A Day in the Life

I have loved reading about all of your daily routines (daaamn, some of you ladies manage to pack a LOT into your day – color me impressed!), so I am writing out my own, even though it is so not that interesting. And even though it will memorialize my shocking laziness. Here's my (very lengthy!) Tuesday:

5:20 am: Mark’s alarm sounds for the first time and he does not respond. Wiggle close enough to kick him until he gets up to hit snooze. He returns to the bed and groggily greets the fetus with a pat. Repeat every nine minutes until he staggers toward the bathroom.

6:10 am: Mark turns on the lights, kisses me goodbye, and attempts to make sure I am actually conscious, as I have to take my mom to the airport this morning. I blearily mumble my usual goodbye: “Love you. Nice day. Lunch.” (He will still forget to take his lunch.)

6:20 am: I reluctantly drag my sorry carcass from the sheets and stumble to the bathroom where I shower, brush teeth, and fix the hair and makeup, etc. It’s an off day for hair washing, so the routine is speedier than on washing days. (This is all set to change, however, as I am getting my hair chopped off tomorrow. HOORAY!! I haven’t had it cut since August and it needs it desperately.)

6:40 am: Head to the closet to get dressed, stopping by the dresser for a hit of perfume. I am already pantyhosed and beskirted when I realize that the cardigan I normally wear with this skirt is in the wash. I grab another black top that I know will make me crazy all day long because the neckline is too big to wear without a scarf and I have no scarf to wear with this skirt. C’est la vie – it’s too late to look for something else.

(I definitely spent all damn day futzing with the neckline o’ regret.)

6:45 am: Make the bed, open the blinds, and head downstairs where Mom is waiting for me. Grab lunch bag and start throwing in snacks – a cheese stick, 2 clementines, a yogurt. I normally make a half sandwich for lunch also, but Mom made Italian wedding soup last night (mmm), so I scoop some into a jar instead. Spoons and a napkin complete the bag. I forego making my usual breakfast for the car (2 eggo waffles, toasted with butter, and a half-caff latte) since I am heading out early and will have time to stop at Starbucks.

6:55 am: Mom and I gather our stuff. I set the alarm and we head into the garage to load the car. It is shockingly chilly again and the sky looks like snow is coming; the unbelievably gorgeous weekend we had was such a tease. Into the traffic we go.

7:20 am: I drop Mom at the airport for her 8:30 flight home. She says more of a goodbye to my belly than to me. (The grandparents are kind of beside themselves with excitement. It’s pretty cute.)

7:25 am: I head back out into the traffic in the opposite direction to head to the office. My commute requires driving a particularly nasty stretch of the DC Beltway, and today is no exception. I gladly fork over the dollars to use the express lanes (toll road) and zip past the parking lot that is the main lanes.

7:55 am: Stop off at Starbucks on my way in for a latte and a cinnamon scone. Lovely treat.

8:10 am: Arrive at the office. Gather my work bag, lunch bag, purse, water bottle, and breakfast and schlep it all through the parking lot and into the building. Chat with coworker in the elevator and on the way to our desks.

8:15 am: Start up the computer and head to the galley kitchen to put away my lunch bag. Stop to chat with coworker on the way back. She was out of the office last week and apparently the belly has gotten a lot bigger in that timeframe. We chat about the baby, her upcoming wedding, and the conference that most of my team attended last week while I held down the fort in the office.

8:30 am: Get to work. Check emails, read daily listservs, sort through some researchy tasks, and make my list of what needs to be done for the day.

9:00 am: Check on Mom’s flight via FlightAware. I am a crazy person and do not care for having my loved ones 30,000 feet above the earth in a metal tube, therefore I track their flight’s progress, keeping them aloft with my mind. It’s exhausting, as you might imagine. (I kid, but yes, I like the little altitude graph that assures me that my mommy has not plummeted into Long Island Sound.)

9:54 am: Receive text that Mom has landed safely in Boston.

12:50 pm: Emailing with Mark. He really wants to host a March Madness/Basement Warming party, but we are split on dates. We leave for vacation on Saturday, returning the following weekend, then we have friends visiting the weekend after that. He still has some finishing touches to complete in the basement, so I am of the opinion that we need a weekend to prepare before having a party; he is more concerned with the basketball schedule and the abundance of games that first weekend. I am also stressing about getting the baby’s room together, but I could be just a tad irrational on that topic, seeing as we have a good 12+ weeks to go (I hope, knock wood, etc.). We shall see….

1:05 pm: Head to the kitchen to heat up lunch. Chat with coworkers while soup heats up. Head back to my desk. Soup is delicious, but yogurt was very liquidy and possibly curdled? Ugh, definitely not eating it. Have cheese stick and clementines instead. Check the news while eating.

1:45 pm: Heeeeartbuuuuuurn. (Daaamn, baby, cut Mama's digestive tract some slack!) Root through purse for Zantac.

