the life of a young mother*

*well, the mother of a young child, anyway.

mattbot, i have been trying to write to you for at least four weeks now. honestly. i sit down to write, i get about one or two sentences out, and something comes up and throws me all off. but there's really no excuse. you are my buddy. i remember the day you were born. i wrote an essay about you (well, you were in it anyway) in high school and i got an A+. i need to write to you.

but just so you know, here's what happens to me every day:
7:10a - baby comes in, "hi mama, i'm waked up now! i need to do peeps on the potty. can i have some breakfast?"
7:25a - out of the bathroom, into the kitchen. do the bubbles, fix breakfast, feed kid, check email, post.com, calendar, etc. figure out our day.
we usually go out in the morning for some sort of activity. lately we've been taking walks to get me some exercise, stopping at a park on the way back home to let the bug burn off some energy. we go visit my grandparents one morning a week, usually thursdays. there's also kids club at the mall with the cousins, grocery shopping (bashas' free kid care while you shop rocks), swimming or a splash park with the cousins, target shopping (we just had to go stock up on big-girl panties, yay!), and occasionally something else will catch my eye.
we lunch around noon, and i try to have the kid down for her nap around 1p. sometimes i lay down to read her a story (and sometimes i don't make it back up). then the phone rings. it's either fns with something for me to do, or somebody else calling to find out what i'm doing and if i can take care of something for them. i usually can, for which i am grateful. if i'm lucky sometimes i sneak in a shower while she naps.

she wakes up around 4 most days, and the race is on to find something to entertain her. we play kitchen and various other toys, color, go swimming, read, or on her lucky days we go see someone. cheryl-the-great is a favorite (she gets to eat more sugar and watch more tv there than she knows what to do with; plus she loves juju. also, many times there's pizza), but she's up to go just about anywhere usually.

and i'd finish this, but it's 10 minutes to four and she's calling me. be back later. :)