a week with four kids

My dear friend Lesley was brave and kind enough to make the six-hour drive from her home in West Virginia to visit for the week. Oh, and she has two kids to bring along! Her oldest is 13 days younger than my Levi, and her baby is 31 days older than my Wendy. It was a fully, crazy, fun house. Here are some tidbits from the week.

1. Mommy brain is a real thing. The constant "I have to pay attention to these little human beings to make sure no one is in danger or making a bad behavior choice or needs anything" puts a serious toll on your ability to have a linear conversation! We say "what was I saying?" at least four times every hour.

2. It's important to take embarrassing pictures of your toddlers running around in diapers so you can show them to their prom dates later.

3. One baby laughing is adorable. Two babies laughing is unbearably cute.

4. Sharing is really hard to do and is also hard to define. When you have to give someone a toy and "share" it with them, that can make you sad. When you get to have the toy because someone is "sharing" it with you, you are happy. Very confusing concept, but very important.

5. Moms need other moms in order to feel the encouragement and motivation necessary to leave the house.

6. Bedtime is the best, best time of the day. Those few hours after the kids go to bed are priceless.

7. High fives are very important. Even moms need them after successfully loading four kids and two strollers into a minivan.

8. It's really amazing to watch your toddler actually enjoy having a friend over. When Levi was a baby, playdates were really about moms getting together. Now Levi can genuinely enjoy the company of a friend his age. It's so cute.

9. If one kid starts yelling or making dinosaur noises, the other kid will probably do the same thing. If one kid wants fruit of bread, the other kid will want fruit or bread too.

10. Shopping with four kids is nearly impossible. But not completely impossible. You never know unless you try.

We had a wonderful week. I can't wait until next time when the girls are mobile! Then things are really going to be interesting.

seven words that changed my life

There are moments in your life when the words you hear hang in the air, like the words in cartoon speak bubbles.

"You've been accepted."

"Will you marry me?"

"It's a boy."

"It's a girl."

But there are seven words that I will remember for the rest of my life. I hear them exactly ten years ago today. They mark a pivotal moment when I met the man of my dreams. I walked up to him, he shook my hand and said "It's so nice to finally meet you!" I remember that we were outside. The weather in Evanston that day was nice enough for just a fleece jacket. As I walked and talked and heard more about this guy, I thought it sounded like his life was already full enough, that he didn't seem to need another friend, especially some random girl like me.

Ten years later, we have built a life together. I watch as he bends over to take the trash bag full of diapers out of the diaper pail and out to the curb. I see him carry out children into church, one on each arm. I stop what I'm doing to stare at him the first time he wears a sweater each fall beause it reminds me of how he looked that first fall when I met him, exactly ten years ago today.

Those seven words hang in the air. And I love the man who spoke them to me.

getting out of the house

In the world of parenting, there are good days and there are... difficult days. Today has been a good day, and I'd like to record it so that on one of the other types of days I can look back and remember that this is possible.

So getting out of the house with two little beings can be challenging. Getting out of the house on time in order to be somewhere specific is extra challenging. Today I did that, and I was early. Yes, early. We were early. Ok, so maybe by two minutes, but early! We had our MOPS meeting (mother of preschoolers) today.

I started my morning by getting ready while my wonderful hubby did his morning daddy duty. He gets both kids up, dresses them and feeds Levi his breakfast. Yes, I am very fortunate. By 8:15 a.m. I am downstairs and daddy goes to work.

*Warning, this post will now contain parent topics which will include nursing and diapering. Since this is considered valid dinner conversation at my stage of life, it doesn't bother me.*

Levi is finished with breakfast, Wendy is looking at me with hungry eyes. I check my diaper bag for supplies and split my bag so that Levi has his bag for his classroom and I have mine for me and Wendy. By 8:30 I am nursing her and by 8:35 we are done. For some reason today, Levi very pleasantly just hangs out by my feet while I nurse. He is amused by my open toed shoes and tickling my toes as I move them around. So far so good, Levi is amused by very little this morning. Even when he asks to watch Little Einsteins on TV and I say we don't have time, he accepts the explanation and doesn't whine. Yay!

I tell Levi I am going upstairs to change Wendy. (Sorry daddy, but the backwards onesie isn't going to cut it today. Hah. He usually gets it right, but he is intimidated by girl clothes.) Levi says OK, and I change Wendy.

When I'm finished (8:40), Levi calls upstairs "I poooooop! Change me. Hallway." Excellent. So I go downstairs, put Wendy on her playmat, and change Levi. I run upstairs to dispose of the diaper, and go back downstairs. 8:45.

I get Levi's shoes on his feet, tell him that we can play his new music CD in mommy's big car (that's what we call the van) and he runs over to the door. He waits there because he knows only mommy and daddy open that door. (Same goes for basement door and door to back patio.)

