This morning was similar to many recently, in that Edgar and I got up and let Jen sleep in. She slept in quite a long time.
Edgar and I went to his play group. I didn't have a lot to talk about with all the stay-at-home-moms this time (and there were an awful lot of them), but Edgar had fun. I'm not sure it was the best use of either of our morning, but whatever.
Came home, and I fell asleep with Sabrina on me waiting for Jen to fix lunch. (One thing we've sorta naturally slid into in our almost-9 years of marriage is that Jen does almost all the cooking. I sure could, but I simply care a lot less about meals, and therefore we all end up hungrier if I'm left to do the cooking. So, now that Jen's recovered (mostly) from having a baby, she's back to being the cook. I'm slacking a little on dishes today, but that's mostly my job)
Anyway, Edgar woke me up for lunch, then I fell right back asleep and had a really long nap.
The more I get used to this, the more I realize that what I will miss most about these 42 days is the regular 3-hour naps every day. That's my FAVORITE part.
I was awoken from my nap by a yelling baby lying next to me. Apparently, we were alone in the house. It was a beautiful day, so I found our baby bjorn, strapped her in, and took her outside. Oustide, I found Jen and Edgar visiting the neighbors.
Came back inside, and put on a Phil Collins record, wore some ski goggles that were giving me problems up on the mountain, and attempted to do dishes with Sabrina strapped on my chest and asleep. It didn't work out too well, but I hope you have that picture in your mind, because it was awesome.
After a wonderful dinner provided by our upstairs neighbors (Thank you! It was delicious!), we attempted to go as a family to the grocery store.
For the record, two kids with two parents at the grocery store is about twice as hard as one kid with one parent. I have no idea what it would be like to try to take both kids alone.
We stopped by the toy aisle, and bought Edgar a plastic sword.
I can't describe enough how happy that made him. He did "Power of Grayskull!" every 10 seconds until we left the store. We bought two swords, so that Edgar and his dad can have swordfights. Edgar was even trying to recreate the He-Man opening monologue: "Magic sword, say 'Power of Grayskull!' kssshhhhh!!! Have Power!". We had to pry it from his hands to put him to bed tonight. It also came with a lecture from mom on how we never ever hit baby sister with the sword.
After the kids fell asleep, we watched a fragment of the Jackie Chan movie we've been working through, but Jen quickly succumbed to sleepiness. I think I'm next.
Eventually you get used to two and you can manage them all right. What freaked me out was #3 because I didn't have enough hands to hold them all! Thank goodness for a sling. And when we had four the older two didn't need me to hold hands. Let me tell you, older kids make a big difference. What you are doing with two little ones is so challenging. So just in case you needed some validation: You're right. It's really hard at first. Two demanding, needy children can be an overwhelming job for two parents let alone one!
ReplyDeleteI feel very validated by how overwhelmed at exhausted you have been feeling throughout these posts...a lot of the time it seems like parents adjust just fine and fit new babies into their lives with ease and go about their daily business like not much has changed. For me it seemed earth-shattering (with Joshy), and overwhelming again with Henry, and even now I have little desire to take them to the grocery store when I could just wait til they're in bed to go. But what Anna said up there give me some perspective - kids won't always be demanding needy toddlers...eventually they'll be calmer...it just doesn't seem like we'll ever get past this stage sometimes.
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