And now it’s my turn!

The week before, I brought you time charts showing how mothers staying at home with a 2 month olds and 10 months old spend their day. I also took part in the exercise, cataloguing a typical day with my 2 year old. As before, I only included the time that I was on my own, when Dave was at work. Much of a parent’s active time is in the mornings and evenings (oh God, the evenings are a race to bedtime), but that is true for all parents, working or not. I wanted to simply capture just what happens when a parent is on his or her own during the middle of the day.

This was both illuminating and amusing to me, as I had to create new categories as I went along. Like the “getting my toddler to do something” category. This isn’t the time it takes to actually put on shoes; it’s the time it takes for me to convince Bean to come on over and put on her shoes.

(I’d like to point out that things have improved since I began the slowing. it. down. regiment — ironically enough, by slowing down, we now get out the door faster than we used to. I did this time journal before I started implementing those changes. More on that tomorrow.)

This was a fairly normal day for us. In the mornings, we usually go to a class or outing or hike of some kind. Then, it’s home for lunch, nap, then an afternoon of errands and playing at home before we make dinner.

Here we go:

The four color categories are: blue — time spent actively taking care of the toddler, red — taking care of the home, green — personal time, and yellow — play time.

It was surprising to me how the four quadrants are almost of equal size now. At first, I was surprised how much personal time I actually get, but then I realized that this is why I’ve been able to start up this site again. Personal time is nap time, and I actually had the luxury of starting to get bored during nap times. (I imagine this is why people start adding another kid to the mix around when their oldest turns 2.)

I still spend a lot of overall time cooking; Bean’s food intolerances mean that I have to prepare a lot of her food (including sandwich bread) from scratch. Before Bean, our kitchen was the neglected third room in our apartment, and now it is where I spend hours every day. In my time journal, I spent 2.5 hours cooking, buying food, and cleaning up. And that is just when I’m on my own — it continues before Dave leaves from work and after he comes home.

Toddler time was the illuminating part. I apparently spend over an hour every day either getting my toddler to do something or comforting/helping her. Even when a toddler isn’t actively defying you by repeatedly doing swan dives onto her bed instead of getting dressed, she toddles up to you asking to help get a lid off some toy. Or, she just face planted off the ottoman while you were brushing your teeth and you need to go over and give her a pat on the head and a “there there.” There is a level of activity going on at all times that is startling, and much of that activity ends up in scraped knees and bumps to the head.

Thankfully, that is somewhat balanced out by how much less time I spend taking care of my toddler.  I’m not battling tiny buttons and snaps on sleepers anymore, I’m not pinning her down trying to change her diaper before she rolls over or flings it somewhere, and she can wipe her own hands and face. Toddlers are beginning to take care of themselves, which can leave you in a passive supervisory mode. She can take off her own shirt, pull down her own pants. If she decides she wants her slippers, she’s fully capable of remembering where they are and bringing them to me to help her put them on. That is all very nice.

Let’s compare back to my friends with the 2 month old and 10 month old:

Sigh, the poor mother of the 2 month old. Look how much more play time and personal time I get. I even get more play time than the mother of the 10 month old.

This all makes sense. At 2 years old, Bean is beginning to feel like my little friend that I take on adventures, rather than the helpless baby that I need to maintain. Bean is by no means completely independent of me, but she is much more capable than a 10 month old. (Look how much less time I spend on toddler maintenance than my friend with the 10 month old.)

Speaking of time spend taking care of the baby/toddler, my friend with the 10 month old and I spend roughly the same proportion of our day actively taking care of our kid (around 2.5 hours for me and 3 hours for her), but how the time spent within that is very different. As a baby becomes more independent, they’re able to do much more for themselves which you think would give you a break. But, it’s like a toddler replaces those minutes with the stereotypical challenging toddler behavior, so you end up right back where you started.

The diapering/potty time situation is very funny to me. The mother of a 2 month old spends over an hour dealing with diapers every day, thanks to the occasional blow out and all the stupid snaps. The mother of the 10 month old spends 10 minutes on diapering all day — it’s basically stopped being an issue for her. Then there’s me, with the somewhat potty trained kid, and I’m back to spending a chunk of my day dealing with diapers and pottying again.

What do you all think? Are there any trends that you notice that I haven’t picked up on? If you’re a parent, do you think your day looks differently? Is any of this surprising, or is this what you expected? I’d love to hear what you think.