A Day In The Life (Toddler Edition!)

Here’s a day in the life, toddler edition! I love peeking into the day-to-day lives of both friends and strangers. I’ve often told Nate that I would loooove to be a fly on the wall in his office for a day! I’ve heard about what goes on during his work days, and I’ve stopped in his office for small talk and pleasantries with his co-workers, but there’s something that’s very intriguing about the monotonous daily actions that we all take. (This could be why I love reading celebrity memoirs so much; they’re way more fun than celebrity instagram accounts, which are essentially highlight reels, or gossip columns. I love knowing what’s going on inside someone’s head!)

So I share these day-in-the-life-of-Kelsey posts every now and then. They’re a little tricky to document, because I have to remember to take pictures of monotonous things that I do daily without thinking about it (like making my coffee.) But they’re really fun to look back on, and I appreciate seeing what I was doing at different phases of life. I haven’t written one since I was pregnant with Milo (2019!) but here are a few day-in-the-life posts from the past: 

A Day In The Life (August 2018)

A Day In The Life (February 2019)

A Day In The Life (Pregnancy Edition)

A few things about this day that I’m about to share: 

  1. We have childcare during 3 weekday mornings, and then on the other 2 weekdays I care for Milo, and on the weekends Nate and I share the time. I documented a day without childcare, because those are the memories I’ll want to have here. 
  2. This particular day was last Wednesday. 
  3. I look back at my old schedule, and daaang! I would hustle! I miss that feeling. Motherhood is a different type of exhaustion…honestly it’s harder for me than the career grind in my twenties. It kind of feels like this: back in the day, the early alarm to squeeze in the workout, the long hours of work and hustling all day, and then a late night symphony rehearsals gave me the type of exhaustion you get from doing an energizing/killer workout and you sleep SO well at night; the feeling I have at the end of the day of being a full-time mom is that fatigue you get after being on your feet all day at ACL fest eating brisket nachos and Tiffs Treats and you crash into your bed completely spent…and happy! They’re both great feelings, just very different. I’m thankful to have childcare a few days each week now so I can still have that ability to work on something other than motherhood, and I have a feeling that part-time childcare is something I’ll prioritize all the way through, because it makes me a better mom.
  4. Milo is so much fun at this age! I can’t believe I only have a few more months with my one baby before there are two of them! 

Ok, enough of that. Here’s a day-in-the-life, toddler edition: 


6:00 am: alarm goes off and I’m out of bed. Nate and I alternate turns getting up with Milo, and Wednesday was my day. 

Even though I’m doing my barre workouts at home these days, I still have to lay out my workout clothes the night before! It just helps me get moving. 

Morning pour over! (Here’s how I make my daily cup of coffee, if you’re interested.) Note that the pink fuzzy robe is on over the workout clothes. Perk of working out at home…I couldn’t pull this look off at the studio. 😉 

Storm is extra snuggly and nuzzle-y in the mornings. Her automatic feeder goes off at 6:30 am, so I know exactly what these snuggles mean… You’re not fooling anyone, cat. 

6:10 am: gratitude journal, a few sips of coffee, and an energy bar to make sure my stomach feels ok for my workout. I’ve found that my best days of life are when I get my mind and my body in order before the day begins. My gratitude journal practice is one of my favorite ways to get my mind in good shape for the day. It just takes a few minutes, I can do it on paper or in my head (like if I’m on a stroller walk with Milo or doing a chore like folding laundry), and it can transform a day. I don’t get to control the circumstances that happen to me during my day, but I have complete control over my mind. That is a hundred times more powerful than controlling what actually happens, because mindset changes everything! That’s why I love giving my mind a little “pep talk” each morning in some way.

6:15 am: 45 MOD virtual class! I miss the studio sooooo much. As soon as I get my second vaccine, I’ll be back in the studio! 

20 week bump joining me for the workout. Good morning, little baby boy! 

7:00 am: I hear Milo is in crib, but he’s happy so I take 15 minutes to unload the dishwasher and drink coffee. My coffee is still hot and fresh thanks to the Ember mug! Seriously obsessed with this miracle of a coffee mug. Since I’m limiting myself to one cup of coffee in the mornings during pregnancy, I sip it slowly from 6-10 am. I love that it stays at the perfect 135 degrees the entire time!  

