I’ve secretly wanted to do a ‘day in the life’ post for a long time – partly because I’m always so curious how other people’s lives work, especially people with weird jobs (like blogging) and partly because I kinda use this blog as my personal journal and I know that someday I won’t remember how we actually lived in 2015.
Click through to see the whole ‘morning’ post.
As I thought about it, I realized that there is no way to accurately document 1 day since every day is so different work-wise. I have four major days – photo shoot days, office/emails days (those are just RIVETING) design/shopping days and 2 days a week Brian and I split Charlie duty. Or try. Every week something comes up but that’s the idea, at least.
But what they all tend to have in common is the same morning. We have a routine, a rhythm I should say, and we find that it’s kinda the same most days. I’m not all regimented about it, it’s just how things have fallen into place.
I trust that you guys are smart and savvy enough to know that every morning has its own set of pitfalls and frustrations including (but not limited to) diaper blow-outs, tantrums, general bad moods by all three parties, coffee spilling on the carpet, and bananas mashing in my hair during the unexpected hug (that one isn’t so much a pitfall as you can imagine). And setting up shots to document those for you just seems kinda patronizing and totally weird. So this is an average morning. No major triumphs or disasters.
I asked Jessica to come over early, around 8am and catch the last hour of our morning and I figured we’d recreate the first three hours because having her come at 5am, in the dark to watch me work, seemed TOTALLY WEIRD. So some of this is kinda reenacted for you. I play the role of ‘blonde mom wearing Christmas sweats in March’ and Charlie is played by the cutest baby in the world. It’s a lot like ‘To Catch a Predator’ only with more authentic re-enactments and less of a creepy ‘after school special’ vibe.
OK. Enough with the disclaimers, on with our riveting morning routine:
5:45 I wake up, drink coffee, and write the blog. This is a new thing and it is truly the only way that I can be anxiety-free enough by 7am to spend real-time with Charlie without checking my email every 15 seconds and being that mom that prioritizes her phone over her child. The days that I wake up late are much harder as I feel immediately behind and I know that either work or Charlie will suffer. The blog isn’t pushed out (meaning, sent through social media) let alone published, and those emails are just piling up – this is today, by the way. If I had to say one secret to my success, it would be learning how to become a morning person and taking advantage of those hours before the rest of the world distracts you. Not that I’m calling my child a distraction. You know what I mean.
Back to 5:45. What you don’t see here is the fact that it’s normally pitch black at that time. I watch the sun rise and it’s pretty awesome. What you also don’t see is me being painfully quiet trying to not wake up Charlie. As I wrote about here, the mornings that he senses that I’m awake then wakes up are so harrowing because then I’ve just woken up at a really god-forsaken hour to just babysit in the dark. So, I have to be incredibly careful. But I need this 1 1/2 hour to finish each post and think/brainstorm ideas before he wakes up, so I normally risk it and I’ve gotten better at being quiet.
This year we got our gas fireplace fixed and man, I can’t recommend it enough. It wasn’t cheap (around $1200 with cleaning, maintenance and the porcelain logs), but all you have to do in the morning is flip a switch and it provides such lovely warmth and ambiance. If only winter lasted more than 3 weeks here.
7:00 ISH. 7:30 if we are lucky. Charlie wakes up and talks to his stuffed animals for a while until he starts yelling for attention. He then gets really upset, every morning, that we have to change his diaper and panics if he doesn’t get his bottle fast enough. It’s like every day he is surprised that we have to change his diaper. I constantly remind him that I’m not the one that pooped in his pants, but he doesn’t care. Typically we distract him with a toy. I normally do this while Brian is making his bottle. Not sure how I got that role, now that I think about it.
Now, I have no idea if he is too old to need a bottle in the morning, but the thing is, we need it so I don’t really care. Typically Brian is there, too (I couldn’t convince him to do my pretend morning with me) and we just cuddle and snuggle and it’s almost always wonderful. All you moms out there know that forcing them to stay in your arms for more than 10 seconds at any point during the day can be impossible, so yeah, I’m going to milk this time until it starts to feel weird (not like 13-years-old weird, more like 6-more-months weird). Also he’s drinking really, really watered down formula (we had a ton left over) which is our attempt to wean him off it. I know he could be drinking milk but he loves this stuff so that’s just what is happening still.
