A Day in the Life

Next week will mark ten months of maternity leave for me. Hong Kong grants 10 weeks of paid leave, and our school allowed me to take the rest of the year as unpaid leave. It's a Canadian school, so actually the Canadians are appalled by this because in Canada a pregnant employee can take up to 15 weeks paid maternity leave. The mother or father can take 35 weeks of leave after the baby is born, and they can share the leave however they choose.  (source here)

The United States is the only developed nation that has no mandatory paid maternity leave. My helper told me that even in the Philippines you are granted 4 weeks of paid leave! So as an American I feel so fortunate to be able to take so much time off. I am thankful to my wonderful husband for encouraging this! It's clearly not without a large financial sacrifice, but I do think we make up for it in family sanity.

Here's a rundown of a typical day:

5am - Owen wakes up. Wants milk. Tries to go back to sleep. Takes a huge poop (this happens about 99% of the time). Cries out to be changed. Wakes Tyler. 

5:30am - All babies and parents are up! 

Good morning, boys!

6:30 - Our helper Mheng arrives. The boys and I walk Ryan to the bus stop where he gets picked up for work. Babies are fawned upon by coworkers. I get 5 minutes of adult conversation. 

Here we are at the bus stop.

After the bus leaves, the boys and I take a walk through Victoria park where we see some regulars playing badminton and doing the fan dance. The boys are enthralled, and they get fawned over again by the locals. 

The boys love watching the fan dance.

7:30am - The boys go down for their morning nap. 

7:31am - Madeline wakes up! She plays some form of dress up and eats breakfast. Eventually she puts her regular clothes on for school. 

Snow White eating breakfast.

8:30 - I walk Madeline to school. She walks or rides her scooter. 

9:30 - 11:30 - I go to a cafe to do work for my on my online class and take care of any family business. Two hours to have coffee and time alone is bliss! 

12pm - I pick up Mads from school and walk her home. 

On the way home she likes to stop at a payphone
to "call" Grandma.

1pm - Madeline goes down for her nap. 

1:01pm - The boys wake up from their second nap. Fortunately, my helpers are both home so if I need a rest I can try to take a nap. Otherwise, I'll play with them and take them out to the park for a walk.

Playing with the boys. One of these people wishes they were taking
a nap. Can you guess who it is? 

At the park.

4pm - Madeline wakes up for her afternoon activity. I take her, or I spend time with the boys. 

Here we are on our way home from an activity.

5pm - Ryan gets home from work. Dinner and bath for the boys. 

6pm - Dinner with Mads and playtime.

7pm - Put the boys to bed. 

7:15pm - Give Maddy a bath. 

8:15pm - Put Mads to bed. 

8:45pm - Collapse into bed ourselves! 

We feel so lucky to have our wonderful helpers, Brigy and Mheng, with us during the day. They take excellent care of our home and kids (and let's be honest, of us too!) so that we have the energy to be present with our little ones. Sometimes we even have enough energy to hang out with each other and be social. Somehow with all of this help, we are still exhausted. It must be the 7.5 months straight of waking up multiple times in the night. Hopefully their night wakings will soon be over and we can go to bed super late, like 9:15pm. 

I'll be back to work in January, and then the madness of 3 kids and a full-time job really begins!