7:15 am: Milo man is up! I love that first snuggle in the morning and the smell of his nursery. It’s the combination of baby lotion and diapers and good old-fashioned baby scent, and I hope it stays in my memory long after his nursery is transformed into a big boy room. 

I eat my (second) breakfast while he’s drinking milk: a toasted superhero muffin with lots of butter and a hardboiled egg. These are the muffins my mom made for my during my first few postpartum weeks, and they’ve been a staple in my kitchen ever since! They’re gf, packed with veggies and fiber, and taste sooo delicious.

And then it’s laundry time! Milo is trying to zip up his sleep sack. A friend of mine gifted us a Kyte baby sleep sack at my baby shower, saying that it’s the only way her son would sleep when he was a baby. And now we’re 16 months into parenthood and we’ve bought the next two sizes up! It’s the softest organic bamboo sleeper. Every time we walk into his room Milo asks me to get it out of his crib so he can snuggle it. (Sometime around here Milo also said “byyyyye, da-da” as Nate left for a medical appointment.)

8ish: breakfast time for Milo! He was really into the superhero muffin for about 4 bites, and then he decided that I was torturing him by offering him breakfast. And for the next 20 minutes, everything was the wrong choice. Milo, can I pick you up? No. Put you down? DEFINITELY not! Play in the play room, upstairs, outside? No, no, no. I did not document this toddler temper tantrum in photos, but I’m documenting it in words to remember those days when I’ve been awake for a while, made my coffee, finished a workout and a load of laundry, eaten two breakfasts, snuggled and played and read books with my baby, given him milk and breakfast, survived a very emotional toddler temper storm, and I feel like my energy for the day is almost gone…and it’s only 8:15 am. The days are long, y’all!

8:30 am: walks have always been our happy place. He instantly calms down when the wheels start moving, and I get a few minutes of peace to finish my coffee while we walk around the block. (I paused in this photo because he wanted to watch the lawn mower – lots of “wow! wow!” coming from the stroller!)⠀⠀

My audiobook while we walk. I’m listening to this one for book club and it’s a sad but really fascinating historical fiction book. 

Turns out that cheerios in a cup were the correct breakfast choice. 😉 

We walked past the neighborhood pool. I’m so excited for it to open up next month! We moved last fall during the last two days of the pool season, so only we got a sneak peak of it. I have a feeling we’ll be there every day this summer.

And then we were back home around 8:45 to let in the contractors who were doing some work on our fireplace renovation. Milo and I played upstairs for a little bit, and then it was time to go to…

Swim lessons! I love our weekly swim lessons. It’s so fun to have a standing weekly event with a toddler where I know I’ll get to see the same moms and Milo knows what he can expect from the lesson. Little babe did a great job in his lesson! There are six or seven stations in the pool, and at one point in the lesson we rotate around the stations, spending a few minutes at each one. The underwater station is where the babies practice jumping in and holding their breath. Milo can hold his for 7 seconds really nicely…however, he’s always a bit cranky when he comes up for air. Thankfully the next station is the island play station with toys, which is his FAVORITE! He’s instantly smiles and splashes the second he gets there. 

10:00 am: I usually just drive home in my swimsuit + coverup, but on this day I had a stop to make so I went into a changing room and got dressed. Milo was all buckled up safely while I got changed. 

Post-swim lesson, heading to a new bakery that just opened up on South Congress to snap a few pictures and chat with the owner. 

Teal House has been the number 1 spot on my Best Cinnamon Rolls in Austin guide for a while, and I was sooo excited when I saw that they were opening a storefront on South Congress! It’s a beautiful shop with both patio and indoor seating, a full coffee bar, their full menu of pastries + some new ones, like a vegan cinnamon roll. 

Milo and I did a side-by-side taste test of their gluten free roll vs the regular roll, chatted with the owner for a bit, and then left with a half dozen of their famous cinnamon rolls. 

11:30 am: back home! The contractors are busy downstairs and in the backyard, so I kept Milo upstairs for most of the day. He has recently become obsessed with making sure that the ceiling fans stay on. Here he is pointing to the ceiling fan and saying “uh-OOOOH!! uh-OOOHH!!” until I turn it on. 

12:0 pm: chicken nuggets and grapes for lunch. He’s staring out the window at the contractors installing our new outdoor grill. Can’t wait for summer grilling! 