During this ‘re-enactment’ he was very confused and psyched to get two bottles in the morning, but he was less good at cuddling with me. I kept whispering, ‘Don’t embarrass me’ and ‘You won’t make it anywhere in Hollywood with this kind of work ethic’ but I think the second bottle just made him want to take a nap. And since we didn’t have an understudy, the show had to go on without him – but not without a quick brush of the teeth.
7:30 ish – we brush his teeth.
Which really just means that he tries to suck all the toothpaste off of the brush before we have a chance to make contact with one tooth. Some days he’s pretty good at it and gets it (we brush them together, we show each other our teeth, etc) but this morning was one of the days where he really did not want me to be in charge and he wanted to do it himself. Which just means sucking on the toothbrush. To be fair, our mistake was buying pretty delicious artisanal (pretentious) toothpaste. He still only has six teeth (four on the top, 2 on the bottom) so brushing those guys is pretty easy.
We don’t normally brush our teeth in the living room but the bathrooms are still in their original (1964) state (see them here) and just too disgusting to take photos in right now.
7:30 – 8:30 am – we play in the living room.
This is probably my favorite hour of the day. We are together as a family and everybody is generally in such a good mood – mainly because Charlie is so happy and we are drinking coffee. This hour is even more fun on the weekends for obvious reasons. Charlie is so excited to play with ‘his guys’ (Marvel superheroes and Star Wars action figures), read books, listen to music, and just play. I used to try to sneak work a little while doing this, but he made it very clear that I wouldn’t be getting anything done. He would either sabotage whatever I was doing by banging his hands on the keys/stealing my phone, etc, or even worse, beg for my attention. So now, that hour is just off limits to tech. If I have to do anything for work, I go in another room. I swear that Brian and I have both started using the bathroom as a reason to get a quick online fix.
As far as favorite toys right now here’s where we are at: action figures, all soft stuffed animals, broom/mops and books. He loves that chair and when Bearcat is in it, he uses his new, really lovely phrase ‘No, mine. No, mine. No, mine’ to communicate with her. WHERE DO THEY LEARN THESE THINGS??? We only say ‘no’ when it’s a real ‘no no’ (hitting, trying to throw cell phone in toilet, throwing plates full of delicious food that I’ve made him, etc) and I really don’t think we say ‘mine’. We say ‘that’s mommys’ or ‘that’s for grown ups’ with our coffee or beer, but we don’t go around the house announcing that things are ‘mine’. Or so we think. Maybe we do. He got it from somewhere, I suppose.
And he loves books. All day long he’s bringing us books and putting his arms up to be picked up and put in the chair. The same books over and over and over. I guess I’m no different. Books are their version of tv or movies and I watch the same tv shows or movies over and over again. I’ve watched the full series of both Felicity and Veronica Mars 3 times, and the amount of times I’ve seen ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ or ‘Dirty Dancing’ is pretty weird. I guess reading or seeing the same predictable story over and over again is human nature. It must be comforting.
You can’t see it in this photo but all the toys are in a storage ottoman near the blue dresser. And then we have two wire bins that sit next to it. The large stuffed animals and the piano normally stay out, but we are pretty good about putting all the little bits away because this is my pretty room and it bums me out soooo bad when it’s messed up – and just throwing toys in a bin is so easy. Also we have gotten rid of almost all accessories in this room. He can’t reach what is on the blue dresser, but the rest of the surfaces are blank and I don’t even mind it. The family room is always a disaster but it’s not the first room you see when you walk in the door so it doesn’t really bother me.
8:30 ish Eggs.
