I had big aspirations when I first started this blog. Those longer newborn naps while Char was at day care made it easy to come up with ideas and pour my thoughts into this site. Life has gotten in the way, but I am back! This post is a bit different than some of my previous, sharing products and recommendations and the like. Instead, this serves more as a check in to let you know how my first summer at home with two kids is going...and to shed light on the fact that parenting isn't all sparkles and rainbows.
It's been 6 weeks since my summer vacation started, 6 weeks of being home with my girls 4 out 5 days a week, all day. I was very nervous going into this season, as before school got out I really hadn't spent more than a few hours alone with both girls by myself. Once the day came, however, I had no choice but to jump in with both feet. And honestly, it's going a lot better than I thought it would. We have some bumpy moments in the day, but for the most part, it's a whole lot smoother than I thought.
Mackenzie is at a great age of infancy. The first four months of having 2 under 2, were rough, not going to lie. Improvement is happening every two months, it seems. So I was so glad that month 6-8 has fallen how it has. Since June, Mackenzie has gained a lot of independence which makes handling both of the alone so much easier. The first 4 months, the newborns are so needy and with a toddler battling for attention as well, that was exhausting. Everyone is much more comfortable with each other now, making this transition much easier. We also sleep trained her in early June. That made putting her down for naps 1000x easier because she no longer needs to be rocked to sleep. Trying to get her to nap, when I was the only parent around, with Charlotte also home, was what caused me the most anxiety. Without that, things have been so much smoother.
Mackenzie has just started to finally love hanging out on her tummy and is getting steadier at sitting on her own. The poor girl has a gigantic head so both of those things are a huge feat for her...and me. The happy tummy time playing and the sitting on their own is one of the best stages. They can actually play, therefore they are entertained, and mom can put the baby down, get stuff done, have her hands back...it's great! As summer goes on, I hope Charlotte will pick her naps back up, I can't wait to watch Mack grow in her independence, I hope Mack stops waking up at 6am and I hope she learns to take longer naps (as she is currently waking up from her first real one, that was only 45 minutes...sigh). But I know that I can handle the days as they come, that I am (most of the time) having so much fun playing with them and watching them grow and seeing them develop a relationship with each other is so sweet.
Even with sleep training (and the regression we went through that required us to RE-sleep train) Mack is still an early riser. We didn't have this consistently with Charlotte so that's been an adjustment and something we're trying to fix...but no success yet (send tips or coffee). So I'm usually up for the day around 6am with Mackenzie and Charlotte wakes up between 7-7:30 usually. I appreciate Char's love for the soft start morning. We watch some TV, eat our breakfast, mom drinks coffee, and then we get going for the day. I try my best to limit screen time, but hey we are all human...she's watching Zootopia as I type this now.
I try to do something outside the house every morning. Monday's we go to Music Together, Wednesdays we go to swimming or the library (or both), Thursdays I take them to Kids Room at The Barre Code and Fridays we do swimming. Getting out of the house usually f's up Mackenzie's nap, which maybe lends to my early morning wake up issues, but for my sanity, we gotta go somewhere. Today we didn't need to go anywhere until 10, so we went on a walk. Girlfriend couldn't stay awake for the last 5 minutes of the walk and will not be transferred to her crib, so she thought that was her morning nap. Same thing happens in the car. Within 5 minutes of a car ride she's usually asleep. This is sometimes great, but other times bad because the odds of her being able to sleep in her bed when we get home are very low. BUT this usually doesn't make her crabby, which I appreciate so I can live my life and not feel trapped in the house because of naps.
In the first few weeks of summer, I'd usually have about an hour of time to myself at least when their naps lined up. However, Charlotte has thrown a wrench in that and no longer will take a nap. She's getting better at playing independently so I can usually get a break from interacting with her directly, but still need to be aware of her whereabouts and what she's getting into. Not ideal, but not the worst thing. I hope it's just a phase and we're not totally dropping naps at 2.5, but who knows. Some days, it'll be 3:00 and I wonder how it's not bed time already. Other days it seems like the day has flown by. See, lots of positives and negatives. One doesn't really out preform the other - LOL.
Oh and then I totally thought Char was ready to potty train. I bought the Big Little Feelings class, watched it all, prepped the house, prepped her, and it was a total fail. I posted about it on stories but in case you missed it - she never peed on the potty once. She did poop on the potty but only because it's way easier to tell when your kid is going to poop than it is pee (at least for her). She's totally in the 'my way or the highway' stage of 2 year old life, so trying to remind her or suggest she try the potty was a huge no go --- thus resulting in a big fat fail. As I shared that story, I heard more and more moms saying the same thing happened to them, so that made me feel better. Again, so much of the internet and social media is about the sunshine and what went well - but honestly so much more goes poorly than well when it comes to raising kids - so let's just keep it real. I really think that people who were able to potty train in the 3 days 'they' say it takes, just got dumb lucky and chose the right 3 days.
Overall, taking on the challenge of being the only adult with them all day has given me a lot of confidence. I know that things with two young children are so unpredictable, but I also know that if I don't try to do hard things neither of us will learn how to do said hard thing - like leaving the house or running errands. The other day, for example, I signed up for a 4:30 Barre class with kids room. Charlotte screamed the whole way there, through a storm, because she wanted sunglasses that I did not have in the car. As I was approaching the studio, I thought I cannot leave her with the poor kid room attendant in this mood. If we get there and she can't get her shit together, we turn around and go home...but at least I tried. The girl loves The Barre Code and dropped the tears about the sunglasses as soon as we got there. I was okay with wasting the gas to get there if I had to turn around, but I was glad I stuck it out because I got my workout in and she got over it.
We still have 3 more weeks together before they go back to school full time so I can go work in my classroom. We're going to my family's summer vacation in Bay Harbor for a few days, but otherwise we'll be home rocking the same life we've been. I, obviously, hope for more positive changes than negative but that's the thing about kids - you truly never know. If you're in my boat, I wish you the best as we finish out summer. If you're a 100% SAHM, I commend you and will buy you coffee or a drink because this shit is HARD.
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