A Day in the Life of Lissy 2015

6am, you wake up, in your bed, this is good. You got at least 6 hours of real, albeit, interrupted sleep. Win. Owen’s still sleeping. You decide to go back to sleep.

6:09, you hear a fart. Maybe he won’t wake up. You hear him fussing. Crap. You hear a bigger fart. Poop? You pick up the now crying baby and bring him to the changing table. He protests, real tears and he doesn’t smell like poop, you decide to just nurse him back to sleep. You do as you carefully button some of the buttons you already undid. Only 6:30 and he’s asleep. You get excited, maybe you can actually exercise this morning. You carefully get up to place him back down to sleep, he opens his eyes. Crap. You sit back down. You try to nurse him again, but it’s no use. He strikes up a conversion. Guess it’s safe to change that diaper now. No poop. You put in a liner to catch the inevitable poop. You hear him grunting from the bathroom. Poop’s coming for sure.

Time for second breakfast. First was at 3:30. He plays gravity in his high chair while you finish your pumpkin raisin overnight oats and drink your tea that’s been sitting out since first breakfast. You think about what to do with him. You decide he’s not going back to sleep right now. Maybe you can exercise. You take him upstairs and put on your workout clothes and contacts.

You grab a blanket and some toys for when the bouncer becomes boring. You place him in it and the blanket on the floor. You usually watch six feet under, but due to present company, decide Voyager is the better choice today. You complete 20 minutes on the elliptical while Owen amuses himself. 

He gets cranky, so you transfer him to the blanket and he’s happy again. You finish up another ten minutes or so, incorporating Owen tickles into your stretches. OMG those giggles. OMG, those two little teeth. You die of cuteness a little.

He’s had enough and oh, he stinks. You ask him if he’s made a poop. You turn off the tv and bring him upstairs. He did make a poop, maybe a 2 or 3 on the poop scale, all on the liner! You start cleaning him off when you hear the trickle of water. Shit. You look over, he’s wet. He pees some more. Oy. You grab a smaller diaper to absorb the pee and wipe away the poo he just managed to get on his foot. You take off his wet clothes and give him a once over with a wipe. You put on a new diaper and liner because you know that’s not the end of the poop. You place him in his crib while you clean up.

He fusses while you’re picking out new clothes. Good, maybe he’ll go back to sleep. You dress him in a short sleeve Apple onesie since its supposed to be warm today, put on pants and his booties. You sit to nurse him back to sleep and he grabs your boob and shoves it in his mouth. He eats and then falls asleep, yay, but he wants to keep your boob, boo. That will make it super hard to shower. You browse Facebook on your phone some more. You manage to get him to drop the nipple. You wait about ten minutes to make sure he’s really asleep before trying to get up. His eyes open. Crap. You put him in the swing and turn it on. Bryan stirs. Owen whimpers, but you don’t really have a choice. You hear him yell as you leave the bedroom.

You shower, decide you really need to shave today. You forgot to bring up your new body wash … again. You use the scented stuff instead. You dry off, put lotion on your face and legs. Baby’s quiet, but you don’t dare peek in and disturb the peace. You grab your laptop from downstairs and log into work. Only running twenty minutes behind today. You have a text from your mom about Andrew dogsitting for them.

9am, you join your daily standup call with your new team while you jump on the trampoline. You got switched from Pulp Fiction to Die Hard Monday because your old team didn’t have any work. Just as you were getting comfortable with everyone and actually contributing. Now you have to learn all new code with all new people. It sucks. You hate these calls. You feel anxious while you wait to be called on, keeping track of the folks who have already gone. You tell that you worked on your user story yesterday, looked through some of the other code and will do the same today. You call on Raj to go next. You get dressed while you listen to the other statuses. The call ended. The baby’s still quiet, that’s a first. Maybe you should check to make sure he’s OK… Bryan’s in there, you’re sure they’re fine. Best not to disturb. You go downstairs to grab a snack, apple and almond butter, but decide to heat up some leftover cajun pasta instead. Who knows when you’ll get another chance to eat. You put your body wash in your pocket so you don’t forget to bring it upstairs. You put away clean pump parts and start cleaning the dirty ones while it’s in the microwave. You bring the food upstairs and then start your codin’.

You actually have a super simple user story to add a new field to the server-side code. You could probably finish it in a day, but you spent hours yesterday debating whether the values you should store in the database should be 0 and 1 or N and Y or F and T. You must have looked through all the code trying to find a precedent, you didn’t. You really made all the changes yesterday and now you have to test it, but that’s the harder part. You hear Owen “ooh.” He probably pooped. You’ll let Bryan handle that.

