Lately I’ve seen a few of these “day in the life” posts going around, and it made me want to record our current routine for posterity. It’s of course long winded and overly detailed because that’s how I write, but I figure I’ll enjoy reading back on it in a few years. At any rate, I have Wednesdays off from work, so this is what happens on my “day off” from my office job. I’ll probably do an office day post as well, just because it’s quite different!

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12:45 Harvey wakes up to nurse after 4.25 hours in the cosleeper. Back to sleep at 1am.

3:00 Harvey wakes up to nurse after 2 hours in the cosleeper. Back to sleep at 3:15am.

5:15 Harvey wakes up & wants to nurse again after 2 hours in the cosleeper. I finally pull him into our bed and let him nurse/we doze for the next hour.

6:00 Stella wakes up, and Charlie grabs her since he’s already up and about to leave for work. Her pull-up goes in the trash (we haven’t even attempted potty training at nap/nighttime yet) and he brings her downstairs to set her up with her milk and an episode of Daniel Tiger.

6:15 Charlie tells me he is leaving, so I drag myself out of bed, change Harvey’s diaper & get him dressed for the day, grab the full wet bag of dirty cloth diapers, and head downstairs.

6:30 Cloth diaper laundry is started (the initial cold rinse cycle), Harvey is steamrolling around the living room floor, happy as a clam, and Stella is set up with breakfast (pink yogurt – which is Organic strawberry honey greek yogurt that I have to add a dot of gel food coloring to in order to get her to eat it because she only wants Daddy’s pink colored sugary yogurt otherwise).

6:45 I’ve cleaned out & organized our fridge while Stella is eating breakfast. I’ve also emptied the dishwasher and assembled my breakfast (a bowl of cottage cheese, diced hardboiled egg, diced raw red bell pepper, and slices of avocado with fresh ground black pepper).

6:50 Harvey is fussing because he conked his head on the hardwood (he has rolled 10′ from where I initially laid him down). I pick him up and hold him on my hip while I eat my breakfast next to Stella.

7:00 I grab the laundry out of the dryer and make the guest bed and put away the towels, etc. Stella is talking my ear off and following me around. Harvey is rolling around on the floor wherever I am.

7:15 Harvey wants to nurse a bit, so I sit down to do that and Stella makes me a “birthday cake” with her pretend kitchen ingredients.

7:30 I plop Harvey in the exersaucer (he LOVES being upright to play lately) and Stella cuddles with me on the couch watching Frozen while I check emails and order a baby shower present for my coworker’s daughter off of Amazon. Thank God for free 2 day shipping since the baby shower is on Saturday. Oops! I also throw up a quick WWW post.

7:45 I realize I forgot to restart the washing machine for the full wash cycle, so I go out and do that. Harvey has a majorly poopy diaper, so he gets changed already. Stella is still zoned out on Frozen.

8:00 Harvey nurses on the other side, and then I go upstairs to lay him down in the cosleeper for his morning nap. He’s wide awake, but we’ve been working on letting him put himself to sleep, which he often does without a complaint.

8:15 Harv is fussing this morning, so I go back upstairs to nurse him a bit more and rock him. While I’m doing this, I see on my iPhone that Charlie answered a question correctly on his high school reunion Facebook page last night (his school was so small that the classes of 1997-2004 are all doing ONE joint reunion – funny, right?) and the prize was that we get our $70 reservation fee back PLUS a $75 gift card to a local restaurant. SCORE!

8:25 The baby is sleeping in his cosleeper and Stella is next to me on the couch, pretending to nurse her baby while she is (still) watching Frozen. I do a little blogging…

9:15 Harvey is awake and Frozen is over, so luckily I had just finished typing up my post about Harvey’s baptism and gotten it published over on my family blog. We spend the next 15 minutes getting Stella dressed and Harvey changed and into a new outfit (his 1st one is covered in drool & spit up).

9:30 I’m ready to walk to the park, but Stella must put on her own shoes ALL BY HERSELF so Harv and I hang out and watch her. It’s actually pretty amazing to watch how hard she concentrates to get them on properly.

9:40 The shoes are finally on the correct feet and we head to the park, stopping by the hardware store on the way to pick up something for Daddy. We spend the next hour playing on the swings and slides. It was Harvey’s first time on both!

10:40 Stella has to go pee, so we head over to the public bathrooms (which are thankfully quite clean by the park). Again, Stella wants to do it ALL BY HERSELF, so I hang out in the doorway to the bathroom to keep an eye on Harvey and the dog while she does her thing.

10:50 We walk over to a local restaurant to grab lunch with one of Jaime’s best friends and former coworkers.

11-11:40 I enjoy a nice lunch with Leslie while Harvey dozes in the stroller & Stella crushes chips and queso & refuses anything healthy. You win some, you lose some.

11:40 We walk home and I put Stella straight to bed by 11:50. She is so sleepy she doesn’t even fight it. I realize Harvey hasn’t nursed in 3.5 hrs, which is very rare for him. He is miraculously still content in the stroller where I left him on the front porch while I put Stella down. I change his diaper and he is nursing by noon.

12:15 Lay Harvey down in the swing for his midday nap and then hang up all of the cloth diapers and inserts on the line to dry in the sun.

