Thursday photos + words // a week in my life 2024

9 min read

In case you missed it – I am currently documenting a whole week in my life, day by day. This project is inspired by the wonderful Ali Edwards. You can check out Monday to Wednesday here.

In this season of life Edd has a job that takes him to the UK every other week. The weeks in between he works from home. So we’re alternating between weeks where I am solo-parenting and weeks where he tends to be quite flexible and is around a lot. This week is a week of solo-parenting.

Which means, less sleep! Edd usually is the one to get up with our toddler SJ and gets her ready for nursery and takes her there, while I look after our baby L (which often involves staying in bed with her).

Wednesday morning

I am very lucky to have my parents living next door. They support us a lot. This morning my mum took SJ to nursery. I could stay in my pyjamas and crawl back into bed once they had left.

I didn’t manage to fall back asleep so I got up and did a 20-minute workout.

Afterwards I got dressed and did my make-up.

Moving a little bit and getting ready made me feel a lot more awake and motivated for the day.

Our home right now

I was inspired by Ali who shared some pictures of various bedrooms in her post yesterday. I really like the idea of having a record of what each room looks like now. I am sure they will evolve over the years. Right now, there are a lot of toys everywhere.

Here’s our living room. I love that there is so much natural light.

And here’s the kid’s room.

More morning things

L was still asleep so I made myself some breakfast and aired out the flat.

I almost always sit at the table for my meals. When I eat on my own, I usually tune into a podcast.

I decided to touch up my nails while the windows were open. Just as I had finished with my last nail, L woke up. However, only one got smudged in the process of picking her up and she remained nail varnish free, haha.

After nursing and changing her, I put her in the carrier and did a bit of housework: taking the recycling into the basement, putting on a load of laundry, putting laundry away, checking what’s in our freezer and a quick hoover in the living room.

Lunch break

I then headed back to the kitchen to sterilise Ls dummies, make tea and cook myself some lunch.

In the week’s when Edd is away I usually eat my main meal at lunch. SJ gets a hot meal in nursery, so in the evenings we then just have sandwiches and salad. Not having to cook while also looking after two kids on my own makes life a lot easier.

Today I had quinoa with spinach, tomatoes, pepper, cucumber and boiled eggs. I love quinoa but Edd isn’t too fond of it, so it makes sense to eat it during my weeks on my own.

While I was eating I listened to the Bible Project podcast. Their series on the sermon on the mount is completely fascinating. I also printed out a sewing pattern I just purchased. One of my favourite pattern designers released a quilted bag pattern which I couldn’t resist getting.

The afternoon

L and I picked up SJ earlier than normal. We currently don’t own a car. We borrow my parents cars a lot but today both of them needed one during normal pick up hours so we just went a bit earlier.

I love picking SJ up – I look forward to seeing her and she is sooo excited to see us. How her face lights up when she spots us through the window and how she runs toward us with shouts of joy is so precious. Is there a greater love than that of a toddler for their parents?!

Back at home we had a little rest all together, listening to a Peppa Pig CD from the library and cuddling on the sofa.

L fell asleep after a while and SJ “helped” me cut out my sewing pattern.

A playdate

Around 3 pm a good friend of mine and her daughter came over for a playdate. They brought rhubarb and eggs from their own chickens!

We did some crafts, ate muffins and water melon, chatted and the girls played with various toys. We had a lovely time.

Dinner + bedtime routine

After our friends left we did a quick bit of tidying and then made dinner.

Dinner was a bit chaotic – L was very restless and SJ spread cream cheese all over the table and then decided to only eat a few cucumbers slices. These struggles around meal times are the hardest bit around parenting for me. However, today I managed to stay relatively calm!

After clearing the table, SJ got into her pyjamas and brushed her teeth. I read her the book about the paediatrician again and then we prayed and turned the light off.

SJ was a bit hyper but 10 or 15 minutes later she was asleep. And so was L!

I managed to transfer L into her own bed without any problems but she woke up 10 minutes later. She was super smiley and full of energy! So we played for a while and around 9 pm I put her in her bed hoping she would fall asleep.

I sat down next to her, working on this post, knitting and putting her dummy back in every couple of minutes. It took until quarter to ten for her to finally be asleep.

I then headed to the living room for a bit to unwind a couple of minutes before getting ready for bed myself.

It was a good day!

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This post is part of a week long project in which I document my life, day by day. This idea is inspired by Ali Edwards who has been doing this for years.

Here are the photos and words from my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.