Charlie Henderson loves him some eggs. Here is a weird endorsement in case you can’t get your kids to eat eggs, we buy the ‘Happy Egg’ brand which Brian claims is strangely flavorful. Then we scramble with whole milk, salt and pepper and a decent amount of butter in the pan (not oil). They are DELICIOUS. I mean, of course they are, they have cream and butter in them. Normally they look WAY more appetizing than those eggs do, but Brian wasn’t here for this reenactment so I made them. Charlie was already down for a nap when I was doing this part of the morning so I phoned it in for the photo and they look pretty sad. He eats 2-3 eggs now. We give him 1/2 piece of toast sometimes but he loves bread so much that it becomes all he focuses on so we try to have him eat the eggs first so he doesn’t fill up on just bread.
I think that might have been the most boring paragraph I have ever written. But as a mom, this kind of stuff is always interesting to me – not just what the books say to do (which we NEVER read, those books aren’t exactly your friend) but instead what my friends do/feed/buy. So we do eggs – you are welcome.
But in case you are dying to know what Charlie’s favorite food in the world is, its berries – strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, etc. Like me. I love berries soooo much. We were trying to teach him please and thank you in sign language but at first we tended to do it mainly with desert/berries so now all day long he just maniacally rubs his chest with his open hand (please) asking for berries.
As far as I know they are loaded with vitamins and good carbs, so we basically just let him have a few berries a few times a day. And yes, most of his clothes and a lot of my pillows are covered with berry stains now. Thank god red and pink are in my color palette.
8:30 – 9 ish. Out on the deck to play. This is the tricky time of day. I am dying to get to work because I can feel the emails adding up and Brian is ready to start his day, too, but our nanny doesn’t get here until 10:30 (we are changing that). So from 9 – 10:30 is the ‘Who has a busier day’ competition between us and we generally take turns.
We haven’t redone the deck yet so bear with me on the photos. At first I was so worried about it being kid friendly because its pretty high up, but it’s actually totally childproof so we are embracing it and pretending its a back yard.
One of his favorite things to do is sweep. Why do they love cleaning supplies so much?
And cook. His attention span is still pretty short, but if we give him projects to cook (Can you collect all the shrimp and put them in a bowl? Can you help me make leaf soup? etc) then it can last for 10 – 15 minutes at a time. We bought this BBQ and this kitchen. They weren’t cheap but yes, they are super cute. We also bought this one for the family room which is very cute (more on that later). I went a little kitchen crazy one weekend because he was at a friend’s house and was obsessed with the kitchen so I was like ‘CHARLIE MUST HAVE PRETEND KITCHENS!!!’
His two favorite ride-ons are that radio flyer scooter and the plane that lights up with really annoying music that he loves. Please note those adorable teeth.
Brian came back from the gym and Charlie was dramatically happy to see him – rushed over to him with a big hug as if I was just sitting there mute the whole time not engaging him. Oh and here’s a good manipulative tip for you parents – Brian and I started making a conscious effort to hug and kiss more in front of him (not in a weird way, just being affectionate) and then afterwards inviting him in for a ‘family hug’. He LOVES it because he gets to do what grown ups get to do. Somehow we made it cool. So now we are constantly yelling ‘FAMILY HUG!!’ all the time and he rushes over as if I’m offering him berries. Ha. Sucker.
So that’s our morning, most days anyway. Right now I’m really embracing it because I know that when we have another baby these casual mornings will turn into mini circuses and the juggle of two kids with two working parents will squash all our peaceful mornings. In a good way, of course.
So for now the 6am – 10am routine is working as well as it possibly can. While we wish we had help earlier on some days, it’s also incredibly nice to have a solid 2-3 hours with him before I leave for 8 hours. So even when I have work anxiety and feel super behind, I try to remember that stuff can generally wait and he’s only 15 months once. I say that as I’m literally trying to finish this post at 9:30am when it should have been up at 6am. I slept in til 7 and then spent the first hour with Charlie. I feel like it’s a daily battle between work and family, and most days work gets the majority of the day so in the morning family wins.
Sorry, work.
I love this! I have a 12 month old baby boy and the morning is indeed a very special time. I rush around early trying to quietly get things done before he wakes up, which is a challenge in a little NYC apartment. Still, its wonderful when he gets up and there’s that magical first hour when he is well-rested and ready to play!
