A Day in the Life, part V

It's that time again! Time to give a detailed accounting of my day so I can remember what it was like to manage my two children when they were small. Previous days in the life can be found here: part I, part II, part III, and part IV.

5:20 Talia wakes up screaming. She's calling, "Mama! Mama!" So I let Mama take care of it. When Talia wakes up in the night it's best to go see her because she'll just lie down and go back to sleep once you stroke her head. But if Max gets up, we just let him scream until he gives up (thankfully, usually fairly quickly) because if he sees you he'll just go even more bananas if you try to leave.

6:20 Mama gets up early and does her yoga. Because I have so many important duties during the day, it's necessary for me to get extra rest, so I stay in bed.

7:00 I get up. I made the mistake of listening to some old Simon & Garfunkle last night and now have the song Cecilia rattling endlessly through my head.

7:10 The kids are up. Talia has been aggressively pursuing her toilet training and demands to go on the potty right away. But nothing happens -- she just sits there and reads her book. I make a fire downstairs.

7:30 The kids have leftover pancakes.

7:50 They're finished. Mama has left and Talia demands, "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!" I clean them up and rush Talia to the potty. Again nothing.

8:00 Downstairs for a bit of TV so I can eat some breakfast. We've turned off our satellite service last week, so now all we get is whatever preview channel ExpressVu is trying to entice their customers with. Today it's Cool TV, which is showing an old Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra movie, On The Town. It seems to be interesting the kids with all the singing and dancing, so I leave it on. I go upstairs for my breakfast -- yummy generic imitation Corn Pops.

8:50 Talia: "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!" I run her upstairs and sit her down on the potty -- and success! We have Pee-pee!

9:10 They start to get bored and indicate they want to go upstairs. But I'm just starting to get interested!

9:15 I give them a cookie. Try not to look so happy guys!

9:25 Talia: "Mewsy! Mewsy!" I put on a CD for them -- The Fury of the Aquabats. I bought this back in the days when I had plenty of money and could buy a CD if I just liked the cover. It was a good find; some of the reviewers at Amazon say it's the best Ska album of all time. I don't know about that -- what about One Step Beyond? The kids like it. Talia does her funny jerky dance. Max does a decent imitation of Talia's funny jerky dance.

9:30 Snack time: two clementines each.

9:40 "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!" And off we go to the potty again, with Max following. But then as she reaches the bathroom, she has a change of heart and just wants to go downstairs again. Well, okay. We sure weren't upstairs too long -- only enough to get through eight Aquabats songs.

9:45 The movie is just ending. Then Cool TV delivers some moaning self-absorbed saxophone playing. What garbage. Too bad so many people think this is what jazz is about. I put on an old Blue's Clues tape. This is a really great show -- or at least the episodes with Steve in them are. When Joe took over as the host, the show became unwatchable. (For me anyway, the kids aren't so fussy.)

9:55 Max says "no-book!" when Steve whips out his handy-dandy... notebook. Right. He's paying attention.

10:00 Big cuddles together while watching the rest of the tape.

10:35 Okay, it's time for a nap. Talia: "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!" Again nothing. And into bed they go. They're asleep in minutes.

11:30 Called by QR77 radio in Calgary. Cool!

11:45 Some neighbors come by with another toddler for a visit, but unfortunately Max and Talia are still fast asleep.

12:20 I get the kids up. They're still right out -- it's very unusual for them to have such a long nap. Beans for lunch accompanied by the other thirty songs on the Aquabats CD.

1:00 We get dressed and go out for a walk. It's quite a nice day, so I can skip the mittens and hats for them. We walk down the road to an abandoned house on the corner. No one's lived there in at least ten years, and we've adopted the yard as our playground. You'd think that with today's housing market, whoever owns it would want to sell it.

1:45 We get into the car to visit my Chilean friend, Pato. Once there, the Mistress of Chaos dumps a large bin of lego all over the carpet. Then, saying, "that's nothing!", Captain Destructo pours the large bin full of 'art supplies' (busted crayons, markers without lids, lids for markers, erasers, scissors, sequins, barbie clothes, random lego pieces, and a hundred thousand pencil crayons) all over the toy room. Good job guys! Our work here is done.

3:00 Time to go home. We're stuck behind some yahoo in a cowboy hat driving 20 kph under the limit the whole way. The whole way! But we're listening to Yellow Magic Orchestra's Solid State Survivor so it's not so bad.

3:30 Once home, I stuff the kids in bed so they'll be asleep for the radio show. (But first: "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!" And again nothing.) I make a big pot of coffee so I'll sufficiently caffeinated.

4:00 Mama comes home and wakes the kids just before I go on air. She takes care of them as I pace the basement during my segment.

4:25 I think I did okay. My voice quavered a bit at the beginning, due either to nervousness or too much coffee, but I recovered. And then I start thinking of all the things I should have said. Oh well.

4:30 The Latin American correspondent calls to complain that he couldn't get the internet radio feed to work from his temporary office in Chile and asks how it went. He tells me he's been voting for Chrétien every day on four different computers to keep him in the top five.

5:00 I take the dog for a walk. Just as I'm heading out the door: "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!"

5:30 Mama's making supper and the kids are running around and terrorizing the animals. Talia seems to think Musette is a horse. I take them downstairs for some Teletubbies to calm them down.

6:00 "Pee-pee! Pee-pee!" And -- success! Then we sit down for a very wonderful pumpkin risotto which Talia quickly decides she doesn't want. Usually Max is the difficult one. We eventually get Talia to see reason and she eats a good part of her serving.

6:30 Time for a bath. Mama can handle this as I clean up. I listen to the Now Sound of Ursula 1000 to invigorate me.

7:00 Mama reads them a story and puts them in bed. Good night Max! Good night Talia!

10:10 I'm still writing this and I'm getting sleepy. Kraftwerk's Tour de France Soundtracks isn't helping. Time for bed.

Posted by Bruce Gottfred at November 15, 2004 10:22 PM | TrackBack