Denise Vasi understands the juggle. As a mother of two and founder of Maed.co, a site dedicated to nutrition, beauty and wellness for women who balance careers and parenthood, she gets firsthand just how hard it can be to keep everything in check. Here, she outlines her day for us, from negotiating her daughter’s outfit of choice, to creating content for her legions of mamas, to hosting Salsa dance parties in her kitchen. Here’s how Denise is making it work.
5:30 am: I go straight from my bed to my desk while still in my pajamas. I have a brutally early call with a team member who lives in London this morning. We go over Maed’s website analytics and map out content strategy for the weeks ahead.
6:30 am: I jump in the shower and start to get ready. I’m taping a podcast today and need to be camera-ready. I use a curl refresh spray from Fekkai, so I don’t have to wash or restyle my hair–this is a major time saver because setting my curls from scratch can add an extra hour and a half to my routine.
I go through my daytime skincare routine and put on a little makeup. Concealer under the eyes, mascara, some rouge, and a red lip.
7:00 am: Hubby starts breakfast and juices celery for both of us. I start putting together school lunch for my six-year-old.
I hear little bodies moving around in my room. The kids are up! They somehow always end up in our bed. Sometimes it’s 5am, sometimes it’s at 3am! We co-slept with both of our children, so it’s never a bothers to me. I love all the snuggles!!!
7:15 am: The kids sit down for breakfast. My girl is having a gluten-free waffle with fresh strawberries with 2 fried egg whites. My son is having gluten-free oatmeal with cinnamon and raspberries.
7:40 am: My daughter and I head to her room to start the “what are you wearing to school today?” negotiations. She gets herself dressed, and I dress my two-year son. I do my girl’s hair, we go over affirmations and mottos, like “Share your voice with the world, your opinion is always valued, and the more the merrier.”
We spend five minutes looking for her shoes.
7:55 am: I help load the kids into the car, and hubby is off. My husband is a film and commercial director and is on the road a lot so when he’s in town, he handles morning dropoff. After dropping our daughter off at school, he takes our son to the park.
8:00 am: This is one of the few times in my day when I’m not performing the juggling act between mother and entrepreneur. I am kidless, and that means it is go-time!
I rush to get dressed, a black tee-shirt, jeans, and a pair of motorcycle boots.
8:15 am: I run to my desk and look over Maed’s editorial calendar. I prioritize emails from my managing editor and my writers. I drink my first cup of coffee.
8:45 am: I make myself a simple avocado toast on gluten-free bread with a squeeze of lemon, a dash of salt, and a few splashes of hot sauce.
9:00 am: I head back to my desk to go over emails, I prioritize only my brand partnership emails, taking note of any important notes or deadlines. All other emails get addressed later in the day. This is how I avoid getting lost in my inbox for hours.
9:30 am: My son is back from the park. I wash him up, change him into clean clothes, and make him an almond butter toastie. We connect and play cars till I have to sneak away.
10:15 am: I head back to my office to make sure my computer is charged and my microphone is working to record my guest spot on Thorne Research’s podcast.
11:30 am: Podcast is wrapped. I head to the kitchen to make a smoothie for myself, jump on Instagram stories to check in on my community. I recently launched a six-week skincare challenge, so we’ve been sharing barefaced selfies and individual results from the challenge.
I whip up some mushroom, black bean, and avocado tacos for my son and me.
12:00 am: I sit down with him for lunch. Lunch always takes longer than I anticipated because he’s a grazer. He takes a bite of food, gets up, grabs a toy, walks around, and then finally returns to the table.
12:45 pm: Time for him to take a nap. We go for a quick stroll around the block because that’s the fastest way to get him to snooze. Sometimes I just do loops in my backyard… whatever gets it done, right?
1:10 pm: I rush back upstairs to my office. I have 90 minutes to film content. I’m currently working on a gift guide video featuring three of my favorite clean beauty gift sets from Sephora.
2:40 pm: My son is up, I load into him my car, and we leave to pick up my daughter. Our school is only a few minutes away, but the carpool line is ridiculous, so I use this time to run a 30-minute work call.
3:30 pm: We get home from school pick-up, wash up, have a quick snack, and change into park clothes.
4:15 pm: We head to a local park where my daughter plays soccer with some of her school friends. My youngest rides his bike on the grass, and I catch up with some newer mom friends that I met when my daughter transitioned into elementary school.
5:45 pm: The kids and I are back home from soccer.
6:00 pm: It’s 6 pm, so I sit down to share an Instagram post. Most of my social media posts revolve around mothering, self-care, or beauty and usually go live around 6PM.
I throw on some salsa music and have a little dance party in the kitchen with the kids.
6:30 pm: Hubby walks through the door, jumps right into our dance party, and then makes himself and me a cocktail. I used to strictly drink bubbly rosé, but now I’m all about spicy margaritas. Hubby and I tag-team dinner.
7:00 pm Dinner time! Since husband is home, we eat Euro-style, AKA later than most families. It’s important to us that we get our time all together to talk about our day. We share what we’re looking forward to, and sometimes we play a quick storytelling board game, but tonight our six-year-old read us a book about going to the library–remember those?
7:45 pm: We set a five-minute timer and challenge the kids to see who can pick up the most toys off the floor. Somehow I always win this game!
8:00 pm: Bedtime for the kids! We use a kid’s meditation app to help guide them to sleep quickly. Sometimes hubby and I split bedtime responsibilities. Sometimes, all four of us jump in bed together and cuddle, but hubby has to handle both kids tonight. I’m presenting content to a brand tomorrow, and I need to finish editing video footage.
8:10 pm: I shower and run through my nighttime skincare routine, which I am adamant about–hence why I designed a community challenge around skincare.
I alternate my products, tools, and devices. Tonight I did a ten-minute microcurrent session with my Nuface device.
8:40 pm: I sit down to finish editing video content for my latest project. I do most of my writing and content editing at night because I’m a total night person, and obviously, there are fewer interruptions.
Hubby threw on a new Netflix show he’s into while I pretended not to watch but then in an attempt to solve the whole series, I annoyed him with 22 questions.
10:00 pm: I wrap my edit up, and we cuddle up on the couch.
10:30 pm: Hubby heads to bed. He always ends up in bed before me!!
I send out any last-minute emails to my team or jot down any random ideas that come to mind. Then I scroll Instagram one last time, which is honestly a terrible thing to do before bed, but hey, no one is perfect! I might share something from earlier in my day or something that’s on my mind or in my heart. I grab a small glass of water, take ten minutes to meditate, and then I’m off to bed.
Tomorrow is another chaotic day! Ha!