Grab the baby off her playmat, put her in carseat, secure bib over straps (she is a bubbler... likes to get her shirts wet on the front). Pick up car seat, diaper bag, purse (I wear a small cross body purse with my stuff only so I have it easily accessible rather than stuffed in diaper bag), Levi's bag... go open the door for Levi. Put Wendy and gear in car. Show Levi where to put the CD in the car. Load him up. Drive to MOPS. Everyone is happy the whole way there! Fifteen minutes of silence. Well, mommy silence. Mommy silence is anytime there is no talking or crying. There can be radio and two different electronic toys making music at the same time, but mommies know how to not hear that. This mommy silence was enjoyed while Levi listened to his kid music from his music class.

We get to MOPS, unload Levi, unload stroller, unload Wendy in her carseat and unload stuff. If Levi was the type to run away from me in public places, he would have been unloaded last, but he's not, so I am able to keep him with me safely while I unload the rest of the stuff. Levi walks while I push the stroller, and we go into the church building. We walk to Levi's classroom, he starts to say "no" and whine. I don't want any crying, so I tell him if he cries he will make his friend Mr. Ben sad, and we don't want to make Mr. Ben sad, do we? Levi is very empathetic, so he decides to stop crying so that Mr. Ben won't be sad. (Mr. Ben is the classroom worker.) I drop Levi off and head to my MOPS meeting with Wendy.

Wendy naps peacefully while we have our meeting, waking up about 30 minutes in. I take her into my lap, play a little while, change her diaper and then nurse her at the back of the room where there are some comfy couches. She continues to play with me, then she starts breathing deeply like a sleepy little puppy. Soon she is shrinking down and falls asleep in my lap. At the end of the meeting, I transfer her back to her carseat (still sleeping!), stroll her down to pick up Levi, reload everyone and everything into the car, and go home. Again, silent ride with kiddie music. Ahh, bliss.

Levi wants to keep listening to his music, but we are home, so I offer to get the boombox from the basement so he can listen while I make lunch. He says yes, so I unload everyone and everything, go to the basement to get boombox, set him up with his music, and make lunch. Wendy wakes up. I take her out, set her down while I finish, change her diaper, get Levi into his high chair, bring Wendy with me. I eat half my soup and then nurse Wendy at the table. She finishes, I finish my soup, Levi finishes his lunch. From here we move onto naptime (Wendy hangs out on the floor of Levi's room, propped up in the boppy pillow while we read), and all is right with the world! I managed to get out of the house with two kids on time with no whining or crying! This is the trifecta... the triple crown... call it whatever you want, I call it a good day.

let's play house. you be the daddy and i'll be the mommy.

Almost all the time, I still feel like I'm pretending to be a grown up. Somehow I still feel like this, despite the fact that I've been with Andy for almost ten years now, married for seven, have two kids, have purchased two houses, two cars, become a stay-at-home mom... I still feel like we are pretending!

This past weekend was a four-day weekend for us. One particular moment that stood out to me...

We had piled both kids in the car -- excuse me, the minivan -- and were heading out to a baby store about 40 minutes away to look at double strollers. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get coffee. As we were winding down Algonkian Parkway, each sipping our coffees and reveling in the blissful silence of our car (because with kids, you never know when the silence could erupt, so you bathe in it whenever it comes around), discussing who knows what. I realized that probably 95% of what Andy and I talk about now is completely different than what we talked about when we met ten years ago. We are parents now. REAL parents! Parents who drink coffee on a Saturday morning while going to look at strollers!

In a couple years, I may not remember what we talked about or that we went to lunch afterwards or that we didn't buy a stroller that day. But I think for the rest of my life, I will remember what it felt like to hold that cup of grown-up, parent coffee, look to my left, and see my husband holding his grown-up, parent coffee. And to realize I wouldn't want to play house with anyone else but him.

how's the big brother?

A lot of people ask me how Levi is doing with the new baby. I am happy to report that I think he is a really, really good big brother.

He is generally aware of Wendy's presence. Say she is in the next room, in her bouncy seat asleep while Levi and I are eating lunch. The moment she starts up her stretching, I'm-awake noises, he tells me "wake!" Wendy is awake.

When I ask if Wendy can read a story with us, he says "mm hmm, yeah." He lets me read his naptime story to him with Wendy on the other side of my lap. (Quite the sight, the three of us smooshed in a chair and me trying to turn pages.) A couple times she has slumped over onto his shoulder. Levi is not a particularly cuddly toddler, so I expected him to squirm. Instead, he looked down at her. Looked up. Looked down again, and let her be. When she lost her binky, he gently put it back in her mouth.

Levi understands that Wendy can't eat real food yet because she has no teeth. I am explaining that she has to cry because she can't talk yet. (He has been trying to get her to talk, though. He'll go over to her and just say "talk!") He has been patient when Wendy cries and I say "I need to help Wendy." One time he said "me do it. help Wendy." and he went to her, giggled her bouncy seat and walked away.

Sometimes he brings her toys, he shows her things. When she cries, he doesn't seem too distressed (which is really nice because two crying kids in a car is worse than one). He doesn't get jealous of me holding her, nursing her, etc. Even if he asks me to pick him up and I can't, he accepts my explanation that I can't because my hands are busy.

