The Transition From One Child to Two

I know I haven't written too much in the past 6 months.  This post over on 360 Parenting should explain why. 

The Transition From One Child to Two

I do plan on writing more soon.  Julian is 6 months old, I'm not sure when that happened.  I need to write about our experience with his helmet and toritcollis.  I need to write about what he's eating and how he's sleeping.  I need to get all these blog posts that are in my head out on paper.  It's on my to do list, and I'll get to it soon, promise...

Avoiding Holiday ‘Mom Guilt’

So if you've read any of my recent posts (the few that I've done), or know me in my real life, you know that I've been a bit frazzled lately.  This working mom of 2 is hard.  This having a child who wears a pesky helmet for 23 hours a day and has to be cleaned with rubbing alcohol daily and do physical therapy 3x a day is hard.  I've been a bit of a mess lately.

So as you may know (or may not know), I write a monthly post for the Primrose blog, 360 Parenting.  Way back in January we set my topics for the year and for December the topic was selected as mom guilt and the holidays.  Since I’ve been on the ledge this past month, it was very ironic for me to write a post advising others to do something I am failing at doing.  But in writing it, it did help me put things in perspective and so, I share my post with y’all in hopes that we all can let go of the mom guilt this holiday season...and always! 

Avoiding Holiday ‘Mom Guilt’

Toddler Talks

On 15 December 2013 at 9:55 AM...

"Coloring with L this Sunday morning:
L: Mommy do you like coffee?
Me: yes, I love coffee!
L: Daddy likes beer!
Me: (laughing) yes, he does.
L: ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME?!?"

Captured with Momento – http://momentoapp.com

On Friday, this happened...

#flatspotbegone

My dad thinks he looks like a storm trooper!  What do you think???

I'm still getting used to the whole thing but luckily Julian is warming up to his new accessory.  He gradually works up to wearing it 23 hours a day.  Today he wore it a total of 6 hours and did great.  Tomorrow he'll take his first nap in the helmet.  I'm hoping that goes well.  Perhaps the helmet will turn out to be some magic sleep solution and he'll start sleeping through the night.  One can wish!

Otherwise we are doing OK.  More on that later.  

Raising a Grateful Child

Raising a Grateful Child

Check out my latest parenting post on 360 Parenting!!!  I admit to raising a spoiled kid.  Go me!

The moments of joy

Today was a hard day. A rough working mom day. L didn't feel good before school and I felt bad that I wasn't a SAHM who could keep him home today just in case. But tonight after feeding J and putting him to bed, I made it downstairs in time to do bedtime with L, something Todd has taken over for the most part. I love bed time with L. It's a cozy time. And tonight was a sweet kind of special.

We read our 2 books- Giraffes can't Dance and Chugga Chugga Choochoo. Then his "one more book". Tonight was Say Please. After books he needed water and then all his stuffed animals had to be tucked in. Then I laid in bed with L and we talked. We giggled and hugged and cuddled. He wanted a story so I made one up about the octonauts - Kwazie and Barnacles helped Harold the hermit crab find a new shell (he took over hermit crab Lila's old shell). L loved the silly story.

It was a good end to a tough day. He reminded me how truly lucky I am. I get to be his momma. And that makes all the hard things seem not so bad.

Captured with Momento – http://momentoapp.com

Emotional Mess

It's 10pm on a Friday night and I'm sitting at my dining room table with a glass of wine, the baby monitor, a to-do list, shopping list and multiple work files surrounding me.  Both kids are asleep.  The husband is out with a friends (I told him to make other plans because I had a night of lawyering ahead of me).  And I may or may not have gotten teary eyed in my boss' office this evening before leaving for the day.  (Do I get points for not full on crying?  Yes, the answer is yes.)

This working mom thing is rough.  With two kids its rougher than it was with one.  And this is our busy season at the office so I'm fully engaged at work, as in have enough work to work all through the weekend engaged.

Lawyering momma of two would be enough for now.  But I don't like to be bored so we're making life interesting.  We listed our house for sale 11 days ago.  We've had two showings and a third scheduled for tomorrow morning.  So the house has to be "show ready" at any given moment.  Did I mention that I have a three year old and a four month old.  Who have way too many toys and don't exactly like to keep things neat and tidy?  Nevermind the two adults that live in this house who are not exactly make-the-bed, clean the counters, vaccum the floors daily type of people.  If the house doesn't sell soon I might go crazy.  Or potential buyers will just have to deal with a less than perfectly tidy house.  But if we do sell the house we have no idea where we'll go.  I see a brief stint at my parents house in our future.  We can't decide on a neighborhood.  We can't even decide to stay intown or move to the burbs.  I honestly have no idea where our next house will be located.  It's an adventure, right?  Yes, the answer is yes.

Did I mention that the baby isn't sleeping well?  He's been waking up every 1-2 hours a night to nurse.  I haven't slept longer than 3 hours at a time in weeks.  Combined with my whacked out hormones and I'm a joy to be around.  Lack of sleep is serious business.  And I'm supposed to be making lawyerly decisions on no sleep.  Right, that doesn't exactly work.  So we're laying down the law and starting cry it out officially tonight.  Little man J cried for exactly 18 minutes tonight before falling asleep after rolling over on his belly.  I plan on doing a dream feed before I head to bed (where you feed the baby while he's still asleep) and then he's going to cry it out if he wakes up again anytime before 5am.  Last night was unofficial cry it out night 1 and he cried for a full hour at 3:30 in the morning.  It sucked.  But this morning he was all smiles and had no recollection of the evil mommy action of the prior night.  So tonight it's on.  Wish us luck.  (Did I mention I was drinking wine?  It's not a coincidence.)

Since I'm on this woe-is-me roll, I'll keep going.  My hair is falling out in clumps.  Clumps.  It is gross.  And I may have forgotten to clean the drain in the shower before our house showing last Saturday.  And the shower door was definitely open when we got home even though we closed it before leaving.  Yup, the potential buyers saw my drain hair.  Shocking that they didn't make an offer, no?

And the kicker, because there has to be one.  We have an appointment next week at Scottish Rite for potential cranial remolding for Julian.  In layman's terms, my sweet baby is likely to start wearing a helmet to correct his rather misshappen head.  I know, I know, helmets are almost chic these days for babies thanks to the whole "back to sleep" campaign.  But it still breaks my heart. 

Ok, I'm done now.  This is my life right now.  I know that nothing is life shattering or even a big deal, but it's just a bit much to handle all together at the moment.  I know that this too shall pass and soon enough I'll be sleeping all night,my hair will stay attached to my head, work will slow after the new year and Julian will have a round head in no time.  But for now, I think I'll have another glass of wine.