A Day in Our Lives: Working Mom Edition

Written Thursday, May 15th.

I did a couple "A Day in Our Lives" posts back when I was first back at work and then in the summer, but I haven't done one since.  I kept thinking I needed to do one before I become a full-time stay at home mom.  That way when my memory gets hazy I can go back, read, and see what it was really like.  Now with 11 days of work left I figured it was about time I got down to it.  I planned to write a post today and remembered this morning that I had a site leadership meeting after school.  I thought about doing it a different day but thought again.  It's important to remember that there are a lot of days when I can't leave right after school.  I need to remember how hard those days are and how little time they leave me with Carter.  So here's my day in the life post being posted a day late because I wanted to get Carter's 17 month post up yesterday.

6:30 am- Ty's alarm goes off and I roll over, slip my rings on my fingers, and check the monitor.  Carter is standing in his crib playing with his mobile.  He hears the alarm and begins to cry.  Normally I wake up at 6:00 or 6:15 at the latest, but I was feeling lazy last night and turned off my alarms figuring Carter would wake me up and if not Ty's alarm would go off at 6:30 to wake me up.  I head straight into Carter's room to retrieve him even though my bladder is screaming.  I get him started on bananas and milk for breakfast as I rush to the restroom and then pack my lunch.  When he's finished with breakfast, I check the weather and then dress him for the day.  The high is in the mid-60's so I go with long sleeves and pants for him paired with his new and very favorite light up tennis shoes.

Not enjoying his monkeys on the mobile anymore.

Making his shoes light up as he walks around.

6:45 am- Ty is up and Carter hears him start the shower.  Once he's dressed he rushes into our bedroom, pushing open the door, and heading into the bathroom exclaiming "daddy" as he goes.  He loves to go into the bathroom and check on daddy in the shower.  After watching daddy for a bit and brushing our teeth we head back into the bedroom.  I get dressed while Carter plays on the bed.  Carter heads into the kitchen with daddy while I straighten my hair.  He plays with his car while Ty feeds the animals, packs his lunch, and eats breakfast.

Playing on the bed while I get dressed.

7:20 am- I head into the kitchen to find Carter mooching food from his daddy.  I make my breakfast and Ty leaves at 7:30.  Carter and I sit down with yogurt and toast with apple butter for breakfast.  I eat my breakfast as Carter eats about half my breakfast as his 2nd breakfast.  After breakfast we sit down to read a short book before we head out the door.  At 7:40 we leave for daycare and work.

Mooching food from daddy.

Eating his 2nd breakfast with me.

Reading before leaving for the day.

8:00 am- I sign Carter in at daycare and walk him to his classroom.  The teacher comes over and takes Carter from me which she rarely does.  It always makes the transition harder for me.  I prefer to hold him for a little bit while we say hello to his friends and then get him started with a toy or game before leaving.  She gets him a ball and he starts playing.  I watch him for a little bit and then turn to leave.  There's a new little boy in the room whose first day at daycare was Wednesday.  He always cries when I leave.  Today he ran after me crying so, of course, Carter ran after me crying.  I walked down the hall, looking back, repeating "11 more days" over and over in my head.

Strapped in, cuddling with Scout, and ready for daycare.

Playing with a ball at daycare.

8:20 am- I arrive at school and prepare for the day.  This week our kids have playground as their morning rotation and are excited to head out as they begin to arrive.  I have duty on Mondays so I am able to stay in my classroom and work on leveling some books a student brought from home for our classroom library.

8:45 am- The first bell rings and students begin entering the classroom.  I greet them as they arrive and they get started on their morning work.  Our morning consists of morning work, calendar, our math lesson, and math stations.  I take pictures of students during morning work and calendar for a Mother's Day present that will be going home a bit late.  At 10:25 we leave for special class which starts at 10:30 and is music today.  At 10:33 I'm back in the building and head straight to the restroom.  I must have drank more than usual this morning because I barely made it to 10:30 without a break.  I grab an orange from my lunchbox and head back to my classroom to work.  I get quite a bit done and eat my snack as I work.

11:10 am- I pick the kids up from music and we have our writing mini-lesson followed by writing time when we return.  We clean up at 11:45 and head for lunch.  Our lunch time starts at 12:00 and we have a bit of a walk to the cafeteria.  We drop the students off and then head back to our classroom to work for the first part of lunchtime.  At 12:20 my teaching partner and I head to the teacher's lounge to eat our lunch.  We are so lucky because we don't have recess duty.  At the school I taught at before moving here we had recess duty 4 days a week.

12:45 pm- We pick our students up from recess and go right into Reader's Workshop.  We begin with read to self when we enter the classroom and then go into Daily 5 rotations broken up by comprehension and phonics mini-lessons in between each rotation.  I'm working on re-leveling my students for 4th Quarter report cards using running records, so as students work at stations I read one-on-one with students at my table.  After Reader's Workshop we go into our inquiry time, researching in small groups.  Inquiry is followed by writing in our agendas and eating snacks.

3:30 pm- School is dismissed.  First grade has bus duty this week so I head out to the oval to monitor students walking to buses.  I take another restroom break, head back to my classroom to check my e-mails, and then head to the site leadership meeting that starts at 3:45 pm.

4:30 pm- Our meeting gets out early and I head straight to my classroom to pick up my purse and head out the door.  The drive to daycare seems so long and I'm anxious to see my sweet Carter boy.  I finally have Carter in my arms at 4:45.  On our way home we drive right past school and I realize I've forgotten something.  I decide to stop to pick it up and while we're there I decide to load up some materials I've packed up to bring home.

5:20 pm- We arrive home.  I change Carter's diaper and then attempt to take some 17 month pictures.  He's tired and clingy after being at daycare so I have a difficult time getting any pictures and Carter's not too pleased with the process.  At 5:30 he lays down on the ground and cries so I decide he's had enough and we head into the kitchen for dinner.  I give Carter kiwi as I get his dinner ready and Ty arrives home early at 5:40 because he's taking the day off from running.  

Making his distaste for picture taking known.

6:05 pm- Carter and I head into the living room to play while Ty straightens up the kitchen.  Carter thinks it's hilarious to pull sidewalk chalk out of the container, walk to the kitchen area, and throw the chalk onto the linoleum, breaking each piece of chalk.  He also enjoys picking my phone up, holding it up to his head, and saying, "hewo".  I brought some Hot Wheels cars home from school that I used in a math tub.  Carter has been fussing for me to open them for a while now and I finally relent.  He takes the cars and drives them on Ty's leg making driving noises.

Throwing chalk into the kitchen area.

Watching the chalk roll on the linoleum.

Saying "hewo" into the remote.

6:30 pm- I start running Carter's bath water.  We get distracted by the Hot Wheels and don't get in the tub until 6:40.  Carter has such a blast splashing and making goofy faces at me that I don't realize what time it is and don't get him out until 7:05.  I dry him off, lotion him up, put him in jammies, brush his hair, and then head out to say "night, night" to daddy who is weight lifting in the garage.

Playing with Hot Wheels before bedtime.

 

7:25 pm- I lay Carter down in bed and head into the living room to upload pictures onto the computer.  Carter begins crying and I give him a while before going back in.  He's having a rough night tonight and continues crying so I eventually give in and pick him up for a little while again.  He finally lays down and falls asleep at 7:45.  I head back into the living room to work on uploading pictures and then typing this post.  We are traveling this weekend so Ty and I need to pack, but we're both tired so we end up just vegging out on the couch.  We head for bed a little after 10:40.