Every Day is the Same

"Yeah, I'm making a mess at 7am. Wanna fight about it?"

I am SO over the morning routine.

I think the morning is even worse than bedtime.

Add potty-training to the mix and the mornings are just 2.5 hours of arguing with a toddler and pulling an infant out of harm's way... all before I even have to go to work. Most days, by the time I get to work, I am sweating, harried, and disgruntled from all of the running around, organizing and nagging I have to do.

I could probably reduce some stress by preparing the night before, but who has the energy to do that?!?!

In addition to all the arguing and resistance to do the same things they are required to do EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. there is the mess-making and insanity-inducing repetitive singing of a two-year old. I actually feel like I am going crazy some mornings after hearing, "ABCDEFGHIJKABC!" over and over and over...

And Lillian's scream is something to behold. It will stop you in your tracks. One of her teachers at daycare goes out of her way to avoid known triggers for her outbursts. I can't avoid them. Diaper changes = screaming. Putting on a coat = screaming. Getting her in the car seat = screaming, I would almost prefer hearing Gabby incorrectly sing the alphabet at maximum volume.

Serenity now. Serenity now. Serenity NOWWWWWWW!

Though she be but little, she is fierce

Or however that saying goes...

Lillian is a force to be reckoned with. Full disclosure: she feels ALL of her emotions to the tenth power. This includes: happiness, relaxation, fear, fury, and OMG. 

It's to the point where the daycare staff tells me, "Thank God we know her because otherwise she'd be hitting her head 100 times a day." We actually had to buy a padded highchair because she was intentionally hitting her head on the hard kitchen chair when sitting in her booster seat. 

It's just... When she's happy she is SO happy but she is volatile. Her fuse is short and her triggers are difficult to predict. Some I have locked down. She WILL NOT sit in the tub. A reality I have accepted. I hold her with one arm and wash with the other and pass her off to hubs so she can leave the room because HOLY CRAP. She will always melt down in the high chair. She doesn't like being put down. And on and on...

But in the end, I remember Gabby at this age. She's always been dramatic and needy and Mommy-oriented and then I look at Lillian and think, "She is definitely mine." Both of them are. And I'm not sad about it. 

Working Mom Blog Series - Episode 4: Self-care and Bonding time with Husband

I have to admit that lately, these moments are few and far between, although extremely important. This is probably our biggest area in need of improvement, but I think in time we will do better. It's hard to focus on our relationship and ourselves when we have two needy little girls. So what do we do?

I definitely take a bath and read for a while after the girls go to bed. Ricky goes for a walk when the girls have been quiet for a bit. It stinks to separate like this, but someone has to be in the house with them...

On spending time together, I guess we sometimes will watch a movie or show after he gets home for his walk. I would entertain going for a dinner or movie more often if we weren't both trying to lose weight and had a regular babysitter. This is one of the things we are working on.

Day-to-day, we really just try to work as a team to take care of the house and our family so that nobody is feeling overwhelmed. We take turns. He cooks dinner while I keep the girls busy. I take a day off a month to do a deep clean on the house. We are definitely still in survival mode, but we are way beyond surviving. We are loving it. We have the best family ever. 

So long suckers!

Photo credit: shrimpyphotography.com

Addiction is a nasty beast. For over a year now, we have been planning Gabby's quit. We have to wait until the baby is born. We have to wait until she isn't jealous of the baby. We have to wait until she is sleeping through the night. We have to wait until she gets used to sleeping with the toddler rail. And on and on and on...

I don't want to put it off anymore.

I also don't want bedtime to be the worst part of my day.

But the binkies have GOT to go. She is at the point now where she bargains and negotiates for "one more sip" or "one more bite" in the mornings. She asks to go to nap just so she can have some alone time in her room with her binky. It's just no good.

So... now that she is going to bed happily and loves her sister, we are going to stuff a Build-A-Bear with a binky and some stuffing and head off into the sunset binky-free.

I hope.

Update: She has been 3 days binky-free!

11 things I would rather do than put pants on a mobile infant

By the time Lillian was born, I had forgotten how difficult dressing a newborn was. The tightly curled legs and arms, the fragility of their tiny bones... Long-sleeved onesies on a newborn were just exhausting for me. In contrast to a toddler who knows how to at least help you get their clothes on, when you dress a newborn, you have to put them into the clothes.

Fast forward 7 months. I have a 2 year old who runs from me naked because she thinks it's funny when she pees on the floor and a 7-month old who doesn't want to be put down while simultaneously wanting to writhe, kick, and roll off the changing table. 

Pants are worse than anything else because as soon as I get one leg on, she rolls or kicks as I am getting her second foot into the other leg and the first leg comes off. Back to the drawing board...

So, I thought a list of 11 things I'd rather do than put pants on Lillian would be pretty easy to write. Here we go!

1. Watch Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood for 24 12 8 hours straight.
2. Do a week's worth of diaper laundry all at once.
3. Watch Gabby eat whole grapes.
4. Allow Gabby to smear butter all over the dining room table. True story, by the way. She was "making Daddy a horsey."
5. Put poopy diapers in the diaper genie and leave the lid open for longer than 3 seconds.
6. Allow Gabby to stick her disgusting binky in my mouth.
7. Stand at the bottom of the staircase while Gabby comes down all by herself.
8. Take a nap while the kids are not napping, only to be woken up every 7 minutes by a slap in the face and a child saying, "Mommy, you woke up!"
9. Eat Gabby's leftovers (half was probably already in her mouth).
10. Eat Lillian's leftovers. Have you tasted baby food recently? Everything tastes like pears.
11. Pay an exorbitant amount of money for daycare so someone else can put pants on her.

Be careful what you wish for!

This kid is all over the place. She is army crawling like it is her job. In the above scenario, I put her down on the other side of the room, looked up, and she was pulling the blocks out of the shelf. As I am typing this, she is gnawing on the posts to the shape stacker. We have found her under the coffee table, half under the couch, and half under her crib. 

When you have a newborn, you are always waiting for the next milestone, wishing away their babyhood. Well, be careful what you wish for because mobile babies are just on a constant death mission!

Half-birthday Update

6 months old and sitting in a chair!

Happy half-birthday, Sweet Lilly-girly! At the 6 month mark, Lillian is army crawling, pushing up onto her knees, teething like a MONSTER, and sweet as pie.Complete strangers are constantly commenting on what a happy baby she is. She even smiles first thing in the morning when I go into her room to free her from her crib. 

Lilly's stats:

16 lbs 6 oz (64th percentile), 27.5" (94th percentile)

She is long and lean, and loves to be in motion. When I am holding her, she is always wiggling her way out of my arms. She is just really ready to bust some moves. 

Hold me. I'm soon going to be chasing two of them...