A Day in the Life With a Toddler and a Newborn

1204: I’m startled awake and for half a second I can’t figure out why. Then I realize what’s up: Julia (my oldest) is coughing…a lot, and I hear it through the monitor. She started coughing when we put her down, so I can only guess that it’s been happening all night. I got up and put some Vicks on her back and feet, and wished I bought my essential oils kit earlier (I just purchased it a few hours earlier).

0111: Maddie woke up to eat. On the bright side, I didn’t hear any coughing from her sister, so the Vicks rub must have worked. (side note: I laughed later when I saw the picture I took—instead of taking a picture, I took a screenshot. Clearly it was too early to think!)

03-something: I’m up again to feed the baby. I’m pretty sure she’s going through a growth spurt, because she’s been sleeping at least 4-hour stretches at night, but tonight she’s barely making it two hours between feeds. #yawn.

0530: She’s up again and I fed her while kissing my husband bye—he’s going into work early today, and it’ll be a late day for him. I love these days (#sarcasm). I toyed with the idea of going back to sleep, but instead put the baby back down so she could sleep some more while I caught up online, read the news, and enjoyed a cup of coffee. Me time for the win.

0700: And she’s up again. The last time she ate I let her lounge/sleep in our bed while I sat on the glider a few feet away. Time for another feed and to move into the living room.

0800: Julia’s starting to stir in her crib, so I quickly made breakfast for myself and ate it, enjoying a few more minutes of peace. Good Morning America is on (confession: I love watching this, because some days it’s the only adult “conversation” I have), but once she gets up the station will change to PBS for some Curious George or Daniel Tiger.

0845: I take a deep breath as I enter her room and I say a quick prayer that she woke up on the right side of her crib. “Mama pretty, hi,” is the answer I get as the door inches open. I let out my breath and tell her good morning. Goodness, I love her. I do as I usually do and open her curtains to let some light in, and I try to be sneaky as I take a photo of her (for blogging purposes, of course). She’s onto me, though, and starts begging for the camera so she could take pictures of her “socks” and her “friends.” She took about 20 pictures, but a few of them were actually decent. 

0900: She went potty and insisted that she wear her jammies all day today instead of clothes. We compromised (I hope) by me telling her she can wear her jammies during breakfast. She agreed…for now. Breakfast today is some peach yogurt, and it actually ended up in her belly instead of on her clothes or on her chair! We missed Curious George, so now we’re watching Paw Patrol followed by Super Why. I took this opportunity to gather the girls’ dirty clothes and start yet another load of laundry.

1000: While Maddie had her second breakfast, I put music on for Julia. She calls it “Julia music,” which is just adorable. To my surprise, she grabbed a book and sat down next to her chair and read while I fed her sister. If only every feeding/morning was this serene…

1015: I managed to get Julia out of her jammies and into real clothes—she
totally looks like a tomboy today, especially since she refused to wear a headband with a bow or flower in it. Oh well; you win some and lose some. Julia also picked out Maddie’s
outfit, so that was neat.

1045: I don’t know how it happened, but we somehow made it out of the house in thirty minutes, and we weren’t even really rushing. We’re on our way to story time at the library.

1115: This is our first time here and I’m shocked by how many kids are here for story time. Julia went up to every kid she saw and said, “friend!” Some of them (the older ones) looked at her like she was crazy. Nope, not crazy; just friendly. Story time was nice—the woman reading the books was great, and they had music and dancing. We’ll definitely be back.

1145: Our morning wouldn’t be complete without an epic meltdown from the toddler. I ended up being that mom who was literally pulling her child out of the library with one arm while she sat on the floor, and I had Maddie in her car seat on my other arm. Why was she upset? Because I wouldn’t let her jump off a chair like her “friend” (an older girl) was doing. I wish parents would be considerate of other little kids around and realize what an example their child is making for the younger kids. Grrr. It’s times like those that I wish I had more patience with her.