I also wanted to share a great breakfast recipe for kids – Oatmeal Fingers (from the Baby-Led Weaning cookbook): Mix together 3 tablespoons quick oats, 3 tablespoons milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon in a small microwaveable bowl. Microwave for 2 minutes. Cool, cut into fingers.
Its funny because my instinct is always carbs are bad! But then I remember he’s a baby and not a mom trying to lose weight, haha.
such a great post to read! informational, and FUNNY…the bathroom is your place more likely (still not guaranteed) to be alone.
thanks for sharing with us
Oh hell yes. It IS great to hear what other parents do, even the eggs 🙂 And it does get harder when there’s two, but then it gets easier again when #2 gets a little older. More circus, but also more hugs!
Loved this – thank you!
I loved reading this. You are so genuine and funny and as a mom it’s so interesting to me as well reading other morning routines when you have kids. I am a longtime follower and fan of yours, thanks for making the effort to keep up such a great blog! Does the wire bins with toys drive you nuts since you can see through or is it just cute because cuter storage wins no matter what?
Adorable post. I appreciate that you’re very real in explaining things in your posts (with design choices and daily routine). It is a challenge balancing work and family and it when you make a point of scheduling family activities, family gets left out less 🙂 I think a healthy sense of humor is a must. You’re my favorite blogger and I enjoy the variety in your posts.
It is so great that you have these morning hours with your little guy – everyone’s fresh and unhampered by the dramas of the day, and it probably sets a happy, comfortable, reassuring tone.
He is such a cutie! My nephew is obsessed with blueberries. I think he’d eat them all day, every day if you let him.
Kudos to you for brushing his teeth in the morning! I have 2 boys- 3 and 1.5 and getting them off to daycare every day is work enough without trying to brush. And both boys want breakfast FIRST THING after they wake- we can’t even change diapers until after they are full. Good grief!
In the same boat! 2 Year old teeth are a hard enough battle without the added pressure of getting to daycare/work on time! Mine’s the same way with breakfast too. The first words out of her mouth in the morning, “TOAST!”.
“Artisinal (pretentious) toothpaste” <3
Don't have kids, don't want 'em, but I DO want that cute play grill! That thing is awesome! Charlie, you scored on the parent front. Nice going.
What a fantastic “reportage”! Nice to meet the whole family 🙂
PS: That’s some serious toy BBQ set! %)
PPS: 5:45 gave me shivers. I am such an owl, I cannot imagine how I gonna survive with kid in the house.
This was a very fun read actually. I love that Charlie eats so long after waking. My kids come into our room to ambush cuddle us (oldest is five next month) and immediately demand breakfast. They’re all boys and still like to cuddle, so that’s kind of nice. Except at 5:30 a.m. Couldn’t agree with your more about the mornings. I try to wake up around 4:30 when I’m able. This is not a humble brag, but silence is worth that much to me.
Great family pictures too! This will be a nice time capsule for one day.
Slow mornings are the greatest! We have 2 girls, Lilla(5) and Vivienne(3) and we still have slow mornings. I’m going to miss them once Lilla starts kindergarten this August and shortly after that we’ll have baby number 3. Thank you for sharing your morning. It was fun to remember those days.
Mornings are the best – although it took me quite a while to realize it. 😉
We do “group hugs” especially when someone is cranky, mad at someone or not having a good day. Even the dog joins us by getting in the middle of the circle while we stand there and hug. Or we will do a “dog pile” if the person is sitting down and the dog joins in on those too. It really does let the tension of whatever is going on dissipate and brings us closer together. I highly recommend it even as Charlie gets older!
Family hugs are the best, second only to “two handed kisses.” This is when my daughter puts her hands our cheeks and pulls our faces in for a kiss – magic! They used to be rare but we’ve figured out that if we just ask for them then she complies quite happily. Try it – it’s the sweetest thing.
I laughed so many times while reading this. Also I feel much better informed about the egg eating habits toddlers.
