A Day In The Life...

...of an "almost" one year old. I wish I would have been doing this all along. Sometimes our schedule shifts and I can't remember how things were a month or two ago as far as wake up times, naps, walks, bedtime, etc. Well, thats not totally true... I will never forget the days that Tula slept till 8 or 9 am everyday, but those days have been gone for two or three months now. Ahh, those were the good old days. At any rate, here are the "here and now" stats... something for me to refer back to in a few months when I am wondering what our days were like when it was just the two of us and she was just a baby. Here goes...

6:00 am Wakey, wakey! I got get Tula and bring her to bed with me for awhile. She nurses, I catch another 15 minutes of zzz's
6:15 am Get up, throw on housecoat, change a sopping wet diaper, head downstairs for breakfast. Tula usually sits for a good 15 minutes eating Cheerios while I get my breakfast ready, hers ready, and "open up" the kitchen for the day. Or should I say "close it down" from the day before..lol. It depends.
6:30 am We eat. Me first usually, only cause I am a starving pregnant woman. She has her O's anyways and she picks at those till I am done. Then it's time for her usual breakfast, fruit (apples, pears or banana) with cereal and some milk in a sippy.
7:00 am Tula gets out of the highchair and plays with her downstairs toys while I continue to clean up breakfast and putz around the kitchen. Right now, she loves her push walker and that is usually what she chooses to do at this time.
7:30 am We head upstairs. We have a good hour (at least) till naptime so we do lots of different stuff. Play in the loft with those toys. If I am getting ready or have things to do in my room she loves to hang out in there with me and snoop around in my closet or under the bathroom sink. She likes to stand at the tub and throw anything she can find into it. She loves when we go into "Brother's" room and I usually organize in there (yes, I am nesting!) and she loves the change of scenery and looking around, playing with some of her old toys. We go into her room and play on the floor. She still loves her Fisher Price Sing Stage and usually goes over there and has a dance or two. She likes to get her groove on first thing. Most of the time, I can leave her in her room alone for awhile and check emails or do whatever for 20-30 minutes. She comes out when she is done playing alone, she checks out the house a little, and will come and find me usually after she has had her morning poop or seems sleepy.
8:30 am Usually this is naptime. We change diaper if we haven't already from morning poop. We sit in the chair and read a little while. Right now, our new book Brown Bear, Brown bear is a fav or the old faithful I Love You Through and Through. I nurse her, and she goes down, usually without a fight at all. It seems the morning nap is the sleep of the day she needs the most. It is the only time I find if she is tired and I am not in the room with her, she will almost come and get me, rubbing her eyes and awning. She seems to like going down for that nap.
8:45 am Free time for Mommy! Take a shower, hang out online, gab on the phone. All that fun stuff.
10:30 am Maybe even 11, on a good day. Tula wakes up. Usually quite happy. We hang out in her room a bit, diaper change if needed, and get her out of pj's and dressed for the day. She is almost always in PJ's till after her morning nap. She usually wants a little snack, maybe some Cheerios, to tide her over until lunch. This is usually the time we leave the house as well, if we have things that need to be done. Lots of our playdates with friends start around this time too. Usually between 11 and 2 are our "out and about"time and most days we aren't at home during these hours. I usually have a lunch packed for Tula, which at this point is just two containers or YoBaby yogurt. Um, and more Cheerios. We usually head for home around 2 or 2:30 so that Tula can have her afternoon nap in her crib.
2:30 pm Maybe 3 is naptime. Lately, because the morning naps have been longer (a good two hours) the afternoon nap is getting a little shorter. If she falls asleep in the car from where ever we had been that afternoon, she transitions well into her crib. If we are home, its a little harder to get her to settle for this nap than the morning one but she still isn't ready to ditch it so she gives in eventually. Sometimes I will have to nurse her twice. After the first time she wants to get on the floor and then when she realizes we aren't leaving the room and that it's "sleepytime" she will nurse again and snuggle me for awhile before falling asleep. She won't fall asleep while nursing anymore, but she will pick her head up and put it on my shoulder and snuggle like that. As her one year birthday approaches and I realize that all this unlimited snuggle time with her will soon be much less, I am more inclined to spend the extra 10 minutes it takes and wait till she falls asleep on me before I put her down. However, she will go down to sleep by herself, I can put her down in her crib awake and she usually won't fuss very long before she falls asleep. More free time for Mommy!
4:00 pm or 4:30 she wakes up, usually not as pleasant as she did from her morning nap. We snuggle for awhile and try fun stuff to keep her entertained till dinner. Music, anything music, usually works. I let her blow on her Kazoo, I play the harmonica, I sing, clap, whatever. This would be probably the worst part of her day. She doesn't like to be put down and doesn't like to be alone. usually, it works best just to head downstairs and let her ply in the kitchen while I get dinner ready. She loves her tupperware cabinet and that will keep her entertained for a few minutes.
5:00 pm Almost on the dot, every day, she is ready to eat. She doesn't like to wait for her dinner. Normally, I feed her sweet potatoes and then chop up something for a finger food for her to munch on (aka play with) while we are eating our dinner. She usually will sit pretty good. If I give her watermelon, we could have a 5 course meal. She would sit there eating that stuff forever. Anything else probably buys me another 30 min or so
6:00 pm John and I usually eat around this time, maybe a little earlier and are done and have the kitchen cleaned up by about 6:45
6:45 pm Nightly walk. We like to go for a walk after dinner and before bed, after it has cooled off a little outside. We used to go through the park and down around the lake to see the ducks, by the pool so Tula could see everyone swimming. She loves to watch the kids jump and splash at the pool and see the ducks swim over to her. However, that walk is getting pretty long for me and I am getting slower and slower so we usually just go get the mail and do a loop around the neighborhood. Tula loves her nightime walk and doesn't stop looking around the entire time.
7:15 pm Home from walk, Daddy takes her upstairs and gets ready for bathtime while I do whatever I feel I need to do in the kitchen for the end of the day.
7:30 pm is bathtime with Daddy. Tula's other favorite time of day. She is happiest in the tub when her Dad is bathing her, only cause that has been his job since day one. She doesn't "mind" when I do it, but you can tell she LOVES it when he does. So when he is home that's his thing.
8:00 pm Tula is bathed and brushed and diapered and all that fun stuff. Daddy usualy plays with her on our bed for a minute and this i smore of their time, but it doesn't take her long to look around for me. She is ready for bed after her bath. I take her, we say "Goodnight" to Daddy and blow kisses, we may or may not read, depending on how tired she is. She nurses and is out like a light.

I clean up the house little, tidy up the toys she left laying around, and spend time with John before he goes to bed (usually way early, around 9ish) Then I am up till 11 or 12 doing my thing, whatever that may be. I hit the pillow knowing I stayed up too late and praying she sleeps till 9, but at 6 am the next morning those little squawks start and somehow its not near as hard to wake up to as I thought it would be the night before. She is a treat to wake up to and the smile I score when I fling her bedroom door open and say "Good Morning" is worth every wink of missed sleep.

I have never been a schedule person and this is definitely not a schedule that we keep or are stuck to. However, it is a routine that I have learned makes my life a whole heck of a lot easier if I follow it as closely as possible, day by day. It changes as Tula changes, but the fact that it is still there does not. Tula loves knowing what is next and predictability, so keeping as close to this for now keeps her the happiest. And a happy baby is a happy Mommy, so I am more than willing to do my best to make it happen for her.

So that, my friends, is a day in our life. And I wouldn't change a second of it for the world!