Noon: We were going to make lunch at home, but I had zero patience for that, so Chick-Fil-A beat out leftover fajitas. It was my first time trying their frozen lemonade and oh my word, it was delicious and totally hit the spot for the drive back to the house. It took away my all of my worry and cares for about five minutes…until we got home.

1230: The toddler decided she didn’t want chicken, like she had been saying on repeat since we left the library. Of course not. Now, once we were home, she wanted oatmeal and the world was about to end if she didn’t get it right that very minute. I picked my battle and decided to lose…again: oatmeal for lunch it is. 

1300: I dreaded telling her that it was nap time, but she was surprisingly okay with it. She picked out a Sophia “big girl diaper,” went potty on her own, and was okay with heading to bed. She tucked her friends in next to her and told me, “bye-bye see ya soon, Mama.” I love the days when she goes down easily.

1330: She’s still awake; I can hear her chatting away through the monitor. I’m totally okay with her still being awake, so long as she plays quietly. Oh. Heh. The Little Mermaid is still playing on TV; I forgot to turn it off when I put her down. I should probably take a nap now, but instead I’m typing…

1500: It turns out that I took a little nap with Maddie. I love this part of the afternoon when I can just sit and snuggle with her in silence. I know these moments won’t last forever, so I’m taking full advantage of them now. These are also some of my favorite pictures from the day; I’m trying to be more intentional about taking pictures with Madilyn since life can get hectic. I don’t want her to feel too left out since she’s the second child.

1530: I fed her some more, gave her a quick change, and then we had some tummy time. Yup, “we,” because I totally got down there on the floor with her.

1600: Julia’s been up for a little while, but she’s been fine and dandy in her crib. Until now. Her pleas for “mama” are getting louder, so Maddie and I went in to get her up and we all hung out in their room for a little while.

1630: Time to start prepping dinner so that I’m not too busy later. While I chopped up some broccoli, Julia entertained herself (thank goodness), and even “played” with the baby a little bit. I love it when she’s like this! She took her balloon* over to Maddie (who LOVES staring at it), and even gave her one of her purses to “play” with. I love it when Julia’s like this. She has such a kind heart and loves to play. Thankfully, I can keep an eye on both of them while I’m in the kitchen. *Don’t worry—when that balloon is near the baby I’m constantly watching it.

1700: Dinner’s prepped, and now we’re just waiting for Papa to come home. I got a text from him about 15 minutes earlier saying that his plane landed, that he finish his debrief, and that he’d be home soon.

1730: Still waiting for him. Turns out he didn’t leave when he said he would. I’m trying really hard to keep my cool, but I really look forward to when he comes home, and Julia’s been staring out the window for him for the past 30 minutes. I try to distract her by giving her a snack.

1740: The goldfish worked! She lined them up and counted them as she put them in their place.

1745: He’s home!!! I was feeding Maddie (again), so he took the opportunity to change out of his uniform. Then he literally took her off my hands and changed her diaper. I won’t ever turn down his offer to change a diaper!

1800: We usually eat dinner earlier, but things got pushed back tonight. Dinner was super easy: a frozen PF Changs meal with some additional fresh broccoli and homemade (frozen) fried rice.

1900: TUB TIME!!! This is probably Julia’s favorite thing in the whole entire world. I love listening to her giggles from the other room, but this time I headed in there for a quick picture.

1930: Bed time for Julia. My husband does bed time, but I was along for the beginning of the ride while she got into her jammies. Before she goes to bed she gives me and her sister a hug and a kiss, then she and her Papa read stories and sing a few songs. Since everything was pushed back tonight, though, they skipped the books. Surprisingly, she didn’t complain and actually went down fairly easy.

2000: Time for us to unwind. I rented a movie from Redbox, so we popped it in and spent the next two hours escaping into a Disney movie. We somehow timed it out right so that I fed Maddie just before it ended, and we put her in her bassinet in our room.

2200: By the time it ended, I could barely keep my eyes open. We closed and locked up house, slipped into our own jammies, gave each other a kiss, and called it a night.

Yup, I’m definitely going to do this a few times this year, because I love seeing what our normal every day life is like. Does this resemble your day at all?