Kate take a shower. Check the news for updates on the fires and enjoy a few minutes to myself.
0725 Husband is calling to me to bring him Kate's towel and robe. I meet them in the bathroom. Kate was playing with red soap/paint and the shower looks like a crime scene.
0730 I make Kate some toast and give her some yoghurt and raspberries
0735 Husband joins her in the kitchen. I go back to the bathroom and spray scrubbing bubbles spray in the shower as I'm afraid that the red paint may stain and our shower will forever look like the shower scene in Psycho.

0745 Bring Kate into her room to get her dressed. I had set out her activewear as she has soccer on Friday, but it was cancelled due to the air quality. Her Day Care is also having Fall-Fest today and costumes are encouraged. I'm planning to re-use her Olivia dress for Halloween, but I'm fearful about her being the only kid in a costume, so I opt to dress her in black pants and her Star Wars Storm Trooper T-shirt.

0747 Fridays are Share Days at her Day Care and as they're learning the alphabet, you have to bring in an item with the letter of the week. This week's letter is 'I'. I've been wracking my brain trying to find an 'I' item. I spot one of Kate's babies and decide she can bring in the doll, calling her an Infant. Of, course she wants to bring her two babies (Infants).

0750 I grab my protein shake, my travel mug of coffee, my purse, my gym bag, my lunch bag, Kate's lunch bag, and Kate's Day Care bag. As we walk toward the door, Kate requests for "Uppie". This is one of my biggest parenting pet-peeves. Every morning, when I'm carrying tons of stuff, she wants to be picked up.

0752 We make it into the car. I notice that she grabbed some address labels from Husband's desk (the free ones you get from the American Heart Association) and is placing them all over her car seat.
0755 Arrive at Day Care. As soon as we walk in she says "Hi Friends!" and walks toward her classmates without a glance in my direction.
0756 I decided to leave quickly and quietly while I can

0815 Arrive at the office. Groan. I hate having to work on my day off, but I've been so busy and I'm drowning in email messages and unfinished notes. Since I'm not officially on the clock, I decide to park in the designated patient parking area as it makes it easier to leave than my space in the multi-level garage.

0820 Heat up my breakfast and head to my desk.
0823 Check on news about the fires as I wait for my computer to start up

1035 I had planned on leaving about now as I wanted to attend the 11 AM Strength class as well as the 12 PM WOD, but I haven't completed as much work as I was hoping to, and I feel as if I'm in the zone, so I decided to stay a little longer.

1140 Now I decide to wrap things up. I've come to a good stopping point and I always give Husband a hard time when he works on his vacation days, as I make the arguement that working on a day off amounts to paying your employer to work. I kind of acknowledge that I could work all day and still not get caught up.

1145 As I'm leaving the office, I run into the President and CEO of our medical group as he still sees patients once every few months. I explain why I'm wearing my gym clothes in the office. Hey, maybe not a bad thing to have the President/CEO see you coming in to the office on your day off.

1147 I chat with him as we walk to the parking garage. He lives close to an area where they were mantatory evacuations due to the fire, so he and his family decided to leave anyway after loading up their car with valuable items. This fire is really hitting close to home. Another colleague in my group use to live in Santa Rosa and has several friends who have lost their homes. I also have a friend who lives in Sonoma who has been displaced all this week and doesn't know if her house survived.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       1200 The WOD is total manageable. Working on bar muscle ups, strict pull-ups and thrusters
1250 Finished a little early, head over to outlet stores (which is right next to the gym) to pick up a gift for Co-worker's newborn baby girl.
1340 Arrive at home. Check into Facebook while eating lunch
1410 Work at raking up leaves and other dead stuff in the front garden. I manage to fill 4 Lawn and Leaf bags and throw some branches into our plastic green bin
1520 Check the time and decided to start putting away tools and get cleaned up for Kate's Day Care event.
1535 Wipe down the walls while I shower, the red soap/paint comes off the tile very easily, but I'm going to have to scrub the grout with a brush. Decide to pick up some other colour paint so our bathroom doesn't look like The Red Wedding from Game of Thrones every morning.

1545 As I'm not sure if other parents will be wearning costumes, I wear my shirt that reads "This is My Costume"
1602 Arrive at Day Care, technically two mintues late, but no one says anything. Kate's teacher tells me that she has been out of sorts today. I find her sitting in the corner pouting.
1608 Spending some time talking to Kate to find out why she is upset (not really giving any reasons) and manage to convince her to come out to see the activities
1610 We start at the sticker table. There are pieces of orange paper cut into pumpkins to decorate with stickers. Stickers are the remedy to bring Kate out of her funk
1620 As I'm getting bored with stickers, I move on to the next table, which is making a center piece. There are hollowed out pumpkins with a green piece of foam and lots of flowers and other decorations to use. I suddenly realise that I am the only adult working on her own pumpkin, so I invite Kate over to 'help me'.
1635 We move on to a station of hay bails, which Kate is presuming is for climbing. There is someone taking family photos with a modern version of a Polaroid camera.

