A Day in the Life - Summer 2012 Edition

Apparently I was a little out of the loop this time as I intended to link up with Navigating the Mothership as she does a quarterly 'Day in the Life', but I totally missed her blog post about it. Oh well, I decided I'd do it anyway even if it's a little late.

Wednesday 8/15/12

4:16 - I wake up to go to the bathroom. Return to bed and realize I am freezing. Get up to add a layer and get back into bed. Can't sleep. I'm already beat as I couldn't sleep well the night before either. Great. Basically lay in bed at different levels of resting (but not sleep) until alarm goes off.

6:00 - Alarm goes off. Jump out of bed and put on clothes that I laid out the night before. Dress in one minute.

This would say 6:01, but I struggled to figure out the camera in the dark.

I head downstairs and look in the mirror for the first time.

Yikes. Do other getting ready stuff before Riley and husband rise.

Eh. Good enough.

6:15ish - I hear Jesse and Riley upstairs while I am putting on my mascara. I head upstairs and help get Riley dressed. I usually have an outfit set out for her, but neglected to do so. I decide to take over getting her dressed because you never know what Jesse will put on her. Jesse goes downstairs to eat his breakfast.

Riley tries to assist me with taking pictures while I get her ready. This is the only remotely clear one of about 15 pictures.

6:35 - Back downstairs to eat breakfast. Riley decides she wants to go into the basement. Jesse is done with his food so he heads to the basement with her and lets her watch Dora. I eat a piece of the banana nut bread I made this past weekend and some Greek yogurt. As I am on my last bites I remember that my building is having a tenant appreciation breakfast.

I do some last minute getting ready things and go downstairs to get Riley. She, of course, fights being asked to go upstairs as she wants to keep watching TV, but I ask her to push the off button on the remote and she readily agrees. We head upstairs.

6:55 - Head out the door. Jesse drops me off at the bus stop before taking Riley to daycare and then going to work himself.

7:25 - Arrive at work. Get logged in and head right downstairs again with my co-worker, Lisa, to get our tenant appreciation breakfast.

The food is the same as every year - yogurt, fruit, breads, juice, coffee - I grab a bunch of fruit and a couple mini cinnamon buns. Every year I grab one of these cinnamon things and wish I took more as they are little sweet pillows of heaven. This year I take two and they are meh. I still eat them both.

7:45 - Get to work. It's a pretty quiet morning and I am having a hard time focusing. I actually work diligently all morning, but wish I would have pulled out one of my special projects to work on. At any rate I am getting a lot of work done.

My home away from home.

10:30 - I go to a meeting in place of  my supervisor whose last day is Friday. My team is down three advisors and will be losing two more in the next couple weeks... plus our supervisor. And we don't have anyone in place to replace any of them (yet). Yikes! I have a feeling all those projects are going to sit on the sideline for awhile as we just try to stay on top of the most urgent needs.

12:00 - Lunchtime. I neglected to bring my lunch so I head downstairs to wander the skyway for food. I don't have a craving for anything so I am scrambling to decide where to go. I meet another advisor in the same predicament and we debate our options together. As we ride down the elevator, it opens on a floor I can only guess is where the IT folks live (no judgments, but you know the look). About 12 IT people cram into the elevator leaving the other advisor and myself suffocating in the back corners. They talk about how hard it is to find a Delorean car in Minnesota. Once we are freed from the elevator the other advisor and I both end up at Jimmy Johns.

12:15ish - I get back to my desk and eat my food while starting this post, checking Facebook and looking at other blogs.

1:00 - Back to work

This fake cat has been making the rounds at work for years. The last person that was 'caring' for it is leaving the company so I found it at my desk one day. It even purrs when turned on. Like I need something else to make me look like the 'oddball' one at work.

2:00 - Team meeting. My co-worker Lisa is presenting on some updated resources we provide our students and she decides we are going to play a game to make sure we know the wheres and whats of these resources. Lisa hates games with a passion so we are all a little floored. She agrees to pose for a picture commemorating the occasion.

And she's smiling. For a picture. I don't know what to make of this. (Lisa is a wonderfully delightful person who hates games, having her picture taken, and hugs.)

3:06 - Back at my desk taking and making calls.