Then we played upstairs for about 45 more minutes until he went down for his nap at 1:00. 

1:00 pm: lunch was a Snap Kitchen meal: almond-crusted salmon, zucchini, and carrots. 

1:15 pm: I like to take his nap time and spend 50% of it resting and 50% of it doing something productive. Resting sometimes means reading or watching tv, and sometimes (like on this day) it means taking a nap. Storm was very excited that I decided to take a nap so she could have someone to snuggle with. 

And then got up, made myself a cup of green tea (my go-to if I need a second daily caffeine dose during pregnancy – it has about 25% as much caffeine as black coffee) and settled at my desk for an hour of work.

3:15 pm: Milo is up from his nap and ready for his second cup of milk! He decided to drink this one in the pantry, I guess? 

He thought that disappearing into the pantry was reeeeaaally funny! 

Side note: just realized that you’re getting to see all of the un-renovated pockets of our house in this blog post! Since contractors were in the main area of the downstairs, we spent the day in the kitchen and upstairs, which are the two places of the house we’re waiting to renovate until after baby #2 comes along. Welcome to 2005, friends. 

3:30-4:00: Hey happy kiddo! We took a quick stroller walk to the park and I let Milo run around for a bit. I had to put him in the car after this, and I always try to let him burn off some energy before I have to fasten him down in the car seat. He is sooo happy at the park! Even on the coldest, windiest days, he’ll play there for hours. I’m pretty sure he would stay at the playground all day if I let him. 

4:30 pm: we had a curbside order to pick up at Toss Pizzeria: BIRRIA PIZZA! A friend of mine knows that I’m exploring the birria taco scene in Austin right now, and she texted me a picture of this pizza and was like, “sooo, we’re trying this, right?” Haha, please appreciate the ratio of pizza to salad in this picture…

My friends Jess and Brandon and their son Teddy came for a driveway pizza party! Halfway through the day I realized that our backyard was full of fireplace debris and brick dust, our living room was under construction, and there would probably be a contractor’s truck in our driveway…and I almost texted Jess to cancel the pizza date. But I’m REALLY working on not waiting for everything to be perfect before hosting. Like lots of people, I tend to feel embarrassed if my home doesn’t look perfect and I use that as an excuse for connecting with my friends. But the older I get, the more I realize that NO ONE CARES as much as I think they do, and the social time and human connection is what matters, not the renovated kitchen or catalogue-perfect living room. 

So Jess and Brandon came over, and we all sat in lawn chairs on the driveway, put the pizza on a card table in the garage, and kept drinks cold in the yeti cooler. And I’m so glad I didn’t let my perfectionism make me cancel this evening of good times with friends! 

Birria pizza, by the way, tastes exactly like a birria taco if you swap out the corn tortilla with pizza crust. 

Milo discovered the empty herb garden and diligently transferred soil from the pot to the driveway. (And his shirt.) 

7:00 {not pictured} bath, books, snuggles, and bed for my little baby. He’s typically in bed by 7:00, but on this night it was closer to 7:30. It was late and he was fussy, so I had to move kind of fast…hence the lack of photos.

And then I showered off my day! This was followed by a few minutes of tidying up the kitchen, connecting with Nate (I hadn’t seen him since early that morning), and then crashing into bed around 8:30 pm. I read my book until my eyes wouldn’t stay open. 

9:10 pm: a screenshot of the time right before I fell fast asleep.


And that’s a day in the life, toddler edition! I wanted to document this before baby #2 arrives this summer. I wonder what I’ll think about this day when I have TWO boys instead of one? Will I think that life with a toddler and a pregnant belly was such a breeze? Right now it feels like the perfect mixture of fun and exhausting. I got to bed SPENT every single night, and I need a nap most days. But I also love these days with 16-month-old Milo. He’s so goofy and smart, each day discovering new words to say and learning that he can express his opinion in new ways. 

I know these early baby and toddler years will be over some day, and I really want to cherish them while they’re here. Thanks for following along!


Read more day in the life posts here: 

A Day In The Life (August 2018)

A Day In The Life (February 2019)

A Day In The Life (Pregnancy Edition)

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Jess Barr
Jess Barr
2 years ago

Phew! I’m exhausted just reading this 😜 Blessed to have you, Nate, and Milo in our lives, and I’m so grateful to share toddler mom life (and food!) with you!

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