1640 I run into two other mothers that I've become friendly with through out this year. We were discussing the emergency kits we recently had to prepare for the kids. I revealed that I thought about contacting them to consolidate the supplies, but figured they were probably already done and we're putting it off to the last minute as I did. Nope, they were procrastinators too and thought combining resources was a good idea.

1705 Head inside to check out the food. It's hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Ugh. Doesn't look too appetizing. Kate is fascinated with the self-pour spout on the lemonade container and has been filling up multiple glasses. She seems to be spilling more than she's drinking.

1720 While chatting with the other Moms, one reveals that she is pregnant. Just had her anatomy scan and learned she's having a girl. Congradulate her and make a note that I'll be able to pass on some of Kate's old clothes. The other Mom had shared with me that they had been trying and the now pregnant mom had asked about her fertility specalist (Other mom's first son was an IUI, then she had a sooner than expected spontaneous conception for her second). Can't help to wonder if this pregnancy was spontaneous or assisted, because that's just where my mind goes.

1745 Most other parents are getting ready to leave and staff are starting to clean up. I gather some plates and cups to help with this process and I encourage Kate to help clean up. She is doing her part to finish the mini-cupcakes by licking the frosting and throwing out the cake.

1755 Kate is not wanting to leave and I have to drag her away screaming. Unfortunately, we have a long walk through the parking lot to our car.
1805 We run over to Safe.way as I have a few items I need. I grab a cart just because it's easier to contain Kate.

1810 I left the cart too close to the individual squeeze packets of applesause. Kate has grabbed a box and put it in the car and is asking for a packet. On a few occasions I've let her open a box while we're still in the store. I try explaining to her that we don't need any more applesause as I picked up a big box of individual packets while I was at Costco. She starts crying. Some guy over hears our conversation and asks "Can you have too much applesause?" I send him a 'not helping' look, but he does make a good point. I decide to get some small tubs of applesause that she can eat at home and I won't have to deal with the issue of her eating packets at home when those are supposed to be for on-the-go.

1812 As we walk down to the end of the aisle, we pass the flower counter. The woman asks if Kate can have a b-a-l-l-o-o-n to cheer her up, unless she is behaving spoilt. I really appreciate that she asked this and decide Kate can have one as she came through very well on our applesause negotiation.

1820 The balloon's magic is very short lived, as Kate is becoming cranky again and is trying to climb out of the cart. I decided to bail on my shopping trip as no item on my list is so critical that we can't make it through the night. I do pick up a frozen pizza for our dinner. I know, not really much of a healthier upgrade from the hot dogs and macaroni that I turned my nose up at, but I really don't feel like trying to cook anything while she's acting this way. #lazyparenting

1823 Kate stays in the cart to help me unload on to the till, but then I take her out as she can now step from the cart onto the till. She wants to take her balloon with her. I try in vain to convince her to leave it attached (with a plastic clothes pin) to the cart.

1824 She has figured out how to un pin the balloon from the cart. I pin it to her shirt and using the terminology from her Pep.pa book, I explain that it is an 'Up' balloon and she needs to hold on to it. She takes the clothespin off, but the pin is heavy enough to prevent the balloon from going up.

1829 While I'm trying to bag my items and scan my clubcard, she's found something to stand on to allow her to reach the gum on display.
1830 I tell Kate she needs to step away and come to me by the count of three. Another woman in the queue informs me that she's actually standing in a stack of baskets and can't easily get out.
1831. The woman immediately behind me has wedged her cart in the aisle and as her face is buried in her phone, she doesn't hear me twice ask her to move. I move it myself so I can collect Kate and she gives me a dirty look.
1832 I'm running my card through the machine and keying the prompts to get cash back for the Farmer's Market. Kate tries to sneak back to the gum by crawling (thinking I can't see her if she's closer to the ground) I move my left foot to try to block her and I end of stepping on her fingers.
1833 She's all-out bawling. I'm holding her, signing for my cash back and trying to finish packing while everyone is looking at me.
1837 Make it to the car. Kate has calmed down quite a bit, but she requests that I apologize to her fingers. Cue #momguilt. I let her hold the bottle of Coke.Zero that I picked up to prevent swelling on her fingers.
1840 Buckle up Kate, pack up the groceries into boot of the car, buckle my seatbelt and Kate realises... "MY BALLOON!!!"
1841 Oh fuck. I forgot about the balloon.
1842 I start up the car. I'm not going to be the mom who goes back into the store for the balloon. Tonight's life lesson is why we hold on to balloons.
1845 She's really upset about the balloon. "MY BALLOON!" she cries over and over again. I now agree with Amber and I officially hate balloons now.
1847 The crying over the balloon has now morphed into crying for Daddy. This is another parenting pet-peeve. Husband has been AWOL so much lately due to work and hockey matches and I've been doing so much double duty and yet that's who she wants.
1848 My annoyance and frustration has just turned into understanding and some perspective on why she's been out of sorts.

