A Week in the Life: GCA, a mom of two, shares a birthday party win
This week’s interviewee, GCA, shares her biphasic sleep schedule, details of an awesome sounding science-themed party, and the rhythms of life with a 5 and 8 year old.
WMMIW will be on a fortnightly schedule (get me, 12 years in Scotland finally taking hold…) throughout the summer. We have some chats scheduled and a few WITLs but I’d love to hear from YOU! Share your thoughts in the comments and fill out the Interview Form.
What’s your kid/family situation?
38, married, two kids ages 8 and almost-5.
What is your job situation? (Job, hours, WFH vs butts in seat)
We both WFH full-time with an occasional day in office (husband) or coworking day (me). We have one car and are in close-in suburbs of a large East Coast city.
What's your childcare situation? (daycare, wraparound care, nanny, magical grandparents)
Full-time daycare, 8-5 for the preschooler. Daycare is open 7:30-6:00 but those are the hours we usually send her. Elementary school + aftercare 5 days/ week. Aftercare is open till 5:30. Occasional sitters, no other childcare, and no magical grandparents. My parents live in another country, husband's parents are halfway across the US. We landed here because DH attended grad school in the area and graduated immediately before the pandemic, but have been mulling a move to be closer to the family for some time and are finally doing it this summer.
A Week in the Life
Monday
Woke up - 6:30am. Most mornings, I get up earlier than this to go for a run, but Monday is my day to sleep in. Unfortunately I didn't sleep well last night due to terrible allergies. The pollen count is really high today.
DH also gets up, and we putter about making breakfast for the family - usually just freezer waffles/ bagels/ scrambled eggs/ smoothies. Kids are already up. They are congenitally early risers, DS (8) more so than DD (almost 5). Their Ok to Wake clock turns green at 6 and they've been playing in their room ever since. if DS wakes up before DD, I often find him reading in his bed or on the couch.
DH is in charge of packing lunches, something that started when DS was an infant. Since I was in charge of producing the milk and nursing the baby, DH handled the daycare-hours sustenance (ie. putting bottles in the cooler bag and labeling them). These days it's mostly sandwiches and leftovers.
7:30 - DH and DS out the door to elementary school. We live about a third of a mile from school. (DS has been asking to walk home alone, and we live in a gritty but gentrifying neighborhood that's generally safe during the day. What would you do?) Meanwhile, I get a few minutes of time at home with DD. She gets dressed for the day, we read a book and do Duolingo together, then I take a shower and get ready for work.
7:50 - DH does daycare drop-off and I commute about 15 feet to my desk. Most of my colleagues are in UK/ Europe and my morning is about five solid hours of calls as it's the only time we really overlap.
1:30pm - break for lunch. I read on my phone for about 20 minutes at lunch most days. This month I'm working my way through Demon Copperhead, but it's due at the library and the waitlist is a mile long. I'll have to wait another couple of weeks before I can finish the remaining 1/3 of the novel. If I'm not reading something, I do the Squaredle puzzle.
2:00 - back to work. 4:45 - knock off and pick up the kids from daycare and afterschool. Invite DS's friend and their mom over for an impromptu playdate/ dinner.
Our household policy is: if you're at our house at dinnertime, you get fed, either whatever we're having or an emergency PBJ (adjusted for allergies and preferences).
Meanwhile, DH goes for a run.
5:30 - Start assembling dinner while the kids play (some kicking a ball around the backyard, some videogames). I make spaghetti, throw some frozen meatballs in the oven and roast some veggies, and the other mom picks up chicken as their contribution to the meal.
6:15 - everyone sits down to dinner and we hang out for a while more.
7:15 - friends go home, kids do chores/ bedtime routine and we wrangle them into bed around 8:15. My sleeping habits are slightly eccentric, involving biphasic sleep, and I probably would not recommend them to other people. Most nights I either do a bit of work after kid bedtime and head to bed around 10, or more often fall asleep putting DD to bed (we both like snuggles), nap with her for a few hours, get up and putter around/ run digital errands/ work, then head to bed.
Tuesday
5:30am - up to go for a run. I take about half an hour from getting out of bed to actually leaving the house. In part, this is due to obsessively needing to finish the day's Wordle and Quordle before heading out. In part, I'm waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Coffee, toast, bathroom, brush teeth, out the door.
7:00 - get back from run, breakfast, shower, get kids ready for school.
7:30 - DH and DS out the door. Hang out with DD 8:00 - DH and DD out the door. At desk for a lot of calls. This week has been a bit of a marathon as directors and team leads have a big quarterly meeting on Thursday.
4:45pm - stop work and pick up kids for DS's dance class. DH finishes work around 5:30, works out and then makes dinner. 6:45 - get home, have dinner, chat about our day, and read a book to the kids at the dinner table. (We started doing this years ago when we realized - aha - we have a captive audience!) Bedtime routine, kids in bed at 8:30.
11pm-1am - putter around, snack, tackle some work I didn't get to while in all those meetings.
1:00am - back to sleep.
Wednesday
5:30am - get up and run 7:00 - get back, breakfast, shower, get kids ready for school
8:00 - at desk, more calls
10:00 - remember to buy DS dance recital tickets when they go on sale online. I have a reminder in my calendar for this. 11? 12? lunch at desk in between meetings
5:00pm - start prepping dinner and pick up kids. We all eat an early dinner, and then DH and DS go to soccer at 6:15. I'm not fond of how late it ends, but kiddo loves soccer, DH is their team's coach, and those are the times we have the field. I clean up and hang out with DD at home.