What the hell, not applicable for the arguments, yes it is! What’s Eclipse talking about? You delete the line of code and put it back and now it’s happy. The frell. It’s quiet again. Maybe he went back to sleep. Wow. One of the contractors who was off when you started, Q’s you. He’s in India, he says good morning. Folks in India always say good morning when it’s night there, always. You’re never sure if you should say it back, you do anyway. He welcomes you to the team. You thank him and return to your code. He asks you how things are going. You say, “So far so good :)” And realize that’s the third smiley face you’ve used. Ugh. He’s letting you know he’ll be working on the same part of the code. You tell him you’re ready to commit some changes and start testing, so you’ll do that. You try and it won’t let you. You Q someone else for help getting permissions to commit. You hate being new.

You decide to check on the baby since you have a meeting at 10:30. He’s asleep alright. Hopefully he sleeps through the meeting, though you can probably feed him during. This test is failing. Maybe you’re connected to the wrong database? Oh, it sets up a little test database. That’s cute. You add your new field there. Didn’t work, where’s your new field? You’re hungry again. You hear the baby. You go wake Bryan up. they’re both awake. Owen smiles at you. You give him an update on Owen’s morning so far. You’re both shocked he went back to sleep because really, THAT NEVER HAPPENS. He asked if he had a bad night. Yeah, he did go to bed late and thrashed around when he was sleeping next to you.

You chat with Bryan while they’re in the other room, doing the diaper thing. He says he loves him so much. No poop. Nathan Q’s back about svn while you’re joining your next meeting. Never good when the client apologies “for what’s about to rain down on you.” You nurse Owen while you listen. He’s distracted. You take him and the phone in the other room to grab your new nursing necklace. He wants to chew on the necklace instead of nursing. He lunges for your phone. You latch him on the other side. Oh right,you’re supposed to make the sign for milk. He’s not paying attention. Owe, let go mama’s hair. He’s so squirmy. The commit’s working now. You were using the wrong folder. You won’t admit to that. Bryan comes up and says he’ll take a shower and to put Owen in the crib when he’s done. He’ll never be done, he’s taking forever. He lunges for the nail clippers. No no no no no. You pry them out of his hands. He’s chewing your fist now. Not the fitbit baby. Ew, it’s all slimey. He burps.

He’s so squirmy, you smell him. Smells like poop. Jason Q’s you and asks how it’s going. You hate being new. You commit your code. Owen’s squirming and pulling on your face. You put him down on the quilt on the floor. He wrestles with the pink pillow. You hear the shower turn off, he can wait for his diaper until Bryan gets back. You give him the puppy to play with. Then the keyboard. You tell Bryan you think he pooped. He did poop! Gah, you broke the build. Stupid automated tests. Bryan takes Owen out. And now your local’s broken. Same issue you were having Monday. You check in everything and delete the project and start over again. Bryan texts you a picture of Owen, you assume at the mall.

You undid your change while you figure out where you messed up. You see Bryan’s car outside, Owen must have fallen asleep on the way home. Reena Q’s you, she’s still having env issues too :( Reena’s getting an out of memory error??? But you fixed that! Oh good, she doesn’t have your changes, that’s a relief. How is it 1:00??? She asks if you changed a file, you didn’t. Eclipse is being mean. You go downstairs and heat up second lunch and wash the rest of the pump parts. Bryan texts you that Owen seems to be taking his long nap in the car. OK, you deleted the class, where can it possibly be picking up your changes from??? Now it’s picking them up aaaaaand now it’s not. WTF. Baby’s awake, Bryan’s changing him.

Nursing time. He’s very hungry. No, he’s very distracted. Now he’s eating OK. You browse facebook while he chows down. You check the weather. Owen farts. More poop? He grabs your nose and digs his nails in. Ouch! Bryan comes up. You chat and try feeding him some more. You tell him you hope the weather clears up a little so you can go for a walk later. He pulls your hair, you tell him no, play with the necklace. Bryan says he should be really hungry. You suggest avocado or sweet potato from the freezer. He chews on your necklace. You tell Owen if he isn’t going to eat more, you’re sending him away so you can work. He chews on your n=finger. Bryan takes him downstairs.

These build emails are getting out of hand. You create a rule to filter them. You hear Bryan talking to… Rae and Lyra? Bryan brings his iPod up so you can say hi and he scoots out again. Doh, you know what’s wrong with the code, forgot a darn question mark! OK, build should be squared away now. And Venkata of course is off now because it’s sleeping time in India, so that’s good. So I guess that means time for more testing. Or a walk. Did it stop raining? It’s not pleasant out. Bryan thinks Owen needs a nap. You decide now is a good time for that apple and almond butter. On the way up you hear Bryan comment on Owen’s pathetic poop. Not even a 1. Back to testing while you enjoy your apple and Bryan tries to put Owen to sleep.

14:16:52 -0500 (CDT) You think it’s really cute that an automated system joins the chat room to tell everyone when there’s been a successful build and the new code is automatically being deployed. You think it’s even cuter you don’t have to manually go and do that. You hear Owen, “ya, aye, ya ya ya, ya.” Guess he’s not asleep yet. “Waaah, aaaah, aaaaaaaaaah, ayagoo, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Better than hysterical crying. Your build doesn’t deploy locally automatically, you do that yourself so you can do more of the tests. Now he’s really crying. You suggest a family walk.

