She-E-O: 24 Hours of Balance

Laura Vanderkam is among the most influential nonfiction writers in my life. Vanderkam, a time use researcher and productivity expert, sources her data from spreadsheets made by her studies’ participants. These sheets detail participants' lives down to the 15-minute interval. These participants? American women, earning at least $100,000 a year, with at least one dependent child under the age of 18. I find Vanderkam's narratives of these women's data both refreshing and relatable. Many of us who are running a household and a business have similar scenes throughout our days regardless of our occupational field or age of our child(ren). In the spirit of Vanderkam's (possibly best) book, I Know How She Does It, here’s a narrative of twenty-four sample hours of my personal balancing act: business owner, wife, mom, friend, personal chef, maid, and more.

A Tuesday in July

12am: Handoff. Spouse and I have a toddler who has successfully evaded independent sleep for nearly two years. “Handoff” is when we swap who is with Toddler so that we hopefully each get a few hours of sleep. I wake up when Spouse brings Toddler to me tonight (this morning?) and we cosleep for a bit. Spouse goes to sleep in the guest room for a few hours.

3am: Toddler wakes up crying. The pacifier has gone missing in the sheets. Pacifier is recovered, Toddler goes right back to sleep...

3:15am: ... for fifteen minutes. Toddler wakes up happy and wants to play. I try to soothe Toddler back to sleep with backrubs and lullabies. My efforts are met with “MAMA MAMA MAMA” and a slap to the face. Then a very cute hug. We cuddle and read Llama Llama Red Pajama three times in a quiet, slow, soothing voice to try to re-create bedtime routines.

4:45am: Toddler goes back to sleep but I am now wide awake. I send some work emails from my phone while Toddler drools on my shoulder.

5:15am: I fall back asleep with Toddler’s foot against my left ear and a cat spooning my head from the right.

7:30am: Handoff. Spouse is back on call and I get up to make tea and let the dog to do her doggy business. I step on a hairball from one of the cats on my way to the kitchen and clean it up while the tea steeps. I’ve been on an Earl Grey kick for almost a year now. This is my current go-to blend.

7:45am: Toddler is awake and yelling for milk. I pour some into a sippy cup, deliver it bedside, start a load of laundry, then head outside to meet the dog for our morning walk around the garden beds. Spouse handles the fruits and the veggie beds, while I garden exclusively for herbs and flowers. My morning garden inspection is the only activity I share with the dog; we tolerate each other the rest of the time. But... we both love Spouse, and drool over him, so we share that common ground. I pull some weeds while we meander, and I finish my tea.

8am: Dog and I head inside. Toddler and Spouse are doing breakfast. I make some avocado toast and go get dressed for my day. Today I have time for the gym, so I dress for that and pack up my work clothes. Toddler and Spouse join me in the bathroom while I braid back my hair and we sing Old MacDonald a few times.

8:30am: Kiss Toddler and Spouse goodbye. I commute to the gym singing along to the original Broadway cast album of Six and checking Microsoft Teams and my inbox at red lights (no, I shouldn’t, but yes, I do).

9am: Workout. Some yoga/core work, some strength training (because osteoporosis is not something I want in my future), and some cardio time on the treadmill. I’m rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer during cardio time because each episode is 45 minutes long - perfect for a fast-paced incline training session.

10am: Shower, change for work, and drive the quarter-mile to my office.

11:30am: I heat up some soup and have an iced oatmilk latte when my energy starts to flag. I order groceries, schedule time with my PCP to get some bloodwork ordered, and make sure I've bought my book club's pick for this month. I don’t love grocery delivery, but grocery shopping does not usually make the cut when I prioritize how to spend my time. We compromise with farmer’s markets on weekends when we’re in town.

3pm: Coffee date with a friend. She brings her baby and I get baby fever all over again. I’m planning names for my next twenty babies the whole the drive home.

4:30pm: Home just in time for handoff. Toddler is screaming, won’t wear pants, and somehow threw spaghetti into the cats’ water fountain. Spouse disassembles the fountain and cleans it. I get a canned cosmopolitan mocktail (I’ve been more or less off alcohol since getting pregnant three years ago), Toddler gets a strawberry popsicle. I plant Toddler in the stroller and we go for our afternoon “popsicle walk.” I take an unplanned work call and then order Toddler’s birthday cake with our favorite local baker during the walk. Toddler eats some wild blackberries. More Old MacDonald.

5pm: We walk back home and go straight to the top priorities: shoveling sand out of the sandbox, picking all the twigs up off the lawn and throwing them into the forest, and playing pretend in the playhouse. Oh, and rolling in the trash can. We play for a bit, then I get my book and bring that outside to read in the backyard. This week it’s Gabaldon’s Echo in the Bone.

5:01pm: Book gets put away as I’m urgently needed to assist with rolling rocks down the slide.

6pm: Time to cook dinner. Tonight is sheet pan roasted chicken and veggies because I went a little nuts at the farmer’s market and supplemented our own vegetable harvest with an unnecessary amount of kale and chard. Tenderize the chicken. Roughly chop the veggies and some potatoes. Sea salt, black pepper, EV olive oil, broil. Set timer. Inhale, exhale, read Angelina Ballerina to Toddler. Toddler wants to play with the knife I used to chop veggies. Knife “has to take a nap” and goes out of sight into the kitchen sink. Toddler shushes all the pets and all of her stuffies (and me) so they don’t wake up the napping knife.

6:30: Text Spouse that dinner is ready and we all sit at the table (even Toddler!) for a few minutes to eat dinner. We both remind Toddler that sitting in her big girl chair (instead of a high chair) requires that she sits on her bottom. Boundary established for the hundredth day in a row, I pick my book back up. Spouse finishes his dinner, feeds the dog, and takes the dog out for a breather while I clean up the table, the big girl chair, and the floor. Then Toddler “helps” put away dishes while munching a cookie. We go move the laundry over and fold the load that was in the dryer. It might get put away tonight. Maybe.

7pm: Bathtime! But not for me. We parry through several attempts to wash and rinse hair. I get a surprise hug after the tub drains and it’s so cute that my eyes tear up. Then we wrestle through brushing teeth and donning jammies.

8pm: Bedtime. But Toddler is bouncing off the walls. We read Angelina Ballerina, Hairy Maclary, and every book Sandra Boynton has ever written.

8:30pm: Lights out, rocking, and praying for sleep. I check work emails and messages once Toddler’s eyes close.

9pm: I successfully transfer Toddler to her bed just in time for the 9pm Handoff. I hand Spouse the baby monitor and start my nighttime routine of skincare and a steamy shower. I hear Toddler wake up while I’m applying leave-in conditioner and Spouse runs to the rescue.

9:30pm: I curl up in bed to read. Spouse exits the nursery after getting Toddler back down. We make eye contact. My baby fever from earlier is completely gone. There’s a level of camaraderie in parenting that I think may only matched by what the soldiers of WWI felt in the trenches. We take twenty minutes to watch an episode of our current anime and cuddle while critiquing the subtitles (because subtitled > dubbed). Laundry does not get put away tonight... and that’s okay.

10pm: Sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep. For two hours, anyway.

And then we do it all again. It really is a labor of love.

Love, E