Wednesday, June 18th 2008
5:30am – wake up out of a dead sleep. Too early, back to bed
7:30am – wake up and think, why isn’t Sophia up yet? (she’s usually up at 7:15). Smell something burning, my sister must be making coffee. (She lives with us, did you know that?) Fall back asleep
8:00am – wake up and really wonder why S isn’t up. Make a move to get into shower quick before she wakes and realize that Rob is holed up in the bathroom with a book. (eh-hem.) A treasured time that I do not dare to interrupt, pick up my book and read for a bit.
8:15am – Sophia starts talking to herself. The bathroom door opens and I hear the shower turn on. Make a run for the bathroom to steal the shower from Rob – once he’s in there he NEVER gets out.
8:40am – Showered and dressed, bags ready by the door and Sophia is quite. I hate having to wake her up. As it turns out she was quietly playing in her crib. I love this about her. She loves her crib and loves to talk to her animals in the morning. We have a morning ritual of throwing her pacifier back into the crib and waving bye-bye to it.
8:45am – Struggle to get Sophia dressed. She’s been a bit crabbier lately as we are trying to ween her from her bottle. Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba
9:05am – Drop Sophia off at my parent’s house. We walk up the front walk and smell all the flowers in my mom’s garden. Sophia even smells the leaves!
9:08am – Get in the car and drive to work
9:40am – Walk into my office. Quick pull up some files to follow up on an issue that nagged me all night. Make oatmeal for breakfast.
10:00am – Weekly status meeting with my supervisor.
10:40am – Run back to office and continue to try and work on the nagging issue.
10:45am – My mom calls to tell me that Sophia is standing by the front door saying, “bye-bye, bye-bye”. My mom thinks that Sophia wants to go to my aunts. They were there yesterday afternoon. My aunt has in in-home daycare and Sophia has been spending more and more time there in transition for a full time transfer in mid-July. My mom is excited that Sophia seems to look forward to her time there.
11:00am – Meet with one of our study coordinators. She rocks, I love the people I work with.
11:40am – Eat a bagel and take a breather, read about Stephanie’s grand adventure in documenting Our Stories and Heidi’s Day in a Life and realize what a fabulous idea it is to do this annually. Start writing.
11:50am – My mom calls again to tell me that Sophia is gobbling up tuna fish. Mom, “Can she eat tuna? What about the mercury?” – we discuss.
12:05pm – Back to work on the nagging issues A, B, and C. (a lot of my work is nagging issues…but I love it most of the time, I’m like a detective at this point in my job).
1:26pm – So. Thirsty. Off to grab a drink and some food. I usually bring my lunch as I did today but it’s gross and I don’t want to eat it. Off to the crappy café.
1:38pm – Pizza and D.C. with a splash of lemonade. Yum. I work while I eat.
2:34pm – Realize that I haven’t changed my desktop background in awhile. Change it to this picture:
2:47pm – Mom calls to tell me that she and Sophia are headed to my Aunt’s. Sophia said ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ to me on the phone. She usually kisses the phone when we talk, but not today. Apparently she’s too busy sitting at her new picnic table (mom brought it into the house so she could sit at it while she read her books).
2:50pm – My sister called (she and I work at the same place). She is on her way to donate blood (there is a blood drive here today) for the first time. I told her that if I hear a MERT (Medical Emergency Response Team) called over the PA system I’ll know it was for her because she passed out in the hallway.
2:52pm – Back to work on nagging issues A, B, C, D, and E. Work is interspersed with IMing a friend…discuss reading, blogging and life.
4:15pm – Coffee Break, Hmmmm coffee. We are lucky to have very. yummy. coffee. in my building.
5:20pm - Field a series of phone calls from my mom, rob, my mom, rob…try to arrange pick up / drop off of baby.
5:34pm – Finish meeting with one of the Students that works with us. My brain hurts. Wonder if it’s time to go home yet.
6:05pm – NOW it’s time to go home. Phew. Call friend Emily on the way home to catch up. This time to talk with friends in far off places is a distinct advantage of commuting via car. I could never do this on a train.
6:35pm – Home to hugs from my baby girl. Man, do I miss her during the day. We spend the next 20 minutes dancing, playing, and cuddling. She is really in to twirling while she dances. It’s adorable. She is so much fun right now, it is an absolute joy to be her mother. Talk with Rob and catch up on our days. He tells me that one of the little boys in my aunts daycare hauled off an hit Sophia making her cry. Kids will be kids and this is precisely why I am sad to send her into this world. She is about to embark into the world of relationships beyond the safety of those who are bound to her by blood. It is a scary step for a mama.
6:55pm – During our Silly Play Sophia gets hurt. It is directly my fault (an accident) and I feel sick. She is fine – a small cut and bruise right between her eyes. But she cries for a good 10 minutes and I want to throw up. She hates ice or any other soothing element we try to give her. She just lets me hold her while she cries.
7:00pm – We head outside to find a distraction and it works! The flowers in our window boxes are growing. She helped me plant them a few weekends ago and we check their progress daily.
7:05pm – Dinner is served. I typically cook our meals but tonight my sister has made yummy portabello mushrooms on the grill. Sophia looses control again. My guess is that she is still hurting and is exhausted from her day. We rush through dinner to get her in to the tub and ready for bed.
7:35pm – The rushing didn’t work – we struggle to keep her this side of crying while we bathe her, get her in her pjs and up to rock for a bit until she falls asleep. Rob has largely taken over the bedtime ritual. For the past few months he has taken over the roll of rocker and bed time guru. But tonight I am still shaken up over hurting her and I need some extra time to snuggle. We rock and rock and rock until she falls asleep. And then we rock some more. She is getting to be so big. I put her bottles in storage the other day and almost cried. All the other stages and milestones I have been happy to see go to the wayside. I never really got emotionally about weaning her from nursing (which was done gradually and stopped at 13 months largely by her), her crawling (10 months), her walking (~14months), etc. I have a feeling from now on I will feel very differently about these little movements towards independence.
8:05pm – I do laundry, pay bills, address cards, and generally trim down the Paper Pile that is always threatening to take over our home. Rob helps. I eat gobstoppers while I work. I sigh a lot. Today is the kind of day that I do not like and one that happens more often than not. Too much time away from baby and too little time making her happy.
9:15pm – I write my daily blog entry for the day.
9:30pm - go upstairs to read and knit in bed until I fall asleep. I rarely have the energy to do much else at this point in the night. I am leaving for a small trip this weekend. My first time away from Sophia for more than 12 hours. I spend a fair amount of time considering how hard it is to imagine not seeing her every day. While I am super excited about going away and desperately need some time to myself I realize just how much she has changed me and how tightly we are tied together.
10:15pm – Turn out the light.
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