You talk about Owen’s poor sleeping habits and how getting him on a schedule is proving impossible. You talk about exercise and the fun things Bryan will do when it’s nice out. Owen’s getting drowsy. Bryan asks if he should sleep in the swing or on you when you get back. You say he can sleep on you, you don’t want to traumatize him with the swing again.

But Owen won’t sleep on you. He starts nodding off, but then stares at you a while, pulls off and strikes up a conversation. You let him chill on the floor. He smacks his lips and plays with the pillow. You check your email. You look down at Owen and he smiles. He wants you to pick him up, but he’s all hyper. You won’t get any work done with that squirmy thing on your lap. Where did your saved http request go? You build it again. You try nursing squats, no luck. You tell him he can do tummy time then. You text Bryan that he won’t sleep. Bryan will entertain him while you work. Carolyn texts you. You test your new code, you get an error. Owen’s going crazy with his keyboard.

Malformed JSON object. OK, probably your request is bad, that’s good. You need quotes? No, that’s not it. You try nursing squats again… with the baby, not the code. After a bit he finally falls asleep. Carolyn texts, she’s ready for her baby to make his appearance. You remind her it can happen any moment. You work while he snoozes. Oh, you see what you’re missing. Yay, new error. Making progress now! Success! You check the database for your data. Aaaand Toad’s not responding. You reconnect, but your data isn’t in the table. so, when it said success, it lied. Ah, your data’s still bad. You try again. “invalid identifier” ??? whyyyyyyyy. But it’s there!

Oy, it’s so late for Owen to be napping. He won’t sleep tonight. Usually you go to bed at 6:30. It’s 5:45 now. You’ve disturbed the beast. Hes crying. You’ve made a terrible mistake. He burps and farts, that stops the crying for a minute. You do squats until he calms down. He wants to type. cccccccc`z““““`z, no he wants to eat the keyboard. You bring him downstairs and finish up with work. Bryan changes Owen’s diaper, you hear him giggle. OK, yeah, you added the column to the wrong database… you fix that. Hey, it works! OK. Done for the day. You’ll figure out the difference between those databases tomorrow. Eats now.

You heat up the rest of the leftover pasta and then some spaghetti squash for angry Owen. You put it in a mesh strainer for him. He loves it. His second serving falls victim to gravity. You pick it up and give it back to him several times. Dessert is gelato. Owen’s fussing and angrily throwing everything off his high chair.

You make breakfast for tomorrow and then try to settle him by putting him in the sling, but that doesn’t work, so you nurse him on the couch. He seems hungry, but won’t finish eating. The three of you hang out for a bit.

7pm, Bryan gives him a bottle while you get ready for bed. He enthusiastically gobbles it up. Bryan changes Owen’s diaper and makes him giggle while you put on your pajamas. You put lotion on Owen and Bryan puts him in his pajamas while you fill your water glasses. You take Owen around the room and say goodnight to all the things. You read Peek-a-Who? together and then the beginning of another book until Owen starts fussing.

You nurse him to sleep. You sing him the sleepy Owen song. He wakes up crying every time he gets some milk. You try to burp him, but he claws at your face. You do some squats and back to nursing again. He’s finally snoozing. You read the book sample you downloaded on your kindle.

8pm, He unlatches. He’s pretty asleep. This could be it. He flips onto his back, spread across your lap. You wait a beat and then carefully get up. The fan in the bedroom is off, doh, you carefully turn it on. Wow he’s asleep. You carefully place him in the swing. Yes, still asleep. You cover him with a blanket and slip away to use the bathroom and then climb into bed yourself. Your head is swimming with thoughts, but you soon find them blurring and slipping away. You hear Owen move. You look over, still asleep. You relax again, check him one more time and relax again. You feel yourself slip off to sleep.

He’s crying! What time is it? 11, wow, you can’t remember the last time he had that long a stretch at night. You really don’t want to get up, but you grab him and sit on the mattress on the floor. He quiets as soon as your boob is in his mouth. You lie down. He’s pretty squirmy and eventually pulls off and won’t nurse anymore. You get up, he’s screaming. You do a couple squats in the hall, he stops as Bryan gets there. He starts up again and Bryan starts changing his diaper. You go to the bathroom. He almost pees on Bryan, but he catches the stream with the new diaper. He’s happy, that’s usually not a good sign. He gives him back to you to nurse and he grins at Bryan. You try to nurse him, but he keeps looking for daddy. Eventually he focuses on the task at hand and falls asleep once again. Really quickly actually. That was super easy. You read more of the book sample and then quietly back to bed.

Two hours later, you’re awoken again. You take him to the mattress and you both fall asleep cuddled together. You wake up and see Bryan sneaking in. You wake up again at 4 and switch sides and again at 5:30. You can’t nurse him back to sleep at that point and you’ve had enough sleep, so you get up and change his diaper. That was a very good night. Owen touches your hair and holds your thumb. You melt a little. “Mommy loves you.”