4:30 - Log out and head over to Rare for a going away happy hour for my boss. Eat some sushi and some of Lisa's edamame. Drink a glass of wine and then high tail it out to the bus.

My boss, Lee, is the one with her hand out. The rest are a bunch of super smart strong women that I get to work with. 

5:47 - Get home about the time all the guys arrive for boys night. Every Wednesday my husband has a few guys over to play board games in the basement.

Riley's already eaten dinner so we head outside and play with the ball, check out the ABC's written in chalk on the sidewalk, play with her new slide, break out the sprinkler, and play with the water table.

We then head inside, put away toys and head downstairs for a moment only to get sidetracked playing with a balloon.

Go back upstairs and take a bath.

7:15ish - Take Riley downstairs to say goodnight to Jesse and the guys.

Riley helps me take a picture of the boys and then we then head upstairs to read books. We are a little behind, but still have time to read a couple books.

7:45 - I try to get Riley down by 7:30 so this is only slightly later than usual. She seems extra whiny, but after making sure she had everything she needed and seemed to want I head downstairs. She cries and cries. I go in and try to console her, but I don't know what the problem is. She usually goes to bed without issue, but the night before she had some problems too. I head back downstairs and she cries and cries some more. Jesse comes up and decides he'll check her out. He comes back down and indicates it's hot in her room and that she is asking for Mommy. She cries some more so I go up again. I try asking what she needs, but all she does is speak jibberish in a whiny voice. I know I am supposed to be patient, but it drives me nuts. Please just clearly tell me what you need so I can give it to you. I leave again and listen to her cry some more. I go up again and like every other time she immediately stops crying once I enter the room. I end up rocking her for at least 5 minutes. It seems to calm her down and I think she's near sleep. I lay her down, hand her sippy cup to her, make sure she has all her stuffed animals and leave again.

8:25 - Silence. She finally goes to sleep. But now it is almost an hour later than I want it to be. I have a ton of things I wanted to get done tonight, but first I need more food. I open the fridge and find that we desperately need to go grocery shopping. I barely have enough to make a grilled cheese. Such a sad empty fridge. Grocery shopping fail.

8:50 - I sit in front of the computer and eat. While eating I load some pictures onto the computer, process a couple of them and then post my August Photo a Day week 2 post. I finish eating and decide I better write some of this post so I don't forget. The lack of sleep this week so far has given me foggy brain. Well, a foggier than usual brain. I don't tackle any of the more pressing projects I wanted to take care of that relate to my rental property. I'll get them done tomorrow. I swear.

9:40 - Yikes. Time to jump in the shower. I'd like to be in bed at this time, but no.

During shower - I hear footsteps fly upstairs and then realize that I might be hearing my child scream bloody murder.

After shower - go upstairs and try to console kid who is still crying even though Jesse is holding her. Not sure what is wrong, but she's in a bad spot. She touches her ear a couple times so we immediately think she must have an ear infection, but then realize that she's never touched her ears when she's had ear infections in the past. Headache? Who knows. She just screams. Move into our bedroom, and turn on Funniest Home Videos and finally get her calmed down, but she's on the very edge. We keep trying to get her to take ibuprofen, but that just gets her to cry again. When she's calmed down I run downstairs to run a brush through my wet, knotted hair and brush my teeth.  I hear her start screaming again. When I go back upstairs I see that Jesse and Riley are back in her room. I think "why did you move her" and then realize he tried to give her the ibuprofen, but it ended up in our bed.

We end up flipping the top sheet over the spill and I lay back down with Riley. Jesse puts some ibuprofen in a syringe hoping she'll take that. He hands it to me and goes downstairs to wrap things up with the guys who have been waiting patiently, wondering what to do. Jesse comes back up while Riley and I lay in bed watching TV. She eventually starts eyeing the syringe in my hand, pulls her nuk out of her mouth and opens wide. Shortly after she takes the ibuprofen she rolls over and goes to sleep. Jesse goes downstairs to sleep and I slowly lower the volume on the TV and eventually turn it off. She turns over and asks to have the TV on, but then falls right back asleep. I don't know the exact time, but I am pretty sure it is close to midnight. I wake up numerous times that night. So much for getting a good night's sleep.

Epilogue: Riley woke up at 6:15 the next morning delightful as can be and has been great ever since. Guess I will never know what really pained her that night. I'm just glad it is over.