This morning, I got up, and my kids had already fed themselves breakfast and were dressed for the day. Before you know it, your mornings will be quite different, better in some ways, a little sad in others (I love my kids’ independence, but I miss their neediness…sometimes).
Love this post, as a new mama with a 1 month old i’ll store this away for ideas in a year 🙂 Totally random (and i promise not creepy) question: when do you shower? My morning routine is all over the place now, but i find that i never have time for a shower! And really, the not-showered look isn’t doing me any favors!
ha!!! Not terribly often but mostly at night before I go to bed. Rarely in the morning unless Brian has nothing to do and he’s down for taking over more duty.
Oh man – nine months in I still barely shower, either! My hair is used to it now, and dry shampoo is a wonderful thing! New mama tip – bring the bouncy seat/swing/whatever into the bathroom with you so you can say hi, keep an eye on el bebe and know when they really need you.
Me too — night bather, partly because we’re Japanese (well, my husband is but I’m honorary having lived there so long) and also because Angels are asleep and if one wakes up, I have at-home back-up (husband) at that time. I love going to bed clean and smelling pretty, though my big wavy hair still requires attention in the a.m. …. Congratulations on your new baby!
i LOVE this! thank you for hiring a photographer to shoot you super early on a regular morning. i think it’s really interesting. 🙂 that is so true that the secret to productivity is to get things done before anyone else wakes up and starts to distract you!
Fun post! Love seeing how other parents do things! And that BBQ set… Excuse me while I go obsessively stalk the internet looking for one in Canada.
Awesome. 🙂
Just a heads up…a really really super easy way to get berry stains out of anything that can have water on it is to pour boiling water over the stain — obviously with precautions that keep skin away from boiling water. 🙂 The berry stains will just melt away. It’s like magic. I don’t know why it works but it does, every time. Even if you’ve already washed and dried the item and you think the stain is set. It seems to work best with red stains from strawberries and raspberries, and also has good effects on stains from blueberries and grapes (and wine).
I used boiling water (which works great) until I learned this earth-shattering tip from Pinterest: get a plain ol’ bottle of hydrogen peroxide and put a spray nozzle on it (almost all spray nozzles work – I guess the openings are a universal size). When you have a berry stain, just spray it with hydrogen peroxide and BOOM! It disappears like magic! Even if you’ve waited for hours and hours to treat the berry stains. Within two minutes they’re gone. And hydrogen peroxide is light sensitive so it breaks down to water within a few minutes and is totally safe. You don’t have to worry about rinsing it out. So far, I’ve sprayed it on every color and textile imaginable and I’ve never had a colorfast problem. It always works. On rugs, sofas, everything! Also works on tomato stains (but if they’re old, you may have to use a bit of dish soap too). I let my kid eat strawberries on my white sofa and I just spray the stains. It’s the best thing Pinterest ever gave me. Also, Charlie is adorable and so happy and healthy!!!
Great post! Your last line about it feeling like it is a daily battle between work and family is exactly how I feel. Some days I feel like I don’t give my kids enough time and feel guilty and then I get behind on my work if I give them extra time. It is a never-ending vicious cycle of emotions! Glad others feel the same and I’m not the only maniacal mom out there! 🙂
Oh I how I love day-in-the-life posts! Being nosy is fun! I work from home so I totally relate to a lot of this with my 12 month old daughter. I admire your tech restraint in the AM, too. I’ve been attempting to keep my phone in another room during the mornings, and it’s sadly so hard, but definitely worth it. Also, what is WITH babies and toast? Our daughter squeals (let’s be honest: screams) anytime she gets a glimpse of the bread. Charlie is so adorable!
Yes, to all of this – the work / family balance; the weird interest I have in the minutiae of other familie’s routines. You won’t regret buying the kitchens. My daughter has had hers for five years – it is still the toy area that she and all of her friends gravitate to first. And, you can store so much inside it! Also, my kiddo still climbs in bed with us every weekend morning even though she hasn’t taken a bottle for years.
