Here we go! Monday = creative work day, but we also had just gotten back from a rather tiring weekend trip.
(One week is about all I can muster of formal time tracking, and I’m sure it’s about all anyone wants to read of these posts! Thankfully we are in the home stretch.)
6:00 Up (7 hr + 40 minutes sleep). Slightly abbreviated AM routine (no workout)
6:45 Get kids up + help them with breakfast; make G’s lunch
7:30 They all left (Josh drives Monday) — tidy kitchen, eat my own breakfast, read, Headspace
8:15 Write posts (show notes, yesterday’s time tracking)
8:50 Drive to and attend Pilates (2.0 class this time – definitely some tough moments, esp in the glutes/hamstrings omg with some crazy sustained one-legged bridging). 2 stops on the way home: UPS store, gas station
10:20 Interview prep, more blog post writing, plan the week out in more detail + put it up on the board
11:40 Take a walk and think about interview quesitons
12:15 Eat lunch; debrief G (nanny who just arrived) about week’s upcoming stuff
12:50 BLP recording – interview, intro, and outro, plus write show notes and send in. Inspired by my guest (truly — I loved this interview and she really made me think!), I do some playing around with Claude and some potential projects.
(I think I might like Claude’s vibe slightly more than ChatGPT?)
((Don’t worry, nothing posted here has been or ever will be AI generated; I would rather stop posting than not write my own words, so you can rest easy on that!))
3:15 It is time: I deal with state tax stuff (both business + nanny related)
4:00 drive G to voice lessons! I promised her I would take her on this particular day. She just started and really likes it — she is currently singing “Castle on a Cloud” from Les Miserables.
4:30 email/admin during the voice lesson itself
5:00 take G to Jeremiah’s (I had promised her we could do this like once a month after voice)
FLAVOR REC: if you get lemon, cookie butter, and vanilla it tastes like key lime pie. G got some chocolate mint concoction with oreos.
6:00 Home, eat a little bit of dinner (obviously neither of us were that hungry . . .), make coffee for the next day. A was at gymnastics already; C was getting ready for basketball. Our nanny left and dropped him off on her way home.
6:45 Piano with G; some of my own a cappella cramming (reunion is THIS WEEKEND)
7:30 Admin – work on documentation for FOUND MONEY (in doing my decluttering I rediscovered an old bank account we had back in NC. I don’t think THAT much is in there, but the website says “over $100” so I’m going to at least attempt to resurrect it!)
8:15 C comes home (Josh); direct him to shower. Make food for G who is now hungry. Not sure what else . . . at ~9:00, A got home (also Josh) from gymnastics (she was very happy to start working on new skills)
9:15 Put G to bed, talk to Josh, talk on phone a little bit with SIL
10:00 Read Sky Daddy (not gonna lie I kind of love books like this, a very unusual and somewhat unhinged yet endearing narrator . . .)
10:30 Fall asleep
Admittedly this day ALSO did not contain a “full day’s” worth of work. I absolutely DO have some of those days on my ‘creative’ days — like literally back to back from 8a – 6p. But, as demonstrated here, that is obviously not always the case. And kid stuff works its way in, which is by design – I’m GLAD I have the bandwidth to do this!
(Side note: I CRIED reading LL’s post today. Partly because I KNOW I am in this golden phase and I truly do love it and it feels so fleeting and her notes basically 4 years into my future are a reminder of just how short it is.)
5 Comments
Oof, I read LL’s parenting post and I can see why you cried. She puts it all so well- these transitions are HARD. Meanwhile, yes enjoy these days! They go by fast which is why we have to force ourselves to slow down and be present sometimes.
I’m glad you’re liking Sky Daddy! I didn’t want to read it at first because it just sounded weird, but it’s so good.
I enjoyed the time tracking posts- do it as often as you want! : )
LL’s brand of “perfect working mother” is even more airtight than yours. When I read her stuff, I just remind myself that it’s not real, that in NO WAY do I want her life, and pay it no mind. 🙂 Personally, I’ve liked all the stages of having a kid progressively more as she’s gotten older. With a teenager it’s on me to cultivate a relationship with her so that she will continue to spend time with me as an adult — because she wants to rather than out of a sense of familial obligation. I only control my side of that equation though, which is the hardest part for me, especially since I don’t really want to see my own parents.
Anyway, I am not sure where you are getting the sense that your evenings are wide open. They look pretty busy to me! When I get home from work, I typically feel like a limp dishrag, and I count it as a win if I manage to read for 20 min before passing out in bed. Once this past week I even made myself lift weights for 12 min, which I was pretty proud of, all things considered.
Hmm interesting! I guess I just feel like lots of times I am like, not as ‘needed’ in the evenings (ESP if Josh is doing the late pickup). But it is fair that I am often out of energy . . .
I agree LL’s situation (and mine!) aren’t necessarily typical but I truly believe her feelings/writings are genuine, at least at the moment she puts them on the page. (I also feel like her job sounds HELLA stressful and the pace of her everyday life would not be for me! But she seems to thrive on it.)
And YES to being much much happier with older as well. 8/12/14 is overall, great. and I think only going to keep becoming more and more fun.
LLs husband has a hobby job and SHU has a full-time nanny well outside of the baby/toddler stage. Not the most typical setups so yes, important to keep in mind for those with different situations who don’t ever seem to reach the wax poetic stages of parenthood!