5:30
Anna wakes first. We don’t have a baby monitor but the house is small and my ears are trained. I lay there for a moment. Do I let her fuss a bit more? Maybe she’ll doze back off. Or should I get her quickly before she wakes Luis? Oh, who am I kidding. She never dozes back off. I go get her.
Anna gives me a wide smile, delighted to be rescued. I fix her a bottle of milk. From a moo-cow, not a me-cow. I sprinkle cheerios and blueberries on her highchair tray. Start water for my coffee. Empty the dishwasher.
I need a new audiobook. I scroll through the Libby app. Everything I want to listen to has a waitlist…so what about a 27-hour history on the Romanovs. Yeah ok why not. I know nothing about Russian history.
How much time before Luis wakes up? Enough time to get any work done?
5:45
Nope. Luis joins us with a bleary “HI. Chocolate milk? Math problem?” The new rule is he has to solve a math problem for his chocolate milk. I ask him to hold up 2 fingers. He does. Now add 2 more I tell him. He does, but his pinky is bent and he doesn’t count it. “3?” he ventures. I unbend his pinky for him. “Oh, 4.” he says. Chocolate milk awarded and quickly chugged.
Before he starts whining for fruit–he wants to only eat fruit–I try to head him off by offering yogurt and granola. Today it works. While he’s munching away he even offers, “Thank you for making me this yogurt and granola and blueberries.” I’m a little stunned. So genuine So unprompted.
6:30
I go to use the bathroom. There’s a bottle floating in the toilet. “Oh Anna” I say outloud and fish it out. Not my norm, but this morning I actually shut the door behind me. Luis opens it. He needs to use the potty NOW, he says. I rush to finish and as I leave he tells me “I need some privacy.” Yeah that would be nice, kid.
Debating when to take my iron pill. I’m pregnant and according to my doctor, back-to-back pregnancies have left me with low iron levels. So, I think, when is a good time today to feel absolutely sick to my stomach?
6:45
Anna’s crying for an undetermined reason. Eventually solved by handing her half a banana to walk around with. I’ll deal with the squishy remnants later. The toddler demands a sacrifice.
Luis’ petition for train videos has begun. “Can I watch train videos” on repeat. I eventually tell him he’ll have to go to his room if he asks me that again. For my own sanity, I’ve decided there are consequences for being annoying.
6:52
Coffee reheat #1
I sit at my computer, looking at my client’s website updates that need to get done today. The task is fairly mindless, but it needs a good chunk of time. Or more like, a dozen small chunks spread across the morning whenever I can steal them.
Luis is entertained for the moment by the blanket fort I built him yesterday. Anna is probably smearing banana on the couch. What can I do with the kids today? I try to always do one something. I look at my To Do list:
recycling to curb
grocery shopping
buy straw bale
Today’s activity might just be errands. Sorry, kids.
7:25
Luis is on repeat asking to play “the Vinegar Game.” Something he learned from our homeschool curriculum. We did the program pretty consistently for a few months, until I lost steam. Now it’s my reference for learning games when I’m feeling uncreative. He’ll ask, “Can we do school?” and I pull out the binder and pick an activity. Some of them have really stuck, like the Vinegar Game.
Food coloring in a muffin tin. Cover with baking soda. Hand Luis a condiment bottle full of vinegar. Science!
Coffee reheat #2
I think of a better way to build this webpage. It requires starting over but it will be worth it, saving me time in the long run.
I take my iron pill. let’s get it over with.
7:35
Vinegar Game bought me 10 minutes. Not a lot, but it assuages my Mom Guilt as I’ve been on my computer a lot this morning. A math problem and a science experiment. That’s…some enrichment. Anyways, Anna now finds the vinegar-filled muffin tin and the activity has a second life.
7:40
I send Luis to his room for throwing toys.
7:45
The inevitable happens and Anna dumps the muffin tray. I’m undecided if this activity was worth the clean-up.
Glance at the clock. Nearly 8. I wonder if NIPT results will come in today. Anxious to know if baby #3 is ok and eager to know the sex. We have a boy name, but maybe we need to dive into girl names.
I let Luis out of his room. He’s in there quietly looking at some ultrasound photos he found stuffed in a drawer–ultrasound photos of himself at the same age baby #3 is now: 11 weeks. We talk about babies in tummies. A frequent topic lately.
7:53
Coffee reheat #3
Feeling nauseous. Lightheaded, even. I force feed myself some crackers.
Luis starts to pull a rose from my flower arrangement. A “Best Wife Ever” gift from Andrew while he goes to see his friends for 8 days. He’s home tonight. I’ve almost made it. Luis looks at me for permission to take the rose. “Sure” I say.
Crackers aren’t helping. Having trouble focusing on work.
A delivery truck pulls up. Looks like our missing shelf pieces are arriving. Luis steps out onto the porch to says Hi to the delivery men, completely naked. Holding a rose.
I rush him inside and we have a quick talk about being naked in front of non-family. He was in his PJs 2 minutes ago. What even happened.
8:05
Nausea worsens and I head to the bathroom to regroup. Luis walks in with a face he only makes when he’s done something bad.
“What, Luis?”
“The rose.”
“What about the rose?”
“The stairs.”
A beat. I fill in the gaps for him.
“Did you tear apart the petals all over the stairs?”
“Yes.”
8:18
Nausea subsides and I finish the website. I worked on it over 3 interrupted hours, but I log 45 minutes in my timekeeping spreadsheet.
8:40
A miraculously quiet and uninterrupted shower. I step out of the bathroom to see what it cost me. Luis is going through a particularly sneaky phase. This time it looks like…he’s helped himself to a clementine. Oh, ok. It’s true, I had told him “no fruit” until he finished his yogurt, but I don’t have it in me to scold him. Such a small price to pay for my shower.
I try on my new Madewell jeans one last time, now finally convinced that they don’t fit. Pregnancy is such a happy reason not to fit one’s pants. But man, I had just bought them. And I’m not even in the second trimester. I’m going to miss them. Baby’s due around Christmas, so I’ll see you in 2026, pants.
I settle on a lower rise jean that I can fasten with macgyver’d elastic.
9:00
Luis is excited to take the recycling to the curb, because it means he gets an illicit ride in the car, unbuckled in the passenger seat. But as we head out to the car, I remember it’s the off week for recycling. I tell him we’re going to check the mail instead. This satisfies.
9:10
Coffee reheat #4
I buy 3 stretchy jumpsuits online, while bouncing Anna. I hate maternity jeans. It’s my last pregnancy; I want to be comfortable.
9:45
An uptick in Anna’s fussiness tells me she’s ready for a nap. She goes down without protest.
10:00
Train video time for Luis. With Anna napping, it ends up being a precious chunk of time for focused work. I’ve been fitting my work into the cracks of my day. But as the kids get older, the cracks are getting smaller and smaller. Cue familiar anxious thoughts: what is my long game here trying to do both full time momming and working. How sustainable is this?
Make myself a steak and egg breakfast burrito (iron!). Go out to the jungle garden and get some greens to throw in. The geese come over to scream hello.
After heating up my coffee (#5) I catch a glimpse of my youngest hen, Pom Pom, drinking from the pond. A small wave of sadness hits me all over again. She lost her best friend, Ruby, a week ago to a hawk attack. They had been inseparable, and without Ruby she seems lost. Always on her own. Poor Pom Pom.
But back to work. On the docket are final edits to an office furniture company brochure. Online calendar additions for a Seattle cultural organization. A donor giving form for a California ballet company. A postcard for an art school. I’ll be lucky if I get 2 of them done during Anna’s nap.