As the mom of two berry obsessed toddlers I have one recommendation: Oxi Clean Laundry Spray. It’s apparently made of magic because since I bought it we have ZERO berry stains. It’s also great for red wine stains…as I discovered when I spilled red wine on my white rug!
Thank do much for sharing this. I’m curious to know what time you sleep? I’ve been meaning to wake up earlier but never do since I am always staying up later than I should surfing Pinterest.
I get home so late (6:30-7pm) and by the time I eat dinner, bathe both kids, brush their teeth, read books, pack lunches it’s 10pm! And I didn’t have anytime to unwind and aimlessly surf the net so I sacrifice sleep for some alone net surfing blog reading time.
Thanks for sharing with us.
We won’t be too mad if you skip some blogging days to hang out with that adorable fellow (those teeth!).
I like Happy Eggs best, too. Nest Fresh and Trader Joe’s cage free ones are also good.
I’m going to go make me some scrambled eggs exactly how you did now!
That little boy is the MOST adorable precious thing I have ever seen. EVER. Can’t get enough of these kinds of posts. This post also reminds me that I should make more of my mornings. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for sharing this! I’m also always curious about how other people’s lives work – and it’s so nice to see and hear the “behind-the-scenes”, we’re in the very early stages of renovating a very old home, so hearing that I’m not the only one waiting to finish bathrooms and decks makes me feel a little better 🙂 Beautiful family, thanks again for sharing!
Love this post (as I do most of your posts). You are right that the mayhem totally escalates with a second kid. I would like to, however, introduce you to a new currency that my husband and I have found. In making a bet on when our daughter (second child) would walk, we realized that it is no fun to bet with money that belongs to both of us. Then we realized that what we both value at this point more than money is sleep. So we place our bets and trades in the currency of “weekend mornings”. I won the walking bet (she didn’t walk by this Saturday as my husband had hoped) so I get a weekend morning to sleep in. He’s going on a boy’s weekend away so I get four weekend mornings in return. Man, I’m really banking them. Anyways, thought you other mammas might find our “currency” useful 🙂
Love it!
Pro tip: pour plain boiling water over berry stains and watch them disappear like magic. My mama taught me that and it is amazing.
Funny that you said towards the end of your posts “when we have another baby”….When I looked at your first pictures I thought you are pregnant again.
In any case, it is fun to peek into someone else’s mornings. They’re so private and for most people routine and a bit of a ritual too. It’s been a while since my “baby” was actually one, I enjoy looking at your adorable prince charming.
Oh my gosh…love those last couple photos at the “grill” especially. In the first, Charlie looks like he’s saying “Hey, Dad, just grillin’ some dogs. You want one?” and then in the last one he’s like “You, too? We’ve got plenty” LOL Makes me wish my boys were still little enough to enjoy their play kitchen. The days are long, for sure, but man! Those years are so short. I love seeing how intentional you are in your parenting!
FAMILY HUG!!! It’ll last a lifetime. Embrace it every chance you get!!! Guarantee it.
So we don’t have kids yet (coming up on our 2nd anniversary) and to be honest I’m still in the frame of mind where sometimes I have raging baby fever, and the next minute I swear them off for another 5 years. Part of it is still that selfishness of going to a nice peaceful dinner out with just my husband and no babysitting costs… you know what I mean..
But this stinking post got all my feels. Even though you wake up at a godforsaken hour, this is so precious, honest, and funny. So what I’m saying is, okay okay, I won’t swear off kids another 5 years. Gosh. So adorable. And I don’t even know you. And I appreciate that you and your husband show affection in front of him. As newlywed, I always want to promise myself that we’ll keep the fire goin’… even in front of our kids! Thanks for being real and inspiring!
Berries, books and brooms, oh my! Thank you for sharing your special morning ritual with all of us. Charlie is one lucky boy.
He’s a cute little fellow- he looks like you. Could you share where you got those great slippers please??
This post is so lovely. I’m in the same stage of life as you and I feel its the best one. Thanks for writing. BTW, I just pre-ordered your styled book on amazon, the book cover is perfect!
