Last night my wife posted an entry on her blog detailing everything she did in a day of taking care of Samantha. It’s rather a lot of stuff, and from my perspective appeared to be designed to show off the fact that taking care of a baby/toddler keeps you from having any kind of set schedule at all. I’ve always wanted to do something like that, and since today was my day to watch Samantha, I decided to do the same thing. Of course me, being me – I was hyper anal about times, lists, and what I put on here. I did also for the most part leave out my trips to the bathroom; figure you don’t care to read that. So I have way more detail than Lynn did on her entry. So here we go…

• 7:05 – Samantha cried out, and jarred me awake. She did however not really “get up”, and stayed quiet, so I stayed in bed.
• 7:12 – Bladder got me out of bed to hit the bathroom
• 7:15 – checked email – toy ordered for Sam shipped to my mother’s house. Why I checked my email before getting in the shower? Be glad I used the bathroom first, I’ve been known to roll out of bed straight to the computer.
• 7:22 – I got in the shower, and talked to Lynn at same time, as she was getting ready for work.
• 7:38 – I started setting up the laptop in the kitchen, as it was going to be where I kept this log all day, as it’s a central point in the house, plus I use it on Saturdays anyway.
• 7:39 – Started bottle in warmer
• 7:40 – Checked on Momma changing diaper
• 7:44 – Fed Samantha bottle
• 7:45 – Started a pot of coffee for myself.
• 7:46 – Said goodbye to Lynn, she went to work
• 7:48 – Toasted Waffle for Samantha’s breakfast
• 7:51 – Fed Samantha waffle, ate my own cereal
• 8:05 – Started Baby Einstein DVD for Samantha
• 8:07 – Finished setting up laptop in kitchen had to hook up power and the mouse – I hate laptop touchpad mice
• 8:08 – Once that was done, I went outside, got the newspaper, and turned on the soaker hose for awhile, as the Lord knows we need rain around these parts.
• 8:11 – Finally managed to drink some coffee.
• 8:13 – Got on the computer and did some usual morning stuff (browse web, sent pics to some people, fantasy baseball updates, email, news, general stuff)
• 8:32 – Took out some trash and checked on soaker hose
• 8:36 – Worked on update for last night Rangers game for my Texas Rangers site
• 8:50 – Baby Einstein over, get more coffee, go play with Samantha in living room.
• 9:15 – Samantha was still playing at this point, but not much was holding her attention for more than a minute or so. She’d look at pictures, pick up this toy, that toy, and move on quickly. Came in to kitchen to update this list.
• 9:16 – Samantha followed Daddy to laptop and wanted up, so we looked at pics of Samantha. Samantha loves looking at pictures, and she knows daddy’s laptop has pictures, and certain pictures of herself make her smile rather a lot.
• 9:23 – Called mama at work to say hi
• 9:25 – Seemed tired (yawning, rubbing eyes), put down in crib for a nap.
• 9:27 – Turned on baby monitor, freshened coffee cup
• 9:29 – Went to play Xbox 360
• 9:40 – Samantha fell asleep, as far as I can tell, continuing to play Xbox 360 (MLB 2k6 for the record)
• 10:30 – Read article on grocery stores in newspaper
• 10:35 – Fed cats
• 10:38 – Looked at 3D Realms forums
• 10:54 – Washed the few bottles that were in sink
• 11:05 – Called mama to say hi again
• 11:07 – Started reading my email backlog
• 11:10 – Samantha woke up, continued to read email
• 11:15 – Walking by the window, I saw the mailman at the next house, so I went out and met him to get mail (bit too hot for Samantha today in my opinion, plus she wasn’t awake yet anyway).
• 11:17 – Mailman brought Amazon coupon, cancelled camera order with Dell, replaced with Amazon order. This is the camera.
• 11:21 – Went in to take care of Samantha, change diaper, change clothes
• 11:25 – Fed Samantha a bottle, prepared her lunch, read email while she ate bottle
• 11:33 – Fed Samantha lunch (rice & peas). Lynn said she loves this meal, and she was energetic at the start, but I think she had enough; she didn’t finish it. Towards the end she started putting peas and rice in her hair. I stopped that of course, but it was still funny to see her with rice in her hair.
