[A Day in the Life] Working Mom : The 8am Shift

Thursday, May 15, 2014

I did a [A Day in the Life] Weekend Edition post a couple months ago, but I thought it would be nice to document what our weekdays are like. Last week I documented what working an 11am-7:30pm shift was like, but today I am documenting the 8am-4:30pm shift.

My schedule this semester (I work at a school) usually goes something like this :

Monday : 11:00am-7:30pm
Tuesday : 8:00am-4:30pm
Wednesday : 8:00am-4:30pm
Thursday : 7:00am-3:30pm
Friday : 7:00am-3:30pm



Friday's aren't as bad even though I work at the same time as I do on Thursday because Seth works only every other Friday (his schedule is Monday-Thursday (every week) 7:00am-5:00pm and every other Friday 8:00am-5:00pm and the other Friday off). Obviously, the Friday's that he's home are the best. I get myself up and ready and out the door by 6:30am and don't need to worry about what kind of schedule Mason is on that day since Seth will be home with him all day. And the Friday's that he does work, he works at 8:00am so that gives him the flexibility that I normally have on my 8:00am days, so again, I kinda just need to worry about myself.

Here is a day in the life of a working mom working 8am-4:30pm.
{Warning : this will be long and wordy... and sorry for the lack of pictures in the middle. I kinda forgot to keep taking pictures once I got to work lol}

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The date is Wednesday, May 7, 2014. Mason is 21 months old. Seth is 32 years old. I am 29 years old.

5:00am - my alarm goes off. I think "no way, no how". I had a rough day yesterday and could totally use about 9 more hours of sleep, but decide the 9 extra minutes will do. Hit snooze.

5:09am - My snooze alarm goes off. I still think "no way" and hit snooze again.

5:18am - My snooze alarm goes off again. I still have no desire to get up but know I have to or I will make Seth super late for work. I turn off my alarm, check Instagram real fast (priorities), and then get up to go put in my contacts, brush my teeth, and take a shower.

5:43am - Out of shower and head back to my room. I wonder how I took a show so fast when I thought I was running late.

6:07am - Done getting ready and head downstairs.

6:12am - Mason starts moving around in his crib and whining. I go upstairs to get him and am greeted with a happy, smiley baby. That's a surprise since a couple minutes ago he was crying. I pick him up out of his crib and lay him on the changing table to change him. The only way we can keep him from squirming these days is to give him a book. This morning I had to find one from his book shelf since he had dropped all five books we had behind the changing table.


6:22am - Done getting Mason ready. I let him close the closet (he has two doors that open and he is obsessed with opening and closing them). We head downstairs. Seth got Mason's milk ready and put some Cheerios on his high chair tray and put a waffle in the toaster. I turn on Mickey to avoid a meltdown.

6:25am - I make myself some breakfast - Frosted Mini Wheats with strawberries and milk - grab a yogurt for Mason and sit down next to him to eat.

6:37am - Seth leaves.

6:40am - I start getting Mason's and my lunch together and put into our lunch boxes. I grab some last minute items that I didn't get ready the night before.

6:44am - Done preparing lunches. I check my email real fast and send off an email response to someone. I make sure Mason is ok and run upstairs real fast to change out of my pj shorts and into my work pants.

6:50am - Head back downstairs and grab Mason's shoes and socks and put them on him. Everything takes two times as long since Mason likes to "help" me do this. I put his jacket on, grab all my stuff, and we head out the door. When we get to the car, I put Mason down and tell him to stay there while I put the stuff in the front seat. He, of course, doesn't listen and starts to run away. I grab him and tell him he can't run away where they are cars that could hurt him. He looks at me confused and like he'd rather be playing than listening to me. I put him in the car and we leave.

7:14am - Arrive to daycare. He shows me the Mater toy he has been playing with during our whole ride there. I leave it in the car, steal a selfie with my little love, and we head on in to daycare.




7:27am - Talked for a little bit and now leaving and on my way to work.

7:47am - I park in the parking lot and see a text from my opener saying that my text person didn't show up. Also didn't call. I head inside and figure out how to make the morning work when I get a call saying that my text person will be there soon, he's just running late. I get it covered until he gets there so I can check my emails and work on getting things ready for the temporary employees to come back the next week to help train for buyback.

8:15am - 10:00am - Respond to various emails, get asked various questions, and do a lot of everything.


10:00am-11:30am - Student Services Manager's Meeting.

12:00pm-12:30pm - Lunch

12:30pm-4:30pm - Basic work stuff. (Also as I'm typing this up, realize that I forgot to take notes during the day and can now not remember what I was doing when. The fact that I didn't take notes must mean that I was really busy! Right?)

4:44pm - Leave work and check the traffic. Red. Not good. Decide to chance it anyway.