8:15: DD in bed. DS in bed around 8:30. I go through the agenda for tomorrow's big work meeting. DH and I go through the run of show for DS's science-themed birthday party this weekend. We've planned a number of experiments and have been testing some of them since the weekend. I make a grocery list for the party.
10:30 - read & head to bed. I need a full night's sleep for what's ahead.
Thursday
6:30am. Sleep in, morning routine, etc. DH heads to the office today, adding a layer of logistics. Usually, he does drop-off and then heads into his office. The office is 25-40 minutes away, depending on traffic, in a different suburb. Traffic has been a nightmare lately, particularly as the local subway system is dysfunctional, but he's getting interns oriented today and wants to be there with them.
7:45 - at desk. Dial into the quarterly company meeting.
2:00pm - meeting ends. Much of it was workshop-style, with lots of participation, so I am completely fried. Two more separate, non-quarterly meeting calls to go. Take a deep breath and fire up Zoom again.
3:00 - Done with calls. Stare at my screen, unable to function. Across the pond, my colleagues are definitely unwinding at the pub. I give up staring at my screen and start baking a giant, two-layer chocolate cake for DS's party.
4:15 - DH calls to say he's leaving the office and should get back in time for pickup. Phew! I can technically walk to pickup, but daycare and school are 1.25 miles apart in opposite directions. The answer is probably bike/ scooter/ cargo bike, honestly, but our logistics needs are about to change again soon so I'm holding off on any big-ticket purchases.
5:00 - Cake layers out of the oven and cooling off. Switch gears from cake and start making dinner.
5:30 - DH and kids get home. Everyone is very curious about the cake, then they drift away and have a bit of screen time on tablets and phones till dinner -- DD is currently big into Wild Kratts.
6:00 - dinner, family time, chat about our day, leisurely bedtime routine. I make some frosting to crumb-coat the cake before putting it in the fridge.
8:30 - kids in bed. I fall asleep snuggling with DD. Midnight - wake up, get a little work done, read.
2am - back to bed.
Friday
5:30am - get up to run
6:50am - get back, shower, breakfast, etc.
8:00 - at desk for (thank goodness) a completely ordinary workday.
4:30pm - out the door for a party-prep grocery run and kid pickup. Afterschool has been on the playground lately as the weather is nice, and it's lovely. Assemble a fridge-cleanout type of dinner (noodles with tofu and a truly random veggie assortment) and finish frosting the cake. Kids in bed by 8ish. DH and I sit in bed reading and then go to sleep.
The Weekend
Saturday:
Morning - I take DD to gymnastics, then come home and we all clean and prep for DS's birthday party.
Afternoon - birthday party, in which we hosted 12 kids and a handful of parents in our tiny, 2-br apartment. I'm sure all the other parents thought we were completely out of our minds. DS requested a science-themed party so the kids made rock candy and slime, blew bubbles filled with dry ice vapor, and engineered giant soda eruptions in the backyard. There was pizza (storebought) and cake (homemade) and snacks (Costco). These parties are not particularly showy or Instagrammable. They're a mess. Sugar solution was everywhere, slime of many colors, cake crumbs trampled into the floor. But they're fun.
One key takeaway is that every kid party needs a dedicated quiet space, especially if the party is indoors and can get loud. More than one kid got a bit overwhelmed at times, but second-graders these days are bright and self-aware enough to recognize the signs and go hang out in a corner with the grownups/ in a bedroom reading a book or playing by themselves. For future parties I'll probably set up a quiet space with books and fidget toys.
By the time we are done with cleanup, it's about 7pm. Bedtime routine and kids are asleep by 8. 9:00pm - I should sleep, but instead I blitz through the last part of my current library book (Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You) and go to bed way too late. [Editor’s Note: Such a good book!]
Sunday:
6:00am - I get up at 6am to run about 8 miles. I usually do a couple of half marathons a year, but I'm not training for anything at the moment, I just like to get an hour and a half to myself tootling around the neighborhood while listening to podcasts. Sometimes I run with a local group for a bit of social time. The rest of Sunday involves swim class (DD), a Cub Scout event (whole family), a soccer game (DH and DS), and a chill dinner at our friends' house. Then get home, bedtime routine, wrangle everyone into bed, pass out before 9.
Reflections
What was your biggest success this week?
Pulling off DS's birthday party and contributing to the quarterly strategy meeting at work. But my introvert nervous system is fried.
What was your biggest obstacle?
Juggling the birthday party prep/ planning and all the kid activities with work, but we signed up for that, and it brings me joy to plan a party that is purely for the kids.
How are you making it work?
Family calendars and shared grocery lists on Google Keep. We need to be really deliberate about taking time for ourselves and supporting each other to do the same. My husband will kick me out of bed if I tell him I want to run but am still lolling about after the alarm goes - he knows, and I know, that I am a much happier and calmer person if I run in the morning. Likewise we schedule evenings off for dinners out with friends or tv watch parties (recently he's been watching through the Mandalorian episodes with friends). When we remember, the occasional date night. We're lucky in that we each travel for work only a couple of times a year, and my whole team is in other countries so I don't feel like I'm missing out on in-office social events. For me, the biggest challenge is starting each day feeling like I am already behind.
Thanks for sharing, GCA! What do you think about an 8-year old walking home? My son is counting down to being able to cycle solo and we’ve agreed on P4 (US equivalent of 3rd grade).
Very interesting read, thank you.
I think at 8 I was allowed to walk places that didn’t involve crossing roads - or where the only road crossing was directly in front of my house so my mum could watch me cross. In practice that meant just going to the library.