A Day in the Life

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Now that Gwen's a year old it's time to say goodbye to the monthly letters/updates. I'm a huge fan of Hello from the Nato's where she is constantly talking about how it's our job, as mothers, to document our children's lives. I've always liked reading other mother's day in the life blog posts because I feel like it's a breath of relief to see someone else's day that I can relate to. Seeing their daily tasks and how similar they are make me feel so normal because when do you ever see someone else's daily routines?

Taking from her idea and philosophy I am going to start documenting a day in our life here in the Sunderland household once a month. Bare with me, it's a pretty long.

A Friday in February at the Sunderland's

This month is a new adventure in creating new morning routines. Typically I would wake up at 5 am and pump until Gwen woke up, but now when I hear this little lady making some noise through the baby monitor I am sound asleep, snuggled in bed. I eventually roll out and go and greet her in her crib where we exchange our morning gallantries.  She drops her pacifiers in her crib and we make our way to the bedroom window to examine what the world has to offer to us for the day.

 In full disclosure we typically look at our backyard and I moan about all the dog poo and then we discuss the weather and look at all the brightly lit auto store signs you can see in the distance.

We kiss Daddy goodbye as he heads out for work. Then we sit down and eat our breakfast together. Frosted mini wheats for everyone!The day was a Friday, which is our day to grocery shop. We packed up the dogs and headed to Walmart first thing in the morning. It's seriously the best and only time to shop at Walmart. There isn't anyone else there, it's quiet and the shelves haven't been ransacked. Not to mention the weekday am crowd is typically more pleasant than the weekend crowd.  Please note that when taking my child out this early in the morning, I find it completely acceptable to leave her in her pajamas. By placing a bow on her head makes me feel more secure with this decision.

Of course Walmart didn't have everything we needed and since I like any excuse to go to Target, I drug us all to Target where they too didn't have what we needed either. Everyone (including the dogs in the back of the car) was pretty grumpy after that bad decision. But we did come out victorious with the second box of tea Walmart was out of.

 We came home with just enough time to squeeze in a little playing before nap time. 

During a 3 hour (!) nap time I killed some time on my computer.
Then I drank some tea, watched How I Met Your Mother and cooked us some lunch. I was seriously killing time and running out of things to procrastinate about until she finally woke up. You know I didn't go attack that pile of laundry or do the dishes like I should've.

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And then we got dressed for the day. She ever so appropriately picked out her onesie that says "My Mommy is blogging this" that she got for her birthday. Hardee har.

Lunch today consisted of the usual spiral noodles with spaghetti sauce and an avocado. The avocado ruined everything. Gwen didn't like it and since it touched the same plate as her noodles apparently those were ruined as well. She threw each and every noodle on the floor and refused to eat. Sigh.

The weather was insanely gorgeous and it would have been a crime not to take advantage of it. So I figured we'd work in the yard. And by work in the yard I mean pick up the dog poo, a lovely task that has to be done. So, Gwen played on the deck while I picked up the poo. Gross! I know. Some might say this is way too much information and holy crap, is that a picture of dog poo? Alas, this is our life, as glamorous as it is. Document it!

But dont worry, we really did take advantage of the beautiful weather and moved to the (dog poo free) front yard. I got out the ball pit tent and tossed it in the front yard where we camped out and watched the dogs romp around and play on the dead grass. 

Meanwhile, our Valentine's package from my mom arrived. Man, that thing was packed full of all the bestest most thoughful valentine's goodies you could imagine. Peeps, conversation hearts, peppermint patties, t-shirts, skirts. It was awesome and I totally gorged myself and made myself ill. But that's beside the point.

So here's where I tell you that I put the baby down for her second nap of the day and dutifully cleaned up my kitchen and started preparing dinner. I even preemptively took a picture of my sink full of dishes to portray that I did the dishes. Except that I didn't. I put the baby down then sat my butt on the couch and watched tv. I've recently become addicted to How I Met Your Mother.  And the baby never took her nap. So the husband totally came home to this.Because that's how I roll. You're welcome sweetheart. Some days I do have the dishes done and dinner ready, but today just wasn't one of those days. I did, however whip up what Jake claims is the best grilled cheese sandwich he's ever had in his life.

We spent the rest of our evening playing as a family, enjoying a giggly baby who was punch rummy because of missing her nap and then it was time for  her nightly bath and a read of her her favorite book before bedtime.

And then we put her to bed promptly at 8 and I took a shower. And that's what a typical Friday around the Sunderland household looks like.