So all in all, I'm glad that Levi is doing as well or better than I could have expected from a 2-year-old!

the decisions we make

Right now, I'm in a "tired" phase of parenthood. Yes, middle of the night wakings are an obvious contributor to that, and recovery from childbirth, yes. But honestly, we get a decent amount of sleep and I've been lucky to have great help that got me through the first few weeks of recovery. The tiredness I'm thinking of must be a more emotional tired than a physical one. I think the reason this parenting gig can be so tiring is that I feel like every single little move I make has a large amount of reasoning and effort behind it.

It might not be visible to the untrained -- or toddler -- eye, but really, I feel like everything I do in regards to my kids has a hidden reason behind it.

• No Levi, you cannot have my phone right now (because I know that taking it away while you are in this mood will be more difficult than not giving it to you, because I don't want you to be tethered to the phone).
• Wendy baby, I can't give you your binky while I'm driving (because I can't reach safely and also because I don't want you to expect me to rescue the binky in the car all the time, if it's at all possible to get into a habit at this age). 
• Kids, we will talk quietly at bedtime and will not deviate much from the routines we set into place (because we know you like routines and because we believe a quiet routine will help you sleep better). 
• When I make a promise (like the promise that we will go to naptime in two minutes or the promise that we will watch a video as soon as we clean up toys), I will keep it (because I want my kids to trust me and understand follow-through). 
• I will make my own baby food for Wendy, as I did for Levi (because I enjoy cooking, I want her and Levi to see their parents cooking food at home so they learn how, because I found that Levi made the transition to healthy table food easily, because I once tasted a jarred turkey dinner baby food and I thought it tasted like dog food).
• I am going to make a commitment to keeping the house tidy and "clean" as much as is possible (because I don't buy into the "the dust will remain, but your kids will grow up" mentality, because we all live in this house and deserve it to be enjoyable, because I stay home with the kids all day and staring at clutter all day doesn't help me, because eventually it will catch up to us if we don't). 

I can't even think of all the examples right now, but it seems each moment is another choice in this choose-your-own-adventure thing we call parenting. I wish I could just eenie-meenie-miny-mo sometimes, but I just can't. I don't torture myself with the decisions I make or find myself wrestling with regret, but that's where a lot of my brain power goes these days. I have experienced the true cause of mommy brain!

not all hearts and flowers

Lest my paintbrush be laden with too rosy a hue, allow me to paint a picture of motherhood that comes from the -- what shall we call it? -- less glamorous side of the business. The lunch and naptime routine has been stressing me out recently. What am I supposed to do with the baby while I make lunch, feed/supervise toddler, and then put toddler down for his nap? If she's sleeping peacefully, that's great. But what if she's hungry? Or just plain fussy? I've managed for the past couple of days with a variety of techniques, and today I thought I was going to pull off the naptime routine while the baby was napping downstairs. No such luck. As soon as I pull Levi out of his high chair, I realize the clock is ticking so I give him his two minute warning. I think he realizes this is out of the ordinary, because he usually gets to play an extra 15 minutes while I clean up from lunch. But today I want him to go straight to nap so that I can get back downstairs before Wendy wakes up. Two minute warning is up, so I tell him to go upstairs. "NOOOooo!" He does NOT want to go upstairs. Now, if I were able to haul his 28 pounds up the stairs, I would and he would probably be ok with it. But I'm not going to do it since I'm still sore from the whole c-section thing and overdoing it will just put me further behind on recovery. So the battle of wills begins, and then Levi just starts crying. And crying and whining and generally carrying on. I decide that I'm just going to leave the room and let him finish his crying business before we try again. At this point, Wendy is definitely waking up and Levi is just wailing. I sit with Wendy until the noise from Levi subsides. I peek around the corner and see that he's now busying himself with wiping his nose (running from the crying) on his shirt. I'm not a fan of that, but I decide to wait it out until he's really done with his fit. Soon he rounds the corner, calling "mommy" very pathetically. I'm busy trying to change a poopy baby diaper, when I turn around and see that Levi's face is covered in blood. He points to his nose and says "bug" (which means he was trying to dislodge something up there). He was wiping so hard with his shirt, he gave himself a bloody nose. Poopy baby. Bloody toddler. Sigh. Eventually, after I clean him off and remind him to tell mommy about the bugs rather than taking matters into his own hands, I get him up the stairs. He's very tired for nap at this point, so the stairs takes a while. Wendy is in the baby carrier strapped to my chest. We get to Levi's room, I unstrap Wendy and put her on the floor with a binky. Put Levi on changing table. Wendy spits out binky. Re-binky Wendy. Change Levi. Wash hands. Re-binky Wendy. Put Levi in nap clothes. Put Levi in rocking chair. Get Wendy into her room and swaddle her like a burrito. Turn on noise machine. Go to Levi and read a story. (Good thing he picks a very sweet, endearing story about big brothers.) Put Levi down in his crib (which requires me maneuvering him as well I can by using mostly arm muscles, minimal ab muscles). Go get Wendy, take her downstairs and nurse her. Sigh. Must remember to accentuate the positive moments rather than the toddler fits and bloody noses. Must remember the moment instead when I asked if Levi wanted to hold Wendy, he said yes, then proceeded to hold up his shirt for her and say "milk." Much cuter moment for the day. Let's try to remember that one instead.