We live in a small house with two bedrooms, two baths and an open kitchen/living room. I’m the night owl, Mac is the early bird. Baby is the wild card. Here is the diary of our domicile:
Midnight: Baby in bed, TV snacking completed. Mac downstairs to finish emails and brush teeth. Dishwasher loaded, counters wiped, toys put in basket. Why is everything so dusty?
1:00 am. I shower. Various foam cutouts shaped like fish, octopi (octopuses? Dictionary disagreements abound) shoved around shower in space not under my feet but also not clogging drain. Step on squirting plastic blowfish and get jetstream of freezing water all the way up to my own blowhole. Screaming muffled, blowfish thrown near sink.
2:00 am. Arrange various pillows, blankets etc, climb into bed.
3:00 am. Elves turn on dishwasher. At least I assume that’s what happens.
4-7 am. House remains in near-perfect state of least-possible-amount-of-chaos.
7:00 am. Mac up. Downstairs to his bathroom, I assume (based on time spent) to shower, shave, write a chilling exposé of the sheep shearing industry, check in with his MI-6 handler (codename Canuckle Sandwich) plus use toilet facilities in masculine yet dainty manner.
8:00 am Baby UP! This means total rearrangement of living room. We need him contained there, and there’s no door. So, he’s blocked off using a chair at one end, my rocking chair at the other, and a long ottoman in the middle. He also needs to be fed, so pull his high chair towards table. This is important later.
9:00 am. I’m up. It takes three minutes for my hair to fall into place, I throw on casual trousers and a silk top, then slick on some NARS lipgloss and emerge ready to face the day. No, I’m lying, but this is my blog and Mac can tell his truth in another blog if he likes. My schedule to get out of bed has a simple mathematical formula:
Mac leaves for work – 5 minutes (four if Baby is screaming)= Sarah is up
Here’s what that, in reality, entails: I need to put away all the pillows used to keep comfortable in the night (you think somebody with severe chronic pain, back issues and abdominal muscle weakness sleeps with a single pillow under her head? Moron. If I had anything more propping me up I’d be a banana republic). I throw on an abdominal brace over my nightshirt (Anonymous Black Jersey, size Baggy) and stagger towards the bathroom. I get halfway to the sink, groping for my contacts and mouthwash, when I step on the goddamn blowfish. Throw blowfish back in tub. Mentally vow to cut blowfish to ribbons while his friends Octopus and Squeezy Gator watch. Find baby.
10:00 am. Minimal food has been prepared but kitchen is a disaster. How? HOW? Husband used one plate for toast, baby ate Name Brand Grain Circles. I see a bread board out, crumbs, salt, pepper, cumin (huh?), three unwashed pans, formula powder and two empty bottles with rings but no nipples, two bread knives, a potato peeler, two coffee mugs (aHA! Proof husband has MI-6 handler. He looks way too stressed to be having hot, salacious affair), and the ceremonial cake server from our wedding. Whatever.
11:00 am. Baby naps. Move highchair away from table, so can move ottoman back, so can fit vacuum through to living room space. Try to move stuff from living room into kitchen to dust. Dust just falls all over floor. Pick up everything on floor, place on furniture, so as to vacuum. Now fallen dust transferred from shelves to things on floor to furniture. Dust furniture. Falls on floor. Fuck you, dust. Fuck you.
12:00 noon: Put toys back on floor, barriers back in place, vacuum back against wall, put highchair next to table, get baby, feed baby. Kitchen mess now includes dishes from thawed pureed carrots, thawed pureed peas, the spoon I fed him with, the spoon he needs to bang on the tray while I feed him, crusty puffs I picked off the side of the chair, the pot, pan, spatula, plate, cup, knife, fork and spoon involved in me making my own eggs before giving up and microwaving individual pizza, and pizza tray.
1:00 pm. Empty dishwasher run by elves. Throw everything in it, make sure to leave room for dinner atrocities.
2:00 pm. Imaginatively rearrange toy baskets and the ottoman to make my living room look bigger. Realize the reason it doesn’t look bigger is because it’s small. Try to put smaller basket back where it belongs, run into stupid highchair.
3:00 pm. Realize it’s really, really stupid for people with my particular health concerns to dust, vacuum, lift baskets, rearrange ottomans and run into a high chair all in one day.
4:00-7:00 pm. Move baby from crib to living room to changing table to high chair to jumperoo to floor. Realize everywhere he goes there is a trail of trucks, stuffed animals, plastic rings, Scare the Hell Out of Me Elmo, crusty puffs and Name Brand Grain Circles. Don’t care, it’s not poop.
8:00 pm. It’s poop. Bathtime! Pulls out foam toys, Squeezy Gator, and blowfish. Mental note to remove blowfish directly after bath has drained. Baby is washed, shampooed, rinsed, dried, lotioned, diapered and pajamaed. He then drags his butt on the floor and collects, naturally, dust.
8:45 pm: Emergency non-hourly entry to report we do eat dinner. Eventually. When we can find the potato peeler. Kitchen now full of final dinner detritus including plates, mugs because I’m too lazy to reach for the clean cups one shelf up, pots, pans, bread board, knives, cumin? Whatever.
9:00 pm. Baby should be in bed. Attempt every ten minutes until achieved. Get him final bottle, which means locating those two mystery bottle seen this morning. Yeah, good luck with that, Bordens!
10:00 pm. We should clean kitchen now, answer emails, pick up toys, prepare for bed. We watch Swedish TV with subtitles. We are very happy, especially when the baby refuses to sleep and it doesn’t matter how long he wails in my arms; we can just read the subtitles.
11:55 pm. Throw everything in the dishwasher and push the buttons that invoke the elves.
11:59 pm. Did I drain the tub and put away blowfish? Yeah. I’m sure I did.
Due to Extenuating Circumstances 