A Day in My Life

After 7 months going back to work full time, I thought it would be fun to share with you how a typical day in my life looks like.

My day starts at 5.30 am. My alarm clock rings, and I quickly turn it off. I checked on little girl. Let her nurse for a moment, change her diaper, and pat her a bit to put her back to sleep.

I sneakily get out of the bedroom, grabbing my towel and my backpack. After a hot shower, I prepare my cooler bag, fill it with empty milk bottles and cooling gels. I take out bottles of expressed milk that I got yesterday, combining them carefully into a few bottles of 100 ml. Two of them will be for today’s consumption, while the extra will go to freezer.

Preparing milk for baby Khadijah

I wake my hubby up, and get prepared for our fajr prayer. Once the prayer done, I grab my pump and start pumping. After 10 mins, I take a quick break. I take out my lunch bag from my backpack and start preparing my lunch, then have my breakfast.

It’s almost 7 am! I quickly wake my son up, let him stretch a little and go back to my pump for the second session, then wash up all the pump parts and bottles.

If Khadijah has not been up by this moment, I’ll ask her brother to wake her up. Then shower time for the kids.

I shower Abdurrahman first, while Khadijah playing with her stuffed toys in her sail boat (baby bath tub). Once out from the bathroom, Abdurrahman dries himself and put on his uniform. The helper then takes over to feed him. Khadijah will then have shower, dress up. Next I quickly dress up and nurse Khadijah.

Ready to go to school

The moment I finish nursing, Abdurrahman will be done with the food, and we are racing to put on our shoes. It’s 7.55 am and we are out of the house.

We are lucky that Abdurrahman’s school is just across the road. Before crossing, this is where we part our way. Abdurrahman, her sister and helper go to school, I go to bus stop to catch bus to the nearest MRT station.

My neighborhood at CCK

It takes me around 40 minutes in total to commute to work. I use that period of time to do two things. First, to read Quran and this is a must. Otherwise, I rarely have chance to read it at home. Secondly, do blogging related stuff, drafting new post in Evernote or editing pictures. If I don’t feel like blogging, then I do lighter stuff like browsing Instagram or Pinterest. On days with hectic work, I use my commuting time to plan my work to-do-list or read reference papers.

My work station

I reach my office around 8.40 am. I make a hot Milo, fill up my water bottle and get down to work. I got several breaks in between to do my  pumping. To make up for those, that’s why I chose to bring a homemade lunch, so that I won’t waste more time to eat outside. I spend about 10-15 minutes having lunch, and at the same time call my son to catch up with him. Either he tells me how his school was or I tell him stories about almost anything. These day I try to make this short call more meaningful by telling him prophet stories or prepping him for this coming Ramadhan.

At 5.50 pm, I pack up and head to the nursing room for my last pumping session. After 30 minutes, I head home straight. If I am lucky, I will reach home around 7.10. But if the train is severely congested, then I can only reach home at 7.30 pm.

After a quick shower, I nurse the baby, do my evening prayer, play a little with the kids and have dinner. My husband usually reaches home around the same time, and if he does, he will bring Abdurrahman to the mosque for night prayer. Otherwise, the little boy stays at home and learn Quran with me.

Abdurrahman learning Quran

9 pm is daddy time for the kids. We let them watch a short video ( this is part of Abdurrahman’s reward for doing Quran reading) while I do my night prayer and my last pumping of the day. 9.45 pm is the cut off time, everybody get prepared for bedtime and be ready on bed at 10.

Sometimes the kids fall asleep very fast, but sometimes they are still awake till around 11. Then after that, zzzz….

When I feel I want to have some me time, I stay awake till midnight, surfing the net. But I don’t do that very often, coz I need sufficient sleep to stay fit for the next day.

This post was inspired by a blog train hosted by Mum in The Making, featuring more than 20 mommies with different life.

• I feel grateful for having two wonderfully healthy children. Having children is a luxury, what more having perfectly healthy kids
• I feel grateful for having a trustworthy helper that handles chores so well, so that I can focus my energy solely for my kids and family
• I am grateful for my current job arrangement. I used to complain a lot about my job, too hectic, too many workload, and so on and so on. I hate coming home late because of tight deadline. But after I see how other mothers deal with their work, I feel more fortunate. I am lucky I can still wake my children up every morning and have time to bathe them and send my son to school. I cannot imagine leaving home while my kiddos still asleep as what some other mother must do. Yes, it comes with a compromise that I can’t reach home while it’s still bright outside, but afterall it’s just a matter of choice. Leave home early or come home late, and for now I choose the later.