A day in our life--Lazy Sunday

7:55 AM - I awaken, to the pleasant squeals and giggles of Taylor through the baby monitor. I ask John if he's listening. He smiles and says "oh, yeah, I hear her". We lounge in bed together enjoying her happy squeals for awhile.

8:25 AM -- I decide as blissful as it is to just lay there and listen to her continue to squeal happily, I'm not going back to sleep and there are things to be done, so I better get up. I walk to the kitchen to feed the dogs and cats, noting on my way that the Christmas tree which we assembled yesterday is still in tact and hasn't been destroyed by one of our animals. I call Grammie so she can listen to Taylor squealing in her crib but she's not home.

8:30 AM -- Feeding time at the zoo is over. I go into to greet my precious girl. No matter how much she's been up the night before and no matter how much or how little energy I have when I get out of bed, when I open her bedroom door I feel totally rejuvenated. She gasps with anticipation as she hears me open the door. When I peek over her crib she kicks her little legs with excitement and a huge smile spreads acroos her face and she begins to giggle. Everyday, these are the best 15 seconds of my day. I then ask her the same questions that I do every morning " Are you ready to start your day?" The response is more smiles and kicks. I pick her up and get the first hug of the day - another favorite part of my day. I change her diaper as she tells me about the sweet dreams she had last night after which she spends a few minutes nursing.

8:45AM - Time for cereal...we just started feeding her solids regularly and she's really starting to like it. This morning it's rice cereal mixed with heated apple sauce - yum! She happily eats almost all of it.

9:00AM - After cleaning her up I put her down on her play mat for a minute in the living room. I notice that the toys weren't picked up the night before and scan the room for her "car seat toy" her favorite toy that's curly and has soft toys and teethers on it. I don't see it and head to the kitchen to make coffee and unload the dishwasher.

9:15AM - Back in Taylor's room to get her dressed for the day. I open the blinds, and I see her car seat toy laying in the dog yard. I get Taylor dressed and take her in to Daddy while I head out to assess the damage. I retrieve the toy which our dog Magic has chewed off all the teethers and opened the soft toys leaving there stuffing exposed. I brign the toy in and show John. Taylor smiles at the sight of it and I have to throw it in the trash. I immediately go to the computer and look up the manufacturer's website. Grammie bought the toy in Canada and I've never seen it here. I e-mailed Grammie the website and toy description, then Taylor and I called Grammie and asked her to see if she could replace the toy. After a brief lecture about putting toys away she agreed to try to find another one.

10:00AM - After some serious playtime and some cartoons, Taylor was ready for a nap. I changed her diaper nursed her and put her in her crib. She was awake but welcomed the quiet time. I gave her a blanket and of course her tiger to cuddle and turned on her mobile. Within minutes she was off in dreamland, allowing me time to update my address book to send Christmas cards and catch up on some e-mail.

10:45AM -- Taylor's still asleep, I decide to catch a few minutes of "alone" time with John, who was still snoozing.

10:55AM -- Taylor wakes up. We can tell, of course by the squeals of excitement coming from her room. I tell John, I'll get breakfast/brunch ready if he gets Taylor up.

11:10 AM -- I'm not doing a very good job on the hashbrowns and Taylor's fussing. John takes over brunch and I nurse Taylor.

11:30 AM - eating brunch -- meal time is so much more pleasant now that Taylor sits in her high chair while we eat. John and I discuss our biggest (and maybe only) parenting challenge right now- getting Taylor to sleep longer at night and how we (John) can have more patience with her and ourselves during the night. John self-admittedly has very little patience. During the night he will try somehting to hel soothe her and if she's not asleep within a minute he is very frustrated with himself that what he is doing isn't working.

12:00 - We discuss the Christmas photo shoot. We quickly agree on how to set it up and we arrange the "set". I get Taylor dressed in her adorable Christmas outifit and we snap about 25 photos so we can get "the perfect shot".

1:00PM. Taylor is tired, nap time again. Same routine, we nurse, lay down in the crib cuddle tiger, get the blanket and turn on the mobile and within minutes she's happily dreaming. Mommy spends this time taking a bath and catching up on some laundry while Daddy studies for his contractor's liscense test which is on Tuesday. We realize that our Laker tickets still haven't sold on-line so we begin calling some people we know to see if they want to buy them. No takers. We're not going to the game ourselves because John needs the time to study. I address some of the envelopes for our Christmas cards while he studies and watches football.

