So here's a day at home with James and Miranda at this very specific time in their lives. I'd like to say it's a standard day, but there's no such thing as a standard day yet, that's part of what having a newborn is about.
6 a.m. James wakes up and makes little annoying noises in his room but he stays in his room until 7 a.m. because we've taught him "not to get up until the bunny gets up," which means that his bunny clock lights up.
6:20 a.m. Kevin gets up and gets ready for work. James may or may not be sleeping.
7:00 a.m. James gets up. Kevin feeds him oatmeal and yogurt and often puts television on for him so that I can have a few moments of peace when I get up.
7:14 a.m. Breakfast with Dada
7:15 a.m. Kevin "wakes me up" though I'm often already awake and trying to not disturb Miranda who has always managed to make her way into our bed by then. I carefully extract myself from under her head and leave her in bed. This makes me nervous because you're not supposed to do this, and I forget to set up the baby camera so I can get a shot of the bed (because she's not supposed to be in there anyway!) so I check on her hundreds of times until she wakes up. I drink coffee and try to do some work. James asks for a millions things, many of them repeatedly.
8 a.m.- 9 a.m. Miranda wakes up! Now the party can start.
8:56 a.m. James making a huge mess in Miranda's vicinity. "Playing."
8:59 a.m.: James gives Miranda a little choking hazard toy, fantastic!
9 a.m. I feed Miranda. She eats for a while, complaining intermittently if I don't hold her with both hands, or kicking my phone out of my hands because why should I have anything take my focus off her? Why indeed Miranda.
9:30 a.m. Miranda is already a huge grouch. She didn't actually want to get up so early - she just got up because she sensed I was no longer there. Now she's mad. James gets mad too in support of Miranda. I know, let's try putting her down for a nap. Ha!
Miranda: You've got to be kidding me.
9:32 a.m. James helpfully turns on the light and yells, "Surprise!" Sigh.
James: Surprise! Miranda: Break me out!
9-11:30 a.m. Life is basically miserable. I entertain, I bounce, I cajole, I put her down over and over again, and finally after eating again she falls asleep while I'm holding her.
11:45 a.m. I put her down in her bouncer or in the cosleeper, and then I run around trying to feed James lunch and maybe if I'm lucky I eat something too.
12:10-20 a.m. Miranda wakes up super angry that she is not being held. This part of the day happens like clockwork.
12:14 a.m. Picture from a different day just to prove my point.
I attempt to get her back to sleep and probably fail.
12:20 a.m. Miranda in the swing: the theory is
this will either entertain her or put her to sleep.
So most likely I do not get Miranda back to sleep, and now I'm a professional entertainer for a few hours. But here's the thing, babies aren't interested in anything. Toys aren't a thing yet. So we do the "baby gym" for a while then she stops being fascinated by the octopus rattle, so we go for a walk up and down the hallway or whatever I can think of that's new.
Trying to hit the octopus
At this point, you might have noticed that Miranda is still in her pajamas. She usually gets dressed for the day when she gets up, but she does sometimes just spend the day in pajamas when Kevin isn't home and I'm not going to try to go out. Not pictured: Me also in pajamas still.
I drew James a picture of him because he needs entertaining too.
Why don't we go for a walk outside you ask? First, there is the issue of getting everyone dressed, and getting the stroller out the door without anyone falling down the stairs because we live in a second-floor walk up. Second-- and this is the more important reason -- I seek to do things that will keep Miranda from crying. Going for a walk in the stroller doesn't do this. She has a knack for knowing when we're a maximum distance from the house then starting to scream bloody murder. Not, "crying," the way a sensible adult might do, but shrieking, screaming, and turning bright red like her village was burned down.
Anyway, now it's 2 or maybe 3 in the afternoon, and she passes out from exhaustion while I'm holding her and I'm too terrified and shell-shocked to even put her down. But actually it doesn't matter because she'll only sleep like 40 minutes anyway because James will suddenly run over and exclaim, "WHERE'S MY PURPLE THING?" I don't know, buddy. I don't know.
2:48 p.m. Mid-afternoon nap in my arms.
Another day, around the same time (1:48 p.m.)