2:55 pm: Chin dives are FIERCE today. I am struggling to keep my very red eyes open. Decide that this calls for caffeine and chocolate. Head to the break room, where I also put my soup bowl and yesterday’s mug in the dishwasher. Conveniently, some coworkers are brewing a fresh pot of coffee. I select “Grandma’s Chocolate Brownie Cookies” from the vending machine, which shorts me $.10. (These cookies? They were made by Frito Lay, not anyone's Grandma, and I am pretty sure my Grandma has never made cookies which had shortening and HFCS within the top four ingredients. UGH, desperate times.) Fill up with coffee when the pot is full and head back to my desk.

3:05 pm: Encounter coworker in the hallway on my way back who had just been down to my office to see me. She comes in to chat about an interesting new potential client. There are some questionable regulatory issues happening, so I ask her to set up a conference call on Thursday morning, which gives me some time for research. To the FDA regs I go…

4:22 pm: Mark emails to see if I am still planning to head out before 5 since I was in early. I am hoping so, because while the coffee helped, I am still wiped from the very fun weekend. I mention stopping at Old Navy to look for summery maternity clothes on my way home, seeing as I have none and we are leaving on Saturday. (Here’s hoping my cache of Lands End Fit and Flare dresses will be as forgiving to the six months of baby attached to my person as they were to the severe post-egg retrieval bloat. Mental note to try them on tonight.) Mom gave me a gift card to Motherhood Maternity for Valentine’s Day, which is earmarked for a bathing suit. Looks like I’ll have to stop there on Thursday, leaving Friday open for a mani/pedi and packing. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

4:48 pm: Note that my liquid intake has been less than ideal today – two coffees and one water bottle does not sufficient hydration make, at least not when I am trying to ward off the scary cramping. Will have to step it up tonight.

5:02 pm: Begin fighting with archaic phone system in order to forward my phone for telework day. It keeps saying that my cell is a non-working number. The hell it is, you effing piece of crap. Decide to cross fingers, as no one ever calls anyway, and pack up. Stop by the bathroom on the way out because, well, pregnant + 30 mile commute. 

5:20 pm: Stop by Old Navy to check out potential options for vacation clothing. Store claims to carry maternity line; store lies. Moving on!

5:35 pm: Decide to try popping by Destination Maternity around the corner from Old Navy if I can find parking. Luck out with street parking and take it as a siiiign. Not much luck with actual clothes (come oooon, Fit & Flares!), but I find the bathing suit I had been eyeballing online in my size and it's not horrible. Put it on hold and plan to come back with gift card from Mom. 

6:10 pm: Return home, fall head first into bag of chips husband purchased (I never, never buy junk food for precisely this reason). Find husband in the basement, putting some finishing touches on the bar. Screw around chatting for a bit, half watching an episode of Ken Burns: Baseball. Laugh when Mark says he cried a little when they talked about the Sox winning in '04. I love nothing more than watching the 30 for 30: Four Days in October with him; it's his "Steel Magnolias." 

6:45 pm: Head upstairs to find my jammies and start some laundry. Remember I have to try on the Fit & Flares. They are slightly awkward, but I can make it work. WOO. Another LE dress fits as well. I also have high hopes for the flared skirts with the fold-over waist bands. Now to find t-shirts...

7:00 pm: Head downstairs to make dinner, completely forgetting to start the laundry. (Crap.) We're making sandwiches with the leftover tenderloin roast from Saturday night's dinner. Heat oven #1 for the baguette and oven #2 for the beef. Slice up the beef and throw it on a small sheet pan to reheat, shove all of the food in the ovens. Mark sets the table. When the food is heated, I cut the baguette in two and slather the insides with this amazing creamy dijon horseradish sauce we found at Whole Foods and stuff the sandwiches with the beef and some arugula. Root through the fridge for leftover roasted veggies and call it dinner. 

7:50 pm: Mark loads the dishwasher while I make him a lunch sandwich with the leftovers and wipe down the table and counters. Now? Now it is basement time -- cozy man chairs, a comfy quilt, and House of Cards. I refill my water bottle and we head downstairs. 

9:50 pm: Mark turns into a pumpkin at 10 and I'm too exhausted from the weekend to try to con him into another episode. We tidy up the room and head upstairs to bed. I stop off in the kitchen for my meds (Phenergan: Don't leave home without it!), turn on the alarm, and continue up to bed. I turn on the fan, forage for my vitamins, and set up the iPad and headphones. (Ohhh, the bedtime tv battle we used to have -- I need something to focus on so I can turn off my brain and sleep, he needs quiet darkness. The iPad arrangement has saved me yeeears in prison for Mark's murder.) Mark helps me roll into bed (the SPD pain is getting much better, but getting into bed is still hurty; it helps to have him swing my feet in rather than to go leg by leg) and we're both out within minutes of our heads hitting the pillows. Zzzz...

And then we do roughly the same thing again the next day. I had no idea "Groundhog Day" was so true to life. ;)