12:30 Realize Harv is laying awake in the living room swing, so I transfer him to the upstairs swing in my bedroom to see if he’ll sleep better up there without distractions.

90 minute double nap ensues. AMAZING. I think about showering at least least a half dozen times, but instead I watch Extreme Weight Loss, edit pictures, and catch up on blogs. Some much needed ‘me’ time after a long weekend with a houseful of (much loved) guests and working full time like normal.

2:00 Both kids are STILL sleeping (this is so not normal, but I’ll take it!), so I decide to finally jump in the shower. 15 minutes later I’m dressed and ready, and I reflect back on the time that it used to take me an hour to get ready.

2:15 I decide to pump to get a few extra ounces built up for later in the week while I’m at work. 2 minutes after I start pumping, Stella wakes up crying, so I go upstairs to get her out of her crib. As I’m getting her into fresh undies and shorts, the portable pump dies because I haven’t charged it in forever. I then scramble around the pantry with bottles hanging off my boobs to find the charger.

2:30 The rogue charger is finally located and I’m sitting down pumping and typing this while Stella enjoys her post-nap sippy cup of milk. Harv is still sleeping. An afternoon rain shower comes through, and I think about my diapers just in time to notice the full downpour soaking them. *sigh* Ah well, at least they got a few hours of sun bleaching action. I guess I’ll put them in the dryer later.

2:40 I’m done pumping, so I wash up the parts quick and clean up miscellaneous dishes around the kitchen that have accumulated over the course of the day and make Stella an afternoon snack.

3:00 Diapers are in off the line and in the dryer. Stella is still eating. Harvey is STILL SLEEPING. This is the longest nap he has taken in months (2.5 hrs). I don’t even know what to do with myself!

3:15 Harvey is finally awake and I’m actually relieved. I missed the little guy! He wakes up starving so I nurse him immediately while I chat with our internet tech support online about why our devices are constantly disconnecting from the internet. I’ve promised Charlie for WEEKS that I’d do this. Oops.

3:35 Both kids are rolling around on the floor together. I love watching how much Stella dotes on him and how he lights up when she’s around him – even when she’s in his face!

4:00 Hanging out in the back yard to get some fresh air. Thank God for this swing so I can sit in the shade with Harv while Stells runs in circles.

4:30 I dice up some leftover cheeseburgers from grilling last weekend to add to some pasta for dinner. Stella wants to “help” so I set her up with the sink washing dishes (tupperware). Water EVERYWHERE. #WorthIt

4:40 Harv is cranky, so I nurse him again, even though it’s only been 1h15 since he last ate.

5:00 Dinner is ready but Charlie won’t be home for awhile still, so Stella invites me to a tea party on the stairs. Works for me!

5:20 Stella plays doctor with Harvey – giving him pretend shots, listening to his heart, and checking his ears. So stinkin’ adorable.

5:30 Charlie comes home, but just to grab the stuff I bought at the hardware store for this morning. I forgot that he still needed to run by another job site to finish up some details. CRAP. I nurse Harvey instead of eating dinner myself, trying to get him to take his evening snooze while I eat dinner with Stella. No nap happens. I vacuum the living room rug, drink a beer and play some more tea party with Stella to kill time.

6:15 Charlie is home, and we all eat dinner in about 5 minutes flat. We spend the next 45 minutes sitting on the front porch, drinking a cold beer and enjoying the evening while we watch Stella attempt to shovel the newly seeded front lawn.

7:00 Harv is FUSSY since he refused to take his afternoon nap so I decide to try to put him down early. I get him into a fresh diaper & PJs and nurse him, but at 7:20 Stella tromps up the stairs COVERED in mud. Nice job Daddy. #headdesk

7:20 I vacuum the kids’ room (which is covered in fresh mud/dirt) while nursing Harv, but it’s no use, he’s wide awake again. Charlie comes in and tosses Stella in the shower with him to clean them both up. I fume.

7:40 Stella reads Harvey a bedtime story while we look on and our hearts melt. I’m only slightly annoyed that Harv has now been up for 4.5 hrs and it will be a BATTLE to get him to sleep now, poor overtired baby.

7:50 Nurse Harv one last time to try to get him drowsy. Again, no dice. Charlie vacuums the stairs which are also covered in mud thanks to their front yard adventure.

8:00 I lay both kids down wide awake & walk out the door. Sit at the top of the stairs and listen to Harv fuss for 6 minutes. That was the magic number I used when we were trying to help Stella figure out how to fall asleep on her own (at 7.5 months because she was waking up every 45 minutes!). By 8:06, he has stopped fussing, and it never truly escalated into a big cry (at this age I 100% go in right away if it’s a big cry). I pat myself on the back for working on this with him now (at 4.5 months) instead of at 7.5 months when object permanence has set in. PLEASE let this effort now pay off…

8:10 Stella starts calling out to us for water because she’s thirsty. I curse and try to creep in there without Harvey seeing me with marginal success. He’s talking to himself, but not crying, so I’ll call that a win. I sneak back downstairs to type up this post.

8:45 I’m ready to head to bed. Tonight I stuff and fold all of the cloth diapers and put them away while we are watching Big Bang Theory. I then walk in circles around the bedroom until I hit 10k steps on my FitBit because I was already at 9,200 so why not?

9:15 The house is quiet; we are all fast asleep, ready to do it all again tomorrow.