Woznation

As crazy as my life feels right now, I understand that its going to get a whole lot crazier.  And though things feel hectic, we actually have a pretty predictable schedule around here and I wanted to document it before everything changes again.  Im sure I’ll look back on this and notice how easy we had it!

6:15 am Alarm goes off

Phil is long gone by this time.  He usually wakes up at 5:00 and is out the door immediately to go to the gym, or gets ready at home and leaves for work by 6:00.  I get up and start preparing lunch  for daycare and work.  I have my breakfast and check my email while I watch the Conan monologue from the night before.  I take Barney out, then prepare Wil’s morning oatmeal and milk.  At 7:00 – I go and wake Wil up, though sometimes he is already stirring by now.  Every morning, as soon as I walk in he starts pointing at 4 things: (1) His solar system mobile (2) His map of the earth (3) His tree and (4) his dinosaur.  He can say map and tree, but is still working on dinosaur and solar system.  We go downstairs and have breakfast, watch some disney junior, play with our cars, or read some books.  Then we get ready for the day.  We change our clothes, brush our teeth, feed barney, and put things in our bags.  By 8:00 we are out the door and on our way to daycare/work.

Wil’s daycare is in the old National Bohemian Brewery building.  Natty Boh is the beer that everyone drinks in Baltimore and though its not made in Baltimore anymore, you see ‘Boh’ the mascot everywhere – there is even a little display of old bottles and memorabilia on the way into daycare.   Wils favorite things to do on the way to school are to buckle (or as he says, ‘Pap’ for ‘Snap’) the carseat straps, points out all the ‘Bohs’ he sees, and closing any door that is even cracked open.  He likes to sit in his cubby while I put his things away, and then carries his lunch over to the fridge and puts it away.  He does pretty well at drop-off.  Though sometimes I need to stay an extra few minutes and play with him as he settles into his surroundings.

Then I am off to work.  Its about 2 miles from Wils daycare.  I can usually find street parking less than .5 miles way from my building.  And then can walk  from there.  Luckily, there are plenty of clover patches to keep me entertained.

I share my office with one other biostatistician.  Though he works out of another location, too, so hes only there 2 days a week.  I have very slight seniority, and therefore have the window desk 🙂 with a nice view of the library.  I work in the School of Public Heath and it resembles most other universities – with the except of a giant research hospital right next door to us.  Im usually in the office by 8:45ish and work until 3:45 ish.  I am not teaching 4th quarter, but taught the 620-series Labs for 2nd and 3rd quarter.  During that time, I would generally teach labs from 1:30 – 3:30, 2-3 times a week, depending on the schedule.  The course itself consisted of hundreds of students, but then they broke off into small lab classes where I went over more in-depth examples of the theoretical material covered in lecture.  I snapped a picture of my empty classroom over the weekend.  Depending on who felt like learning statistics that day, I would either have 15 students or 50 students.

Then I high-tail it home to take Barney out again.  And I can usually unload the dish-washer, start a load of laundry, get dinner prepped, run to the grocery store OR eat a snack (when I read back over that it was starting to sound like I did all of those things daily, haha.  Not the case, that is a big-fat OR in the list of things done.  Im very lucky if one of them accomplished). At 4:00 – I head back out to get Wil from daycare.  Depending on his mood and appetite (and my appetite!), we either come back home or sometimes head to the park (or meet up with my Moms group on Thursdays). When we park and start walking to our house, his favorite game is ‘Is this our house?’. Where we stop and point at every door and I ask him if its our house and he goes ‘Nooooooo’ until we come upon our house, with the green door, and the flowering tree, and a Barney in the window – where he starts laughing hysterically.  Love it.  Once we are at home, Wil usually watches Elmo while I finish getting dinner prepared.  Or plays with his trains, or Barney, or he jams out with his ear phones.

Or sometimes we play with the forward-facing phone feature on the cell phone:

But by far the best time of the day is when daddy gets home around 6:00. Wil hears the car in the alley and the ‘beep’ when Phil locks the car.  And he stops whatever he is doing and starts yelling ‘DAAAAAAAADDDDDYYYY’ and runnnnns to the back of the house! And waits there until Phil opens the door.  Its VERY exciting.

The rest of the evening is spent hanging out with Daddy.  Phil is able to do way more fun things like flipping Wil around and ‘flying’ around the kitchen and chasing after Barney.  I love the laughter I hear from 6pm to 7 pm in this house!  While Phil is on duty, I can usually finish up some work, shower, or clean.  When I shower, Wil usually waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, until I come back down.

At 7:15 Phil takes Wil upstairs to start the bedtime routine.  Phil is in charge of bath and brushing teeth while I clean up down stairs.  Then I head up to do PJs, books, lullabies and bedtime.  Most of the time, Wil is asleep by 8pm.   Then Phil and I can either watch a show (or more often than not, one of us needs to finish up some work).  By 9:30, Phil and I are usually ready to call it a day and head upstairs ourselves!

9:30pm Lights out

So that is a ‘typical’ day for us.  Though we usually have a few hiccups throughout the week.  Sometimes I have to work late or Phil has to work late.  Sometimes we have to order food.  Sometimes I have a doctors appointment.  Sometimes Wil gets sick at school.  Sometimes I work from home.  Sometimes I get called for jury duty (4/24!). Sometimes Phil and I both leave work at noon and go catch a movie (Ok – that only happened one time).  Some days are better than others.  But most of time, life is pretty good!