I planned to post my time logs at the end of each day this week. But I didn’t feel like blogging last night … and some of the older kids wanted to hang out and talk. So that is what I did.
(For those who signed up for the time-tracking challenge…I also found out that about a thousand people who signed up are not receiving their emails, so many people will either be doing this next week, or aren’t doing it this week as they planned — which is frustrating. I am really sorry about this.)
Anyway, since I’m still tracking my time, I suppose I may as well continue with this series. Yesterday I was up for about an hour in the middle of the night, 2:30-3:30 a.m., with the baby. I woke in the morning at 7 when the 5-year-old jumped on me and then, as I was getting up, pulled the baby out of the crib. I rescued the baby, and we went down stairs for the usual coffee/feeding/playing/nudging everyone else up. When G came at 8 I went for a trail run — this was a highlight of the day, seeing the morning sun in the woods and hearing the birds, even in the cold. I was back at 8:40 to shower and take a call about the house renovation at 9.
The morning was mostly work time — recording 5 episodes of Before Breakfast (seems a lot more manageable now that I’m no longer doing 5 New Corner Office episodes too). I did my usual rituals, worked on other projects, had lunch with the kids and my husband, watched the Drew Barrymore clip, and so on until 2 p.m.
Then I took my daughter for some educational testing at the school district building — long delayed by Covid. I was not allowed to stay with her (also Covid restrictions) so while she was there I dropped the Christmas decorations off at the new house (no need to pack them into storage at the current one, and the new house was closer to the district building) and then played the piano we bought from the old owner for a while. Mostly Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. The living room has a large window/door that faces west, so I could watch the sun sinking over the bare trees as I played that mournful melody. I walked in the nearby woods until summoned to get my daughter. Then it was home, some Legos with the 5-year-old, and work sorting out the Mailchimp problem.
G left at 5, so I fed the baby and hung out with him, then gave him to my husband while I cooked dinner. We ate, cleaned up, I put the baby down, and then did more Legos with kids, and bedtime rituals. I read a National Geographic book with the 5-year-old and my husband is reading Nancy Drew with our daughter. I was hoping for a good stretch of sleep, but instead I was up from 2:30-4:15 a.m., at which point I went to the guest room, since my husband appears to be better able to sleep through kid noise. This morning I slept through my alarm; my run didn’t happen. Maybe later. At least I got up to nudge the teenager for his 8 am virtual school check in. He lay back down once I left the room and I noticed it was quiet so it was up for a second nudge, and possibly another tardy. In case anyone thought all things run smoothly here. They don’t.
So weird. I signed up and wasn’t getting the emails but I read your blog and so remembered and have been tracking.
@Dominique – glad you have been tracking anyway. 700 other people got last year’s emails instead of this year’s. Good times…
i signed up and didn’t get it either, and was wondering if I’m supposed to get them.
I started tracking with an app. I wasn’t sure how to classify when I do things with my family. do you differentiate eating alone vs. eating with the family? or read alone vs. read my kids? I realised I still multi-task when I’m consciously not to, in the same that I do things that serve duel purpose (do reading and spend time with kids), how do you classify those?
@coco- so I don’t know how to do this with an app, but on my spreadsheets I will just say things like “family dinner” or “eat with kids” – partly because I’m not trying to create a pie chart with categories that are mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive. So everything doesn’t need to be categorized one way or the other.
While I know that this isn’t a political blog, I’m a little surprised that your recap. of Wednesday didn’t mention the heartbreaking events at the US Capitol? I know that our family took a lot of time to process the events & to discuss them with our kids.
I agree. I am shocked that you didn’t spend some time discussing these historic events with your middle schooler but instead had lego time with the kids
Laura, No one can be all things to all people – political , personal, etc. I can’t believe people are commenting on a lack of acknowledging all social events – good or bad. There just isn’t enough time or space for that. I appreciate what you do and the influence you are having on my life.