My son, Max, was born a day after your Charlie. I love reading your parenting / Charlie updates. I can relate to so much. Max loves eggs and berries too. He used to eat scrambled but now prefers over-medium eggs. Who would have thought he’d have such preferences at 15 months old?! We just started doing family hugs! I love it! Oh and we are still giving him a bottle too. We bought two toddler toothbrushes and let him brush his teeth with one and then we try getting in there with the other one when he lets us. It seems easier when he doesn’t want to give up the grip on his toothbrush. It is so cute that Charlie likes to sweep! Max has been way into drawing with crayons both on paper and in the bath tub with bath crayons. Enjoy your cute little dude!
“It’s like every day he is surprised that we have to change his diaper. I constantly remind him that I’m not the one that pooped in his pants, but he doesn’t care.”
Definitely laughed out loud at that one. You are my parenting idol.
I was disappointed to read about how you water down the formula and that you don’t give Charlie cow milk yet. NOT!
While I know the need to expalin our actions and decisions regarding how we raise our children (and so many other areas in our life) is almost compulsive, we also know it shouldn’t be.
As a gentle reminder, you (and by you, I mean everyone) don’t owe the world an explaination. You’re a good ________ (fill in the blank). Own it!
Thank you so much for letting us in on your everyday morning Emily! Charlie is beyond adorable and it looks like he might be a brilliant chef one day! 😉
You look radiant in our sweatshirt – this post perfectly shows that you really are a ‘Maman Poule’! Thank you!
http://www.emoi-emoi.com/cadeaux-parents.html
I loved this post. And needed to express it!
1. Who cares if your son still has a bottle? You should worry if he goes to college with that bottle but I will guarantee you that he won’t so who cares now (one of my 3 kids had a bottle till he was 3. He graduated college – sans bottle) and 2. you’re great parents. Thanks for the peek into your mornings.
Fun post and totally realistic in a re-enactment kind of way. When Charlie starts feeding himself, consider buying the Ikea art smock. They come two to a pack and are super cheap. And they cover the munchkin nearly head to toe. My daughter-in-law turned me on to this for when we babysit.
Because there will be messes. Doesn’t quite solve the yogurt in the hair thing though.
This “Charlie” post is very successful. It gives moms a practical perspective on real life. It was warm and real and funny. Thanks.
Oh Emily – thank you so much for sharing this snapshot of your daily life. Although my kids are older (8,12, and 14), I love this glimpse into your morning reality. I read many design/mom blogs daily and am I am increasingly frustrated with the lack of transparency. Particularly the ‘day in the life’ type posts. Bloggers who seem to have endless hours of free time which doesn’t ring true to me. Most seem to gloss over the messy bits while I’m convinced its the messy bits that readers really respond to. Otherwise, as a full-time working mom (inside the home and out) I sometimes feel that my life seems less-than-perfect. Your posts remind me that we all have challenges and have to make the best decisions for what works for our families – not for what looks good on Pinterest or Instagram. So, thank you again for being that brave voice!
P.S. I should add that your photos do look great! I appreciate that you include the backstory like moving all the breakables out of Charlie’s way. 🙂
This is so sweet. I love, love, love that morning cuddle in bed with my nine month old. I hope she stays into it, too! You might have just inspired me to make sure I get up earlier so the mornings aren’t so harried, getting us all out of the door for work and day care on time!
My wife wanted me to read this post because it mirrors our morning to an extent; everything from quiet time to berries to coffee to eggs to cuddle time to reading. Really good representation of what it’s like to have an adorable child and begin one’s day as a professional but still be able to enjoy quality family time. Nice pictures, good insight into your life and I appreciate the candor.
This was great thanks for sharing! My two year old still takes a bottle in the morning . I don’t care if he is not supposed to have it, it helps him to start his day. My oldest took a bottle until he was three… I was embarrassed but then I was like, whatever.
Eventually he grew out of it, and soon my two year old will too.
But in the mean time, You gotta do what you gotta do.