• 11:58 – Done with lunch, didn’t want all of rice/peas – taking into living room for Blue’s Clues
• 12:00 – Cleaned up kitchen floor, as there was rice and peas everywhere – about dozen peas, uncounted rice
• 12:04 – Started another blog entry for my Texas Rangers site
• 12:08 – Mama called from work
• 12:14 – Back to baseball blog entry
• 12:17 – Read online news
• 12:25 – Got samantha from crib as Blue’s Clues was over, went to play in living room, but on the way discovered I needed to change a dirty diaper – oh joy!
• 12:29 – We came in and had a big living room play session. The usual stuff went on, blocks, cars, looking at her photo album, knocking down the stacked toys I stood up. There were a few things that stood out. As with Lynn’s “Rose Tyler” entry on her blog, I asked Samantha where Rose Tyler was, and she went off and started playing with the doll, which was very cool. One other thing that I really enjoyed was when we played in this red plastic chair Lynn bought. Samantha loves sitting in this chair. She can’t get in it on her own yet, but she does go to it, stand up, bang on the chair, and then look at you to put her in it. So I did. She then put her own blankt over top of her head and sat there. I peeked in from the bottom of the blanket, and when she made eye contact, she got a huge smile and then reached out to hug me (all under the blanket). I loved it. Was a wonderful heartwarming moment.
• 1:14 – Samantha seemed a little tired, put down in crib for a nap.
• 1:17 – Used bathroom, came out to kitchen to mark latest updates to this list.
• 1:18 – Checked in on Rangers game on TV that was supposed to start 20 minutes previous to this. It was in a rain delay.
• 1:21 – No game, went outside to examine soaker hose situation
• 1:25 – Came back in fixed my own lunch, sat down in living room, watched TV while eating it (This Week in Baseball and some random news stuff I had on the TiVo).
• 1:50 – Came back to laptop, quick check of other baseball games, and the usual web browsing, email checks, etc.
• 2:11 – Went in to get Samantha up, who is now awake.
• 2:15 – Playtime in living room – the usual stuff.
• 2:21 – Kira decided to stroll through the play area, which means Samantha is off – Samantha loves chasing Kira. Kira is not a fan of being chased, and she usually gets trapped behind the cat tree, which prompts much laughing from Samantha.
• 2:25 – We went into the master bedroom and played “The Bed Game”. It’s kind of silly – I load up one side of the bed with this really long body pillow of Lynn’s, and then the other side is mostly me laying there with some pillows at the far end against the wall. What we do is Samantha crawls towards the end of the bed that my head is not at, and then I roll her down the pillow towards me, and she’s laughing the whole time. She then rights herself, and then crawls back to the other end of the bed and waits for me to do it again. She loves this. Not sure how we got onto this. However, the bed game will have to end soon as she’s getting too big for it, and she wants to crawl off the side of the bed to go after the cats. The pillows don’t stop her as well as they used to.
• 2:40 – After the bed game, Samantha got to watch another episode of Blue’s Clues while Daddy did some random picking up, plus started a download of the new Doctor Who episode from England.
• 3:10 – It’s afternoon snack time, and Samantha gets one of her favorite snacks – a banana. I did have a Michael moment though as I knocked the banana holder to the floor and it broke in half. We’ll need a new one.
• 3:25 – The banana is over, so it’s a quick diaper check (don’t need change), and then back to more living room play. Right around this time Daddy taught Samantha something new! One of Samantha’s things is knocking down the peek a blocks which stack onto each other. I noticed Samantha trying to slide one of the blocks onto the base you use to start the stack. She was doing it all sideways, so I stopped and showed her how to do it a few times. She seemed really interested in watching me try to teach her, and after a couple of attempts, she managed to do it right – she stuck the block to the base, pulled it apart, and stuck it again. Daddy got EXTREMELY excited – as it was a visual, tangible piece of proof that I taught her something. I clapped, and told Samantha what a good job she did. I really loved it – I almost cried. I got so excited I had to call mama at work again. :)
• 3:40 – After the call it was back to living room for more play. Samantha was fixated on Rose Tyler again – the doll has a magnet in it’s head, as does the pacifier, so it will stick to the doll’s mouth. Samantha spent about 15 minutes just pulling it off, putting it on – she played with no other toys during this time.