1852 Arrive at home. Change Kate out of her Day Care pull-up, which is on the verge of leaking right now. Figure she's cranky as she is probably hungry. Set her up in the kitchen with a snack and some milk and turn on ABBA Pandora.

1855 She's calm enough to let me put the groceries away, unpack her lunch bag and finish up the breakfast dishes, plus feed the cats.
1857 Now she's insisting that I sit down next to her. Sitting down seems like a good idea. She crawls into my lap.
1903 I hear the garage door open. Husband is home way earlier than expected
1905 Kate jumps off my lap and has a warm reunion with her father.
1908 After a few minutes of cuddling, he goes off to take a shower and get dressing, leaving her upset again.
1911 Kate announces that she has to go potty, I try to follow her, but I am sharply told "NO, I DO IT MYSELF!!"
1915 I hang outside the bathroom, but she manages to use her stepstool to get on the big potty and then moves it to the sink to wash her hands after she's done.
1917 The oven beeps indicating that the frozen pizza is ready. I try to get up and Kate starts crying. It's hard to fathom how she can go from being so independent to being so clingy.

1922 Husband joins us and starts discussing his counsultation with a representative to re-do our siding and windows. This has been something he's wanted to do for a long time and figures it's a good time while our deck is ripped apart, although it will nearly double the cost of renovating our back yard. He thinks we can get an extended line of credit to fund the project.

1935 As I wasn't expecting Husband for dinner, there is not enough for him. He heads out to pick up a pizza for himself (and probably some beers) Kate is happily eating her pizza and doesn't fuss too much when he leaves.

1940 I turn on HBO to confim what time the second showing of Real Time with Bill Maher will be on. They're playing last week's episode, so there must not be a new episode on this week. I leave it on as I feel asleep around this point in the show last week and it wasn't loaded on to HBO GO. Russell Brand is a guest speaking rather prolifically about his book on addiction. I can't tell if he really knows what he is talking about, or is full of shit, or maybe a little bit of both.

1950 Listen to Bill Maher's monologue during his New Rules segment. He is discussing a piece of legislation proposed by Connecticut Senator Richard Bumenthal (I met him on a few occasions when he was Attorney General in Connecticut, and seemed like a good public servent) that would require cars to be manufactured with a device that would alert drivers if they leave their kids in the back seat of the car. Bill's initial objection is the cost of such devices would be passed on to non-parent drivers and it seems that the less costly option is "not to be a dumb-ass and check for your kids with your eyes." Pre-Kate, I definately would have agreed with this, but I learned first hand it can happen easier than you would think.  About a year ago, I was driving to work and I heard Kate babbling in the back seat of the car. I was on auto-pilot and turned right out of our street to go to work instead of turning left to go to Day Care. I didn't get that far, but I shutter to think what may have happened if she had fallen asleep and I hadn't heard her (fortunately it was not a hot day, but I know that's not the point). At the same time, I don't know how effective a monitor on the dashboard would be as you have to get out of the car first before getting your kids out and I think a lot of cases involve parents knowingly leaving their kids in the car. I also can agree with Bill's point that issues of over-regulation that become losers for the Democrats.

2000 Throw the dishes in the sink to deal with later and fix two cups of milk for Kate. One for night, and another for morning.
2003 Instruct Kate to put her pee-pee in the potty. She delays a bit, but does eventually.
2008 Encourage Kate to climb up on her changing table to put on her night time pull-up and change into her Pep.pa Pig Pijamas.
2010 Sit down on her bed with a handful of books. Tyler walks in and joins us on the bed
2025 She's finished her milk, I curtail her reading session by stashing some unread books behind my back.
2030 Husband comes home while she is brushing her teeth and brings her to bed and says good night
2032 I lie down on the mattress next to her bed. Kate is asking that I hold her hand

2035 Tyler walks in the room and lies on my abdomen. As much as I really wish that Kate would put herself to bed, and I wouldn't have to do this...I do enjoy it. After running around non-stop all day, this is the first time I get to take a break and rest. Plus, I appreciate the one-on-one time with Tyler.

2045 She sounds like she is sleeping, so I scoop up Tyler and join Husband while he's eating his dinner.
2050 He's going on and on about the siding and windows. I'm way too tired for this conversation so I feign interest as he's talking.
2105 Husband offers to do my dinner dishes if I clean the cat box. Deal.
2115 Brush teeth and get changed into my bed clothes
2125 Hop into bed. Use the Cozi app to work on the grocery list as I plan out meals for next week
2130 Flip though my copy of Michelle Tam's new Paleo cookbook Ready to Not to get inspired.
2132 Tyler jumps up on the bed and is rubbing his head on the edges of the book.
2130 Wow. Hot Friday night. Frozen pizza, putting a toddler to bed, now in bed with my Husband and cat reading cookbooks.
2131 Nowhere else I'd rather be.

Steps: unknown as my fitbit didn't change over night :(
Also I have no idea why this published with a big space in the middle