When she wakes up, I think back on my law firm days. Around this time of day I would stroll to the kitchen and get my second or third cup of coffee of the day. I'd carefully consider my Keurig cup choice and sometimes when I was feeling really crazy, I'd follow the Keurig recipe for combining the hot chocolate cups with the coffee cups to make a mocha drink. Dark chocolate and Kona blend? Yes, please. But now, no. Just no. Even if I put the kid down long enough to pour the coffee and microwave it back to life, drinking it isn't any fun because someone is screaming. James or Miranda, usually, but sometimes me.
"DON'T POKE HER IN THE EYE!!!"
"Why?"
"BECAUSE HER EYE IS VERY DELICATE!!! BECAUSE I SAID SO!!! GO TO TIME OUT!!! RIGHT. NOW. RIGHT NOW!"
Maybe it's not James's fault. Maybe I get cocky. I got this... I can put her down. So I try putting her down either in her bouncer or in the crib.
3:02 p.m. I gently place her in her bouncer...
3:35 p.m. Booooo-urns.
Also, there are the diapers, which go without say, but also we decided to finally potty train James after Miranda was born because we feared he'd just regress if we did it before she was born. So maybe 500 times a day I ask, "James, do you want to use the potty?" But he resists, oh how he resists... not now, he doesn't have to go now... until, well, he does.
Usually, I've given up on doing productive things by now so things get easier in that there are no competing factors, but also much much harder in that there is no longer anything to distract me. And also, you know when you have to pee, but you hold it for a really long time, and finally you're near a bathroom... you know how the the fact that relief is imminent makes it SO MUCH WORSE? That's what it's like after 4:30 p.m. or so. Kevin comes home between 6:30 and 7, so now that I'm in the home stretch, I think,
I'll just lie down and die before I get to the finish line. I think this every day I'm alone with the kids, even though each time I drag all three of us across the finish line. If they are fed, and cleanish, and not miserable, then yay! We made it!
4:22 p.m. (different day) You're a jerk, Mama!
Stop taking pictures and entertain me!!
5:06 p.m. James, please be careful with her head.
No, don't hit her head with your head!
6:30 p.m. Yay! Dada's home!
Hurray! We made it!
The rest is not so bad. Maybe I've already fed James dinner when Kevin gets home. Maybe I just didn't have it together yet. Maybe we had a late snack and waited to have dinner with him. Doesn't matter, I can't have dinner with him because Miranda exclusively wants to have her dinner when I wish I were having mine. I sit in the living room feeding her while James and Kevin have dinner together. Then Kevin gives James a bath and lets him play in the tub. At some point I give him Miranda so I can eat my dinner alone in the kitchen. Then I take her back, so that at 7 p.m. Kevin can take James out of the tub, dress him in pajamas, read James a few books, and put him to bed.
6:52 p.m. Post-bath bedtime routine begins
Miranda senses that I have no help right now and proceeds to have another fussy phase. By 7:30 pm when Kevin re-emerges from James's room, Miranda has decided it's time to eat again so I can't hand her off. If she falls asleep, we might be in for a really late bedtime. If she doesn't then we have another fussy time. I walk and bounce her a little, Kevin rocks and bounces her a little.
It's 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. now. I try feeding her, she falls asleep, I put her down, she cries. No, not yet. I try feeding her again. This time she eats a lot. I put her down again. Yes! She's really going to sleep this time!
It's now 9:30 or 10 p.m. Maybe we watch a show. Maybe we both catch up on work. James might wake up screaming with nightmares. Someone goes in to pat him down, and maybe fish toys out of his bed. Then we go to bed at 11 p.m. super exhausted.
Miranda wakes up at 2:30 or 3 a.m, I feed and return her to her crib. She wakes up again at 5:30, I feed her and she refuses to go back to the crib so she sleeps in bed with me. Sometimes I hear James or Kevin wake up around that time. At 7:15 a.m. I try to extract my arm from under Miranda's head.
Rinse, repeat.
That's life right now. But at least it's my second kid, and this time I know that things will be a little better by 6 months, and a lot better by the time Miranda is a year old. And one day maybe I'll miss all this? No, I don't think so either.