2:56PM - Taylor is still asleep...I go in to check on her and once again think she is the cutest thing in the whole wide world. John gets the camera and snaps a few photos of our sleeping beauty.

3:15PM - John uploads the Christmas card photos and we decide which one is our favorite and design our card.

3:55PM- Just as I'm hoping Taylor wakes up soon, we hear her experimenting with her voice again.

4:00PM - Nursing again. After a few minutes of that she tries bananas for the first time. She loves them.

4:10PM-- More playing while Mommy and Daddy catch up on some TV shows that have been recorded. We see George (our cat) and realize he hasn't had his antibiotics yet today. He has an infection from a bite he got when we were in Canada in July and it's been a mission to get rid of it. He was back at the vet twice last week so, as if we don't have enough going on, we have to give him meds 2x/day for the next month.

4:15PM--I'm starving. I decide to make turkey salad sandwiches but soon realize we have no mayo. I make a plate of Thanksgiving Dinner leftovers instead and enjoy it while we continue watching TV.

6:00PM-- The Lakers pre-game show begins. Taylor is now sitting beside Daddy on the couch. She loves watching sports on TV. I catch the two of them exchanging smiles and a touching father-daughter moment that brings a tear to John's eye. This, of course, causes me to go over and hug him and now the three of us are on the couch cuddling -- where is someone with the camera?

6:45PM - not a good start for the Lakers...I fold some laundry while John continues studying and we watch the game.

7:20PM - Taylor is fussing and acting tired. Bath time. She loves her bath. Even though I don't think she's ready for bed I'll let her have an extra long bath and play in the tub. I might as well make the most of it and I grab a basket of her laundry so she'll have clean clothes to wear tomorrow and John won't have to sort through the dryer to find her an outfit. Once her bath water is ready, John brings her in and she's ready for her bath.I sit beside the tub folding her laundry and talking to hr while she plays, all the while being supervised by our dog, Hana.

7:30PM - I'm now surrounded by small piles of tiny clothes and Hana has somehow inched his 90lb body into my space and has his head in my lap. Taylor is still happily playing and splashing in the water. I call for John to see how cute Hana is. Of course Hana moves before John gets in the bathroom but John is amused by my multi-tasking and decides to take some pics of us anyway.

7:45PM- Taylor has managed to fling her head against the side of her bath seat in an attempt to wiggle away from me and continue playing. Although, she didn't hit her head very hard and I'm sure it hurt, she is now screaming at the top of her lungs. I quickly finish bathing her and get her out of the tub. She continues to cry as I get her into her PJs. I nurse her and she falls asleep rather quickly. I place her in crib and turn on her lullaby CD.

8:00PM- I close Taylor's bedroom door and get the baby monitor, while I'm thinking that was way to easy and I didn't think she was ready for bed yet.

8:05PM - I get the usual Sunday night phone call from my co-worker Julie confirming our carpool plans for tomorrow. We agree she'll be at my house around 6:30 AM for our 1 and a 1/2 hr commute to Riverside. I then tell John I'm going to take a shower, but first I pack up my laptop and work stuff and put them by the front door.

8:30PM - I'm out of the shower and John downloaded the photos he took of Taylor and I in the bathroom. I decide to write this blog entry.

8:40PM--I knew it was to good to be true. Taylor is now crying in her room. After a few minutes of trying to comfort her I am certain she's not ready to go down for the night. I bring her into the office and hold her while I continue to write our blog. She is interested in what I'm dooing and sits attentively for several minutes before becoming fidgetty. I take her out the living room to play in front of John while I go back and work on the blog.

9:05PM-- I hear Taylor fussing in the living room. I think she's ready for bed now. I nurse her again, knowing that she didn't take much the first time and I want her to sleep as long as possible before waking up to nurse again. When she's done, I rock her until she's really sleepy and I lay her down in her crib. I start the lullaby CD again, close the door and go back to the office to finish the blog. I hear on the TV that the Lakers won.

10:25PM -- Bedtime for Mommy...finally!