• 3:57 – Diaper change!
• 4:00 – Daddy burnt himself out in his extreme excitement over the block success, and got really tired. Samantha went in the pack & play (with no TV or DVD). I lied down on the sofa right next to her for a few minutes.
• 4:20 – Daddy held Samantha and walked around the house looking at various pictures.
• 4:29 – MAMA’S HOME! We’re both happy about that! After momma gets changed, daddy lies down on bed to rest for a few minutes after brief update on my Rangers site regarding the rainout this afternoon in Boston
• 5:00 – Came out and started playing catch up again with this list.
• 5:25 – The Rangers game finally started (about 5 hours late or so), so I put that on while being online working on this list.
• 5:45 – Stopped working on the list for the time being, and watched the Rangers game.
• 6:10 – Watched Samantha for a bit while the Rangers game was still on – Mama needed to make some Cole Slaw for dinner tonight.
• 6:30 – I paused the Rangers game, and got up and started prepping the Michaelburgers for tonight’s dinner.
• 6:38 – Michaelburgers take the grill
• 6:54 – The Michaelburgers are done. During the cook time, I also went out front and messed with the sprinkler (which didn’t work right) in an attempt to water my lawn, which desperately needs it. I also parked the truck in the garage.
• 7:02 – Lynn and I start eating dinner while the Rangers game was on. Samantha was in her pack & play at this time. Not sure when we finished, but when we finsihed, momma took Samantha and went and played in the living room – daddy continued watching the Rangers game.
• 7:40 – Daddy pauysed the Rangers game again, and got up and cleaned up the kitchen from dinner while momma was bathing Samantha.
• 7:47 – Back to the Rangers game, also sorted some mail that had piled up the last few days.
• 8:05 – Took in Samantha’s nighttime bottle, Samantha goes to sleep for the night.
• 8:06 – Got online, checked out email.
• 8:11 – Picked up the mass of toys that were all over the floor in the living room.
• 8:16 – Back to the Rangers game. At some point during here I fell asleep on the couch watching it. No clue exactly when, when I got up the game was over.
• 8:40 – Lynn came out and read the newspaper. I watched some random stuff on the TiVo. Mostly VH1’s Rock Honors special.
• 9:10 – Read a bit of the new issue of Sports Illustrated
• 9:15 – Started watching episode of Doctor Who that was on Sci-Fi Channel Friday night. About 30 seconds into it, Samantha cried out, so momma went in there and calmed her down. Daddy got online for a few minutes.
• 9:27 – Back to the Doctor Who Episode.
• 10:15 – Showed Lynn a 7 minute mini episode of Doctor Who (from the UK on the laptop) that came next in chronological order after the one we watched on Sci-Fi channel; this mini episode will likely never air in the US.
• 10:25 – Watched a bit of the late local news (mostly about weather, which is now at 100-102 now regularly – ugh).
• 10:40 – Talked to Lynn a bit before she went to bed for the night.
• 10:53 – Came in here to work on finalizing this list. At this point, the list is current with what I’m actually doing. Also during this time I email chat with my brother who is at work back home in Pennsylvania, as well as browse the web since I’m now caught up with the list.
• 12:05AM – Done with the Internet for the night, I’m going to head into the other room and watch the new episode of Doctor Who that was on in the UK earlier this afternoon.
• 1:08AM – Doctor Who is over, now it’s time to play a game on the ol’ Xbox 360, and likely hit the sack, as I’m getting tired. I can never just “go to bed”, I have to be drop dead tired, otherwise I lie there, think of something, and get my mind going again, and wake up. That’s my day, roughly 18 hours or so after it started.

UPDATE Sunday: I ended up finally going to to bed around 2:15AM. Which is about average for me.