I love my two girls and am so grateful to have a life where I can have babies, get to keep my job, and get four months of paid family leave to bond with my newborn. One thing I do miss though, is being productive and getting things done, as I like to (and kind of have to) dedicate the first couple of months to my baby and make sure I set us up for success with breastfeeding and sleeping.
At 3.5 months into this journey with Chloe, I had my first ideal day yesterday, which consisted of:
- Enough sleep for me – fell asleep before 10PM, woke up maybe once to give Chloe the pacifier around 2AM, actually woke up to start my day at 5:20AM
- Enough sleep for Chloe- we deviated from her usual routine as we stayed for dinner at my mother in law’s house the night before, but Chloe still managed nearly 8 hours in her crib before waking up to eat around 5:20AM, fell right back asleep for another 2 hours, had four decent naps during the day (40 minutes, 2 hours, 40 minutes, 55 minutes), and then started her night sleep at 7:30PM
- Getting back on track with nursing – Chloe is teething already and the last couple of days she was going through her version of a nursing strike. I didn’t have this experience with Olivia, so I was initially freaking out about my supply and I didn’t want to have to pump, but Daniel somehow figured out that I should try standing up to feed and this worked for Chloe, though the time she spent nursing was still kind of off. Yesterday, she seemed back on track and did not fight me anymore when I sat down to feed her. Phew!
- A massage(!) – I’ve been talking about getting one for so long to loosen up my neck and shoulders area. Had to be able to fit it in within Chloe’s 3hr window, so I couldn’t even make an appointment as I have no control over when Chloe decides to wake up each day to start the cycles. Luckily we have a highly rated and affordable spa near us and they were able to take me in as a walk-in
- Bonding time and play time with Chloe – now that she’s a little more alert and interested in toys, I pulled out a playmat we had been gifted for Olivia but did not get to use. I enjoyed playing with Chloe on the mat and she seemed to like it too
- Time to send and answer emails – it’s the holiday season, so bobagreen is quite busy. We are also in the middle of coordinating a real estate transaction, so it was really nice to have time to take care of some things that needed to get done
- Receiving and unboxing some Black Friday orders – the one order I was most excited about was my YoBaby package- books and educational tools to help my kids learn Chinese. I didn’t get a chance to look through everything in detail, but oh man the books are so cute and I can’t wait to show them to Olivia. As a little girl I remember I wished I could buy new books but we couldn’t afford it, so the YoBaby purchase a gift for both the girls and me
- Dealing with some family drama – maybe I’ll have another post to expand more on this, but basically I came up with a diplomatic way to address my brother-in-law instead of shaking him vigorously to get him to mentally wake up. Patting myself on the back for being graceful and anti-toxic
- Spending time with Olivia after dinner and being wowed by her Chinese skills – even though I’m building my Chinese educational tools library, I haven’t had too much success trying to teach Olivia Chinese myself. Luckily, she attends a Mandarin Montessori school and they are apparently doing a great job, because we were working on a Chinese worksheet and Olivia was able to recognize 紅、橙、黃、藍、綠 on her own (that’s red, orange, yellow, blue, green). I was genuinely impressed as those are not easy characters. So, so proud of my little girl. She’s way more advance that I was at age 3 for sure!
- Discussing a new project with Daniel and Jonathan – my mother-in-law is such a great self-taught home cook. The dinner we had at her place the night before was ridiculously delicious. I’d mentioned before that we should start a cooking YouTube channel for her, so Daniel and Jonathan talked about it when Jonathan came over for the gym. Daniel has already figured out the roles for each of us, and we started brainstorming names. I don’t care much for the views, but I do want to preserve my MIL’s recipes and pass on her cooking to our family, so I think this YouTube thing will be such a treasure for us. I do feel bad for Daniel that I can’t cook like his mom right now, so maybe one day I will, or at least I’ll have some videos to learn from
- Finally, I had a good day because my husband had a good day too. He was able to get his haircut in the morning after dropping off Olivia at school. He bathed Chloe, got to gym during the day, cooked us a yummy Blue Apron steak dinner, and then ended his day by working on some bobagreen orders. Okay the last item was more for me/us, but all in all, a productive day for us both.