As I mentioned before I don’t really have any interest in doing a traditional baby book for Paige, but I do love documenting daily life and how it changes. I’m doing this in a few ways during this first year of Paige’s life. Some will stick and I’ll continue to do them and others will seem less interesting over time and will be retired. The things I have going right now include a monthly “I want to remember” recap, a One Line A Day book, keeping up with my 2015 Project Life album, and a monthly Day In the Life (DITL) recap.
I had the idea for DITL long before Paige was born didn’t end up doing it during her first month. I suppose I was overwhelmed with a newborn or something. On the 15th of each month I want to take the time to take pictures and note down what we did. I think it will be fun to see how our daily life changes over the year. And by picking the 15th, I’ll get a good mix of weekdays and weekends, days when Greg is in town versus traveling, boring days at home and maybe a day with some sort of adventure.
To make it really easy I just use my iPhone for photos and keep a note going on my phone with what we’re doing at what time. Some parts of the day are much more detailed than others, but that’s sort of how our days feel right now – moments of calm mixed with moments of chaos.
Here’s what Wednesday, April 15th, 2015 looked like in our little world…
1:45am – Paige is up to eat and I feed her in bed. Greg then changes her diaper while I eat a protein bar. I’ve never had so many protein bars in my life.
2:20am – We’re all back to sleep until the next wake-up call.
4:15am – Paige is up again for food and a change. I take the diaper this time as I try to let Greg get one decent block of sleep since he actually has to interact with the world each day.
4:55am – And we’re back to sleep.
6:10am – And we’re up to eat again.
6:30am – Greg’s alarm goes off for the day. He takes Paige into her room to change her, brings here back and says good-bye while he goes to shower and we head back to sleep.
8:05am – We’re up! I run upstairs to let Alfred out (it’s sunny outside!) and then it’s “breakfast” time for Paige.
8:30am – I pump for 10 minutes while Paige hangs out in bed with me.
8:45am – We move into Paige’s room to change her and get her dressed for the day.
8:50am – Paige is in a good mood, so I decide it’s a good time for me to take my shower. She sits in her bouncy chair in the bathroom with me and hangs out.
9:00am – While she’s still happy in her chair I throw in a load of laundry. She immediately becomes unhappy.
9:05am – We head upstairs and I make myself breakfast (dinner leftovers), brew some coffee, and portion out my vitamins, supplements, and meds for the day (the list is kind of staggering right now).
9:10am – We have play time while I eat, but someone is grumpy. I choke down my food and we try heading outside.
9:30am – Still grumpy, so Paige goes into the Baby K’tan while I unload the dishwasher, vacuum, sort baby clothes that no longer fit her, and wipe down the kitchen & bathrooms.
10:05am – Swap the laundry and fold a load.
10:15am – Prep dinner. If I don’t do it during her morning nap, chances are it won’t get done. For tonight’s dinner I planned way too much and it took nearly an hour.
11:10am – Make a few phone calls and respond to a few emails.
11:30am – All the high priority tasks are done, so I decide to catch-up on my Project Life album.
11:45am – Paige wakes up so we remove her from the carrier and diaper change, feed, and read a book.
12:25pm – I put Paige in her swing so I can eat my lunch. Typically it doesn’t work, but I always try. Today happens to be a lucky day and I can eat while sitting on the floor chatting with her.
12:45pm – Load the dishwasher and get it started for what seems like the millionth time this week already.
12:50pm – Time for our walk! I get both ‘kids’ (Alfred included) ready and we head out. We stop at the drive-thru coffee stand that has a walk-up window and I get an iced decaf. We walk out of our way to go to this place so I don’t have to bother with tying up the doodle.
1:45pm We’re back home and I turn my iced coffee into a smoothie. Only it’s horribly disgusting because I’ve added Brewer’s Yeast to help my milk supply issues. So disgusting I’m unable to drink it and very sad to have wasted my coffee.
2:00pm Time for Paige to eat again.
2:30pm Try to get Paige to nap while holding her, but she prefers to scream instead.
2:45pm In the car to take a drive and calm down Paige. It doesn’t hurt that I can stop through the Starbucks drive-thru and replace my ruined coffee.
3:45pm Back home and Paige is asleep still so I decide to watch last week’s episode of Revenge. Yes, I’m still watching this even though it’s terrible. If you still watch Grey’s Anatomy you have no room to judge!
4:30pm Paige wakes up and we eat again.
5:00pm And back asleep.
6:00pm Greg gets home from work just as Paige is waking up from her nap. He takes over baby duty and I throw together our prepped dinner.
6:20pm I feed Paige while Greg fixes the new Photos app on my computer (I hate it). He eats dinner and we create a detailed task list for building a backyard veggie garden.
7:00pm We FaceTime with my brother and his family. It seems like just yesterday my niece was a tiny baby but she’s a hilarious little almost-three year old now. I eat dinner while we chat.
7:30pm Off on a short family walk to see if that will calm down Paige. Witching hour is real, people. Except that it should be called Witching Hours.
7:50pm I get Paige ready for bed while Greg cleans upstairs. We try to go to bed every night with the house picked up and the kitchen clean, taking turn between getting Paige ready for bed and doing the cleaning. It makes such a difference to wake up to a nice, organized house every morning.
8:15pm I feed Paige and read her a book then hand her off to Greg.
8:55pm Pump for ten minutes (least favorite daily “chore”).
9:30pm I get ready for bed, program the washing machine for a morning load, and fold the load from earlier today. I keep up with the laundry by scheduling a load to run at night for the next morning, and then out of sheer will moving that one load to the dry and folding it before I go to bed.
9:45pm Paige is still awake so I take over and walk around with her while Greg gets ready for bed.
10:00pm I try rocking Paige and she is drowsy but won’t commit to sleep.
10:15pm Bring out the big guns (less than big boobs in this case) and finally get her to sleep. Mumble good night to Greg and we both pass out, hoping to get a few hours before the little tyrant rouses us.
West Coast Martins 
Major dejavu reading this post! Great idea to document it because in a few months it will look totally different. God bless a wrap and drive-thru Starbucks!
It’s so great that you’re doing this! I’ve already forgotten so much aside from what I’ve scribbled in the baby book here and there.