A Day in the Life

6am - Jack wakes up hungry. After a bleary-eyed feeding I either hand him off to Dan who will take him downstairs and entertain him while I get another half hour of sleep, or I bring him back to bed with us and let him sleep on my chest for another hour. He has decided in the last few weeks that he takes after his dad and is a morning person so the nice morning snuggles in bed are becoming a thing of the past. Once I take Jack off Dan's hands I clean him up and get him dressed for the day. (He has gotten so big now that he no longer fits into the 0-3 month size onsies, they are too short for our tall guy!)

9am - Time for second breakfast. Hopefully I have managed to get my breakfast in by this time, but that's not always the case. Once Jack is done eating he will go down for a morning nap in his big-boy crib. Dan and I scramble to get showered and eat breakfast if that hasn't been done already. I finally get some quiet time to read the NY Times and do the crossword.

11:30am - Dan and I eat a quick lunch. After lunch, Dan heads off to class and I enjoy a few last moments of silence before the noon feeding. Jack is spending more and more time awake each day so after his lunch we usually spend an hour or so "playing" before it is time for the afternoon nap. While Jack naps I get a chance to do the exciting things I didn't get done in the morning like laundry or vacuuming.

3pm - Guess who's hungry again. Jack downs his second lunch and then is awake for the rest of the afternoon. We spend some quality time on the activity mat - he is getting better at following objects with his eyes and head and he likes to look in the mirror. He also enjoys looking at the spines of the books on the bookshelves - Dan thinks this bodes well indeed! If the weather is nice we will take a walk. At this point in the day we amp up the feedings and try to keep him awake as much as possible in preparation for the night.

5pm - Pre-dinner feeding. After I feed Jack I hand him off to Dan who is home from work at this point, and start to work on dinner. We are relying less on frozen meals and take out now and actually cook several times a week. We like to have Jack in the kitchen with us while cooking - we give him herbs and spices to smell and he likes to look at the shiny spoons and whisks.

6:30pm - We eat dinner. We have actually been able to eat dinner together lately as Jack has been more content in his bouncy chair these days. But, this is still prime fussy time so by the end of the meal we are generally taking turns putting the pacifier back in.

7pm - Dan cleans up the kitchen while Jack has his dinner. After this things can get a bit hectic. Often Jack will try to fall asleep, but we really don't want him sleeping now so we try to keep him awake - a little nuzzling with Dan's beard usually does the trick. More often though Jack will do a fine job of keeping himself, and anything within earshot awake, by fussing off and on for the next few hours. To give him some credit, the fussing is diminishing in both intensity and frequency lately - we hope this means he will be able to stay awake without fussing at this time of day soon. (We aren't holding our breaths.)

9pm - I take Jack upstairs and get him cleaned up and ready for bed then he has his dessert. When he is finished, usually around 9:30, we get ready for bed and read a bit before falling dead asleep around 10pm.

3:30am - Jack wakes up. I take him into his room and feed him. I have been known to fall asleep during this feeding but now that he is sleeping longer this is happening less frequently. It can take him awhile to fall back asleep after this feeding so we rock for a bit before heading back to bed.

6am - Jack wakes up hungry.