I should have written this last week. I was out running errands or meeting people every day of the week. Mind you, our social calendar for nights is crazy too. We’re’ busy almost every night of the week again. Wasn’t having a kid supposed to cure this? Anyway… more like what I did today… and by today, I mean the time I’m home alone with Alex.
- Alex takes up a lot of time:
- 2 feedings today so far. Sometimes he goes for as many as 4 or 5. Each one takes a few minutes of prep time (bottle, bib, ‘burp’ cloth). Then it takes him anywhere from 10 minutes to a ½ hour for him to actually eat. Then there’s burping and clean up. Sometimes bottle washing takes time.
- Changing him. About 6 times a day.
- Emptied the diaper champ.
- Moving him around accounts for small slices of time here and there.
- Minor interventions to keep him in a mood where he can self-entertain also takes up time here and there. It also means that normal tasks that I try to do around the house take 50% to 100% longer as he interrupts me in various ways.
- Play time where I read to him, talk to him, dance with him, sing to him, play with him, help him stand, help him sit, dangle toys near him, etc.
- Organize supper with friends.
- Plan walking route to resto tonight for a friend’s BDay.
- Actually walking to the resto will take about an hour or so. Prep time… getting his diaper bag, milk, toys, getting him dressed and into his car seat also eats up some time.
- 2 loads of grown-up laundry (will fold them later tonight or tomorrow).
- Fold 1 load of kid laundry.
- Put plastic pallets into basement while he’s napping. Shuffle around some of our belongings in the basement.
- Make 4 mason jars of lamb/veal pasta sauce.
- Make habanero roasted almonds. Make habanero roasted chocolate almonds.
- Shower. Getting this done during the day is a bigger deal than you’d expect. Cut my hair.
- Get pictures off digital camera. Charge camera battery.
- Reply to various email. Read various news.
- Run dishwasher. Do dishes.
- Tidy house.
- Run Drano through the bathroom sink for the 2nd time.
- Grind coffee.
This was mostly an indoor day. Outdoor days are different in that a lot of time is taken up by walking around… between 2 to 4 hours. Car errand days are more involved these days since lugging the car seat around slows one down more than I’d've imagined.
Impressive! When I used to stay home, I didn’t get anywhere close to that much done. Just getting supper perhaps ready was an exploit in itself :)