A Day in the Life Of…

As I’ve been on maternity leave, it truly does amaze me how quickly time is passing. I want to bottle it all up and hoard it. It’s a bit frightening how fast my days go, and I thought I’d share with you a play-by-play of my mornings.

4:00 a.m. Grunting and bleating sounds emerge from the baby monitor. Time to feed the sheep newborn son.

4:45 a.m. Stagger back into bed, savoring the flannel sheets of my own bed and praying to God I can get a few more minutes of sleep.

5:15 a.m. Get up with the hubby, wake my daughter and get her dressed for daycare. Pray that the newborn stays down in his crib a bit longer. Feed daughter and husband breakfast while contemplating whether Coke and Hershey’s nuggets would constitute an appropriate breakfast for myself.

5:45 a.m. My son wakes up and comes downstairs to join the crew. Newborn wakes up and wants a second feeding.

6:00 a.m. Feed newborn while simultaneously directing my son to get his own breakfast, kissing my daughter goodbye while realizing that I haven’t combed her hair and she looks like Alfalfa. She has her coat hood pulled up, so I decide to blame it on hat head. Husband and daughter leave while I continue nursing the newborn.

6:30-7:30 a.m. Help my son finish his homework from the night before (cutting out five pictures that start with the letter P, glue them down, and then compose five sentences with P words. Inform the kindergartener that “pee” and “poop” are not appropriate P words for his homework, even as I change the newborn’s diaper.) Realize that I still have not showered or gotten dressed.

8:15 a.m. The kindergartener gets on the bus for school and newborn decides he wants to nurse. Again. I ponder why there is nothing on television except for home shopping and aerobics shows. Ha. Like I’m going to begin working out (she says, as she dives into the bag of M&Ms).

8:30 a.m. Finally discover an old showing of the Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington movie “Glory.” Continue nursing the newborn while sobbing like a moron over the inequities that occurred during the Civil War. Change the newborn’s diapers again. Debate on whether I would be a candidate for bad motherhood if I simply rip off the umbilical stump that’s hanging by a thread and looks like a mummified raisin. Yep. Probably Child Services would come after me.

9:30 a.m. While the baby settles down for a nap, I open up my manuscript file and begin editing. As luck would have it, the chapter I’m working on involves some very detailed sexual tension between the hero and heroine. Start muttering to myself that the sexiest man in the world would gain some serious brownie points by letting the heroine sleep for eight hours straight in a soft bed with flannel sheets and tranquilizers.

10:00 a.m. The baby wants to nurse again. Again, nothing on tv except talk shows, news programs, and children’s shows. Am beginning to feel like a heifer after all this nursing. Just call me Bessie. Change the baby’s diaper again.

11:00 a.m. The husband comes home for lunch and wonders what I’ve been doing all morning. Hysterical laughter on my part. He gets a canned tuna fish sandwich.

So, that’s my basic morning routine. The afternoon isn’t much better, sadly. I should probably do some online Christmas shopping, but I’ve been like the proverbial ostrich, hiding my head in the sand. Have you begun your shopping? Do you shop online or do you prefer going to the stores?