5:00AM: I wake up to Elton John singing "Circle of Life." (Sometimes it's "Call Me Maybe" because those are the only two songs I have on my phone. I think. I really don't know what's on that thing besides cat pictures and the Target app.)
5:01AM: I realize that Diego is still in bed, too. I ask him if he's late for work because these days it's extremely rare that I wake up with anyone other than the cat next to me. He's not. He starts mumbling something in sleepy Spanglish and I tune him out and keep scratching the cat and start mentally organizing a to-do list.
5:30AM: I get out of bed to feed the cat because right on schedule he's gone from happy little purr bucket to attempted murderer. Diego beat me to the bathroom so I start a pot of coffee and then stand in the kitchen checking work emails on my phone until I feel like he's had enough privacy (approximately forty seconds) and burst in on him so I can wash my face and teeth.
5:45AM: Diego leaves and I plow through as much work as I can before Joe wakes up. It's a little bit like getting to work an hour before any of my coworkers, except that they don't need their diapers changed when they walk in. And if they do it's not technically my problem, so.
6:45AM: I bring a cup of coffee into the bathroom and listen to a podcast while I put on makeup because it's important to look SNATCHED even though the only person that sees your whole face most days is your daughter and she's biologically programmed to love you even if you're ugly.
7:10AM: I go into Joe's room, where she's in her crib chattering at her bear and some dolls. We "pick out" an outfit together, I scrape her hair as much into a ponytail as it will go, and we read books for a few minutes before she tears ass into the living room after the cat.
7:30AM: She immediately finds a bag of groceries that her dad left on the kitchen floor last night and insists on eating an apricot and a mango POST HASTE. Then she wakes up all her other dolls so they can watch her give Hello Kitty some face tattoos while I attempt to keep working a little bit before breakfast.
8:00AM: LOL
8:15AM: We grab the stroller, stuff Joe's backpack full of water bottles and the bagel that has now been delivered, and head to the park while it's still early enough to avoid other people.
8:Something - 10AM: We eat breakfast while watching people run on the track, scare some birds, chase a tennis ball around and play with the marbles Joe has snuck into her pockets. At one point I lose my keys, but don't worry I found them. Exciting stuff, people. A real roller coaster.
12:Something: I feed Joe some leftover lentils and rice and then she goes down for a nap. I have a meeting. I eat my own lunch and consider taking my own nap.
I have no idea what time it really is, let's be serious: Joe wakes up and usually at the waking-up-from-nap point in the day I've abandoned work completely save for answering an email or two. We play with toys, we color, we go for a walk around the block. She throws an inexplicable temper tantrum that lasts fifteen minutes. One of the two women who run her daycare has been making her food and dropping it off, so we "visit" with her and her teenage daughter for a few minutes and Joe pokes at some ants on the steps. Diego comes home FREAKISHLY early, and I ask him to do bath time while I cook so we can all eat together and he does so we do and now she's asleep after many more books and when I'm finished with this I'm going to take a shower and rinse this face mask off and maybe drink a beer and play The Sims but probably I will just fall asleep because even though this day was relatively easy as far as the days have gone because Diego was here for some of it I'm just very tired. And grateful that I have running water in which to clean my hands, and food to put in front of my kid even if she won't always eat it, but also still really tired. As Daniel Tiger says, you can be more than one thing. I hope you're all doing okay out there, and if you feel like shit even though you know damn well that all things considered you personally are DOING OKAY, I feel that.
