I love reading "day in the life" posts. Call me me a nosy person, but I enjoy seeing how other people spend their days, including mundane little things like what they had for breakfast and what they did at work. I decided to document a day of maternity leave, so once I'm back at work I'll be able to read this and realize how nice it was. Or how boring. Depends how you look at it. Here goes:

6:30 - Eli starts singing in his crib.

6:45 - Singing turns to crying.

7:00 - I go rescue him. Yes, I let him cry for a bit. Yes, I am a horrible person. He eats his breakfast (milk, obvi) and gets a fresh dipe. We do this little daily ritual where we "check the weather" (aka open the blinds in his nursery and look outside) and make a big production about how the weather looks today.

7:30 - Eli and I head downstairs for one of my favourite parts of the day. I make coffee and breakfast while he plays on his mat in the living room. He's happiest in the morning, and I love listening to him singing and playing and just hanging out with him in our PJ's. I eat peanut butter and banana toast and read some blogs, check email and Facebook, and otherwise dick around on the Internet, and Eli and I have some good chats.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed

Contemplating climbing up. DO NOT. EVEN. THINK. ABOUT. IT.

9:15 - Eli lets me know he's ready to nap by throwing a shit fit, so we go upstairs and rock a little bit in the nursery. Fifteen minutes later, he's out.

9:30 - I use his nap to clean. Today I Swiffer and dust everything, put things away, wipe down all the counters and kitchen surfaces, clean the sinks, put out fresh towels and make sure all the bathrooms have toilet paper. You would be surprised at how often they do not. On a scale of 1 (TLC program bad) to 10 (Martha Stewart-staged home) I aim for about a 7 (not embarrassing if someone drops by for an unexpected visit).

10:45 - Eli wakes up just as I finish cleaning. He gets his brunch - more milk. I get a 100-calorie granola bar. I win. Then we play some more - Patty Cake, building towers out of blocks for him to knock down, and whatnot.

12:00 - Lunchtime! Carrots for Big E, avocado-grapefruit salad and a whole wheat roll for moi. I forgot to take a picture. I got the recipe out of a magazine and it was super disappointing. I did remember to photograph the giant peanut butter cookie I had afterwards.

Mmm. Mushy carrots.

Mmm. Cookie.

12:20- Eli gets dressed and I make a grocery list, get him ready, and pack him in his stroller. One thing about having a baby is it takes a million hours to get ready to go anywhere. Getting him dressed is a challenge because he wants to roll and flail around and act a fool. Then you have to put sunscreen on him. Then you realize you forgot his hat, can't find his sandals, he won't let you put the sandals on his feet, et cetera. It's just a lot of extra steps. Basically take however long it would take you to get ready to go to the store and multiply it by one thousand.

Finally ready. FINALLY

12:45 - We hit the mailbox first. I have a parcel, yessssss! Being home all day means my online shopping habits have increased a gazillionfold. There's also a magazine and a bunch of bills...boo. Then we head to Avery's to get some groceries. I just fire the bags under the stroller so we're killing two birds with one stone, groceries and our walk. It's about two miles to the mailbox, the store and back. The ladies at the store comment on his cool hair. Eli falls asleep as we get close to home.

MA YOU IS BORING

 1:45 - Eli eats again. Yes, again. Guess what's on the menu? MILK. We read The Poky Little Puppy and Baby Boo and I put him in the crib for his afternoon nap around 2:15 and he promptly starts wailing.

2:30 - Eli stops crying and sleeps a bit. I have a bathing suit trying-on party (they both fit, yay!) then put on some shorts and head outside to read and attempt get some pigment in my whitey-white legs. No photos of this stage of the afternoon because these gams are like translucent white. It's awful. Rory comes out with me, but he doesn't want to play, just flops down in the sun.

MA YOU IS BORING.

3:00 - Eli is awake so I go back inside. I put him in his exersaucer, which inexplicably pisses him off so he goes on his mat instead. I put my pants back on in case the guy comes to do the estimate for resealing our driveway. Don't want to scare him with the whiteness. Eli is acting cantankerous so we do more Patty Cake and more tower building and then we play Ball. This is an ingenious game I invented where we roll a rubber ball back and forth. I put my bikini top on Eli and take an incriminating photo and he hates me. I eat some Greek yogurt with rhubarb and Eli gets jealous. I mmmm and ahhhh and go on about how good it is.

He tolerates it.

4:00 - Surprisingly, even after the bathing suit fiasco and me flaunting my yogurt, Eli is happier now, so I grab my laptop and sing Baby Beluga at him while Googling some recipes.

5:00 - Eli has his supper phase 1 (milk). I call Peter and we have the conversation "what do you want for dinner?" "I don't care, what are you in the mood for?" "I don't care..." This goes on for a while. In the end we still don't know what to eat.

6:00 - Eli and I head out into the yard to check out the flowers and plants and let him sit in the grass, which he goes crazy for. Peter gets home early tonight, shortly after 6.

6:15 - Workout time...I opt to do my Nike Training Club app instead of going to the gym. I love this app. It's free and you can get as good a workout in the basement as you can at the gym! Forty five minutes later I'm a sweat hog. Peter gives Eli his rice and bananas and a bath during this time.

7:00 - I have a shower, feed Eli again, and put him to bed. I also leave my ipod in his room after putting him to bed...so there are no more pictures for the remainder of the day.

7:30 - I get started on the superhero alphabet cross stitch I'm making for Eli. It's slow going. It might be done by the time he goes to university. Might. Peter does manly yard things such as mowing the grass and setting up the swing and fire pit outside.

8:30 - We make a pizza (spinach and provolone, mmmm) and watch the finale of Mad Men.

9:30 - We watch the first period of the hockey game and I foam roll my stupid leg. The Kings are winning. As soon as the period ends, around 10, we go to bed.

Things I learned from this post: we play a lot. Someone is literally almost always eating. And despite not really doing much, it feels very busy.