5:15pm - Arrive home. Traffic wasn't as bad as I thought. Get the mail, change out of my work clothes into pj's, and get some water. Turn on the computer and check bloglovin.

5:34pm - Text Seth to see if he needs me to do anything to the chicken or corn for dinner. I expect him to say something like "yeah, take the chicken out of the fridge and put it on the counter" but instead he says "put the chicken in a ziplock bag with some olive oil and pesto". Umm? I'm sorry, what? How much is some? Remember, I'm your wife who does the BAKING, not the COOKING. I work in exact measurements. So, I do what anyone else would do, I guess. Hopefully that's what he wanted! (Also, side note : I HATE raw chicken and would have preferred not to touch it, but I was feeling generous lol)

5:45pm - Hear Seth and Mason coming to the door and go check it out. Mason's busts open the door and runs towards me for a hug. But then...psych. He turns around right when he gets to me and I get no hug. His new favorite thing.


6:19 - Seth starts BBQing our dinner of chicken, corn on the cob, and fries. Mason starts to get a little whiny so I know I am going to need to make him something for dinner before ours is ready. I make him chicken nuggets, grapes, edamame, and a pickle. When it's ready, I plan to give hime some of the  corn on the cob and a couple fries from our dinner.

6:20pm - Mason realizes that Seth is outside and now wants to go outside. I guess he's forgotten that he's hungry. We normally like him to stay inside, far away from the BBQ, but I decide to say yes this night and just tell Seth to keep a close watch on Mason.



6:35pm - Mason wants in. Or so we think. Seth opens the door to let him in and he walks away. I ask him if he's hungry and he walks towards me. Seth tells him to shut the door and he does. I put him in his high chair to eat and he grabs the pickle first and takes a huge bite out of it.

6:36pm - Mason has finished his pickle. Literally one minute later. And he seems uninterested in the other food. I think could have just given him a dinner of pickles and he probably would have been happy as can be.
Then all of a sudden Mason starts crying. I have no idea what's wrong because he was fine two seconds ago. I pick him up and ask if he hurt his hand or bit his tongue and he cries and moves around like he wants down. I put him down and he walks over to his Cars table, stops crying and picks up a train. I think to myself "that kid just pulled a fast one on me." He picks up his VTech Smart Wheels helicopter, brings it to me and signs "please" for me to turn it on. I tell him no and put him back in his high chair to finish eating. Cue the tears again and spitting out food.

6:42pm - Seth comes in with the corn on the cob and cuts one in half for Mason. And as you can see, I think we have found a new favorite food. Seth cuts up some tomatoes, gives them to Mason, he eats them all. He puts some fries on his tray, he eats those. Only thing left is chicken. He spits out every piece of chicken I put in his mouth. I put the chicken pieces on my fork and tell Mason he can use Mommy's fork and it works...temporarily.


7:03pm - I notice Jeopardy is on now so I turn the tv on and Mason is interested immediately. We play and watch Jeopardy and the Wheel of Fortune.

8:00pm - Mason's bed time. We head upstairs (with a few tears shed) and I brush his teeth and Seth reads him two stories.

8:16pm - I head back downstairs and start typing the rest of this post and check bloglovin real fast.

9:12pm - Hit publish on my post and start making pasta salad.


9:54pm - Done making pasta salad (and now thinking how did that take me so long??) and Mason's lunch and sit down to look at the Stella and Dot catalog that my friend sent me for my online trunk show on May 22nd.

Mason's lunch

veggie crunchies // cut up grapes // cheerios with blueberries
turkey with olives and edamame // avocado // cheese stick // apple sauce pouch



10:20pm - Fall asleep on the couch. Good night!








6 comments:

  1. you work at a university book store?! I knew I liked you! Are you under student affairs or auxiliary services? I worked in student affairs for 11 years before Callie (mostly housing)! and wow your day sounds totally exhausting! Way to make a super healthy dinner in all that's craziness!

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  2. I love these posts, it's always so fun seeing how people run their days :)

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  3. I would have such a hard time waking up before Noah lol. Maybe that's because he's not (which means I'm not) sleeping through the night! And what a yummy lunch for Mason... I'm loving the variety!

    by the way, I nominated you for a Liebster award. Check it out http://themeghanandchrisstory.blogspot.com/2014/05/liebster-award.html

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  4. I love these day in the life posts. I actually documented our whole day last week (one day after yours!) and plan on blogging about it next week. It takes forever to write one of these posts!

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  5. Yea!! Love these posts. The pictures of Mason running in the door are adorable!! How do you buy your edamame (like just loose or in pods)? That's a good idea for the little ones, I might need to try that - looks like a great lunch!! :)

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  6. I'm impressed you are doing multiple ones! I'm tired just thinking about the effort ha. And, that wake up time. I'm a zombie at 7:45. How does your avacado not turn black by the next day?

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