A Day in the Life of Hadley – Deployment Edition | January 14, 2016

I started creating “Day in the Life of Hadley” blog posts when Hadley was eight months old after being inspired by my own parents who created “Day in the Life of Erica” tapes when I was a baby. Since then I’ve continued to put these posts together roughly every six months, and they’ve become some of my personal most treasured posts.

I chose yesterday, Thursday, January 14th, 2016 as a great day to record this “Day in the Life” post because I knew it would hopefully be very representative of what “normal” looks like around here these days. Hadley is just a few days shy of 26 months old; Jamie has been deployed for exactly three months. It’s just the two of us for a little bit longer!

The day started around 6:30 when I woke up on my own, and it took about 15 minutes to get myself in gear and get out of bed. I finally got up at 6:45 to take a quick shower and try to get myself together a bit before Hadley woke up.

When I got out of the shower, I heard her in her room across the hall talking, so I threw my robe on and went in to get her up.

After I quickly took her (dry!) pull-up off of her, I got her out of bed and she walked straight to her potty chair. She knows the routine by now! Her purple blanket goes with her everywhere.

Some things never change. Just like the last few “Day in the Life” posts, she immediately went to the kitchen and asked for milk.

I ran out of cows milk last night, and all I had in the refrigerator was almond milk. She was none the wiser and sucked it down. PS: I am five years old and prefer the pictured gummy prenatal vitamins. 😉

After she drank her milk, I asked for her help with feeding Teddy breakfast. She’s loved this “job” for a while!

Miss Independent then wanted some fruit…

Once I got her situated with breakfast, I poured myself a big glass of ice water in my Yeti cup (my absolute obsession these days), turned on the Christian station on iTunes radio for some morning encouragement, and unloaded and loaded the dishwasher.

Once I finished the dishes, I was starving for my own breakfast. Five out of seven days a week I usually eat the same thing for breakfast: one piece of whole grain bread, one scrambled egg, one or two pieces of ham, and a generous shake of Tony C’s seasoning. I was too hungry to remember to snap a picture, but this is what was left. Breakfast took about five minutes to prepare and about five seconds to disappear. 🙂

She was slow-going with her breakfast, so I let her watch Aladdin while I went back to my bathroom to get myself together. T-minus one hour until we had to leave for preschool.

It’s so, so rare that I fix my hair and do my makeup during the week, so it felt good to put myself together a bit. I’m obsessed with my new makeup bag I got at Target a couple of weeks ago. Everything is so much more organized!

I’ve tried at least eight different brands of dry shampoo, but this one from Herbal Essences is my favorite.

After checking on Hadley a couple of times, I cleaned up her breakfast and had her play on my bed until I was done getting dressed. She teases Teddy so bad!

Once I was ready to go, I got her dressed, brushed her teeth, and fixed her hair. Time to pack her book bag and get out the door!

Meltdown #1 of the day: She’s upset that I won’t let her have the juice that she saw me pack in her book bag. It was only 8:30 and she’d already had one glass of milk and one big glass of water, so she did not need any more liquids until we made it to school!

Out the door on time by 8:40 and off to school! WE LOVE SCHOOL DAYS!

I snapped one picture before I left and scooted out the door.

I was off to a monthly MOPS steering committee meeting from 9:30-11:30. I really enjoy that time with my MOPS friends!

After the meeting I ran out to mail a girlfriend a package at the post office. I prayed the line inside was short because I didn’t have much time before I needed to grab Hadley at noon. Thankfully it was.

After I scooped up Had, we waited in the lobby area like usual to see Meg & Jack!

She is always very demanding of a snack as soon as she gets seated to wait for Jack. Today all I had was some Cheez-Its for her. She cried for a minute that I didn’t have chocolate (I never do?!), but got over it when she saw Jack!

Here he comes!

Homegirl would be out cold by the time we got home 10 minutes later…

I woke her up when we got home to make her go to the bathroom and eat lunch, and Jamie called right as I was waking her up in the car. We were so happy we got to FaceTime with him for a while!

While I talked more with Jamie, she ate nearly every bite of her lunch: three peanut butter crackers, one pack of fruit snacks, and one cheese stick. I just threw whatever I could find that I knew she would eat on her plate!

I laid her down around 1:15 for her nap, and she slept hard until 3:30. During that time I paid some bills, cleaned up the kitchen a bit, worked on a little bit of blog-related stuff, and took about a 30 minute nap. I planned to put away laundry, but that could wait!

When she woke up, I took off her pull-up again and she watched as Teddy and I went outside to get the mail. She loves hollering for him to come back inside!

After we both ate a quick snack and chatted with my MIL for a few minutes, we headed out to do some much-needed grocery shopping at Target. I let her pick out a new toothbrush, and she played with it the entire hour we shopped. It’s the little things.

Once we got home she demanded a banana and then got a little sassy. Story of our lives these days!

It’s hard to get motivated to make dinner these days with Jamie gone, but when I saw this box of homemade pizza ingredients in the pantry I knew that’s what we’d have. My friend Meg made a big care package for Hadley and me after Jamie deployed, and she included this boxed kit for me to save for a night just like tonight – a night that I really didn’t want to cook but was still in the mood for something tasty that wouldn’t be hard to make. It was perfect!

Hadley absolutely loves watching me in the kitchen and participating where she can! This is one of my favorite parts of her age right now.

While we ate dinner I watched World News like I do almost every night. 🙂

I also treated myself to my one soda a day for a little caffeine boost to get through the next couple of hours until Hadley went to bed. By 6:30 I was getting a little tired!

After dinner I let Hadley lay on the couch and watch The Little Mermaid while I talked to my sister on the phone and straightened up the kitchen and living room.

I kind of hate straightening up at night, but my mornings are always better the next day if I wake up to a clean house.

I also forced myself to put away all of Hadley’s clean clothes that I meant to put away earlier in the day.

At 7 p.m. it was time to head to the bath!

I love how long her hair is finally getting! You guys KNOW how long she was practically bald (18+ months!).

At 7:30 I got in bed with her like usual to read two books. I know this is one of her favorite parts of the day. She gets so excited when I get in bed with her now that she has a “big girl” bed.

Hadley knows what elephants say. 😉 So proud of my girl! Ha.

Around 7:45 I left her lamp on and left the room to let her read and play for a little while longer. This is something new I’ve started doing since we got back to Kansas a few weeks ago, and she loves having quiet playtime in her bed! I finally went back in around 8:30 to give her another kiss and shut off her light.

After she crashed I talked to my mom for a bit while starting to put this blog post together. I also watched a little bit of the Republican debate.

Around 10 I got ready to head to bed. I’ve set a goal to read through the Bible in a year via the SheReadsTruth app, and I’m already four days behind in my plan! Not good! I laid in bed and caught up with my quiet time for a little while before calling it a night around 10:30.

Ready for a whole new set of “adventures” with my girl today. 🙂

Previous “Day in the Life” posts

August 4th, 2015 (20 months old)

February 25, 2015 (15 months old)

July 16th, 2014 (eight months old)