Life Rules According to My Toddler

Life Rules According to My Toddler

• Don’t feel compelled to choose favorite foods. Eat tons of one thing one day and then none of it the next.

• Decide on a certain activity (“outside”) and then demand it every day after breakfast.

• If an item is in a bag or in a drawer, take it out and put it somewhere else. Repeatedly.

• Do anything for fruit snacks.

• If you find a tiny loose item, clearly it belongs in a hole of some sort – try the keyhole on the door first, then the dog’s kong.

• Multiple pieces of the same toy should never all be in the same room. Ever.

• When deciding on which book to read before bed, refuse every one except the last one. Any other time you should ask to read every book a minimum of five times.

• When someone gives you horsie rides, they should always wear bunny ears.

• Peak - a - boo is the solution to every conflict. And fruit snacks

•  Taking a walk is code for time to examine every thing on the side walk ... and in the grass ... and any nearby area. 

Prepping for Baby #2

For fun - or maybe because this is a form of nesting - here's what we've been up to prepping for Baby #2, aka Baby Brother's arrival. IN. LESS. THAN. FIVE. WEEKS.

• Transform the office into a second nursery. The upstairs of our bungalow has two virtually identical rooms; Christopher was using one for an office and he worked hard moving his stuff out. There still is some work to do - mainly sorting and boxing up some leftover stuff - but we are pleased. We will add a rocker to the corner (a gift from my parents) and some room darkening fabric to the curtains.

•  Transition Zoe to one afternoon nap. I wanted her on a solid schedule before the baby arrived and she had been toying with dropping one of her naps for a while. We just decided one day to keep her up til after lunch and she did well with the cold turkey approach. We've been enjoying having our mornings free and she has been taking great, long afternoon naps.

• Make freezer meals. A few weeks ago, my mom came to visit and I worked on making meals for the freezer. I made about 16 meals and am really happy with that since most should feed us for two meals. In the next month, we'll make some double batches of breakfast-y type foods (oatmeal, pancakes, etc) and freeze those since I think that will really help once Christopher is working during the day. I'm also planning on prepping/cooking a double batch of something every week this month to give us a little more variety. 
• Let Amazon "shop" for us. Since we have Amazon prime, we've added some household things to our subscribe and save list. We've also had a Honest Company account for awhile and have been pleased with that. Hopefully that will help keep us out of Target with two littles for a while. 
• Pack a bag for the hospital. Although it seems obvious, I have put it on my list since I have had labor flashbacks just thinking about what needs to go in it and I don't want to totally put it off.  I also need to FIND our workbook from our birthing class so we can review some things that we didn't get to use during Zoe's labor and birth. And update our birth plan ... pretty much just change the date.
• Unfortunately, both Zoe and Loki can't really understand what is going to happen but we are talking about Baby Brother and have a few things planned to help Zoe with the transition - a baby doll and a new busy board. Hopefully it will warm up enough to allow us to take Loki for lots of walks to help get him into a happy place.  

There are a few things left on our list but we are happy where we stand and know that we will have lots of grandparent help/love when he arrives. We are looking forward to Spring, Easter (talk about bad timing ... being 8+ months pregnant during lent!) and our new baby. 

How is it possible that we will have two babies in less than two months?!?!?!

When we hung this sign upstairs, I inwardly scoffed at the "babies" part of it, assuming that only one baby would ever sleep in the upstairs of our rented bungalow.  I didn't ever consider that we'd have two babies in two years ... that we would transform the office into a second nursery ... that there would be a baby monitor on both sides of our bed. But here we are; God clearly had other plans.

I had no idea what I was doing when we brought Zoe home from the hospital.

In fact, I had no idea what I was doing for awhile. I remember the first time she smiled in my general direction and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I was something more than breasturants, diaper changer and a bouncer.

 

I loved her at hello but it took awhile for me to fall in love with her. It took me even longer to fall in love with motherhood. But we got there. 

And we got here, where the idea of another baby isn't quite so scary. Where it doesn't take two hours of preparation to leave the house. Where she has ways to communicate and we can (kind of) decipher the words that come out of her mouth. Where the idea of a newborn "schedule," nighttime feedings and sleepy snuggles actually makes me excited.

It is strange to think that the baby that was our initiation into the crazy, randomness of parenthood will be the big girl that will be our constant. She will grow up never knowing life without her brother and we will tell her about when it was just her and she was so much fun but we knew there was more to our family.

So we cleaned out the office and put up a second crib. I have extra meals in the freezer and a google docs named "Baby Survival." We transitioned Zoe to one nap and spent a last "babymoon" night away. We have enjoyed our big girl becoming more interactive, creative and independent and we look forward to meeting our little boy.

Life with our toddler (almost 16 month old)

Sleeping. She continues to be a rockstar in this department, blessedly. All night and usually two naps.

Eating. Enjoying fruits, veggies and pasta. Not certain about meat but she tries it. Sometimes eats with a spoon or fork .... messy!!!! If you are eating something she likes, you better finish before she does because she will ask for your portion. Still drinking milk from a bottle but she has finally learned how to drink from a sippy cup without choking so we will soon work on the transition.

Walking. Running. Climbing. Dancing. 

Playing. Consists mostly of taking everything out, playing with any single item for 2 seconds and moving on. Her favorite things to carry around are a cords and a vodka bottle. The last month has brought a love of stuffed animals - puppy, lamby and a pink bunny that she calls "meow-me" (which was the name of her sitter's cat). At times, she will sit and read books at length, either by herself or with us.

Words. She talks so confidently and loudly you would not know that most of what she says makes no sense. She says our names and seems to have a word for Loki, along with her puppy and mewme. She tries to say "thank you" and "that?" regularly. She points to her feet/toes, nose and head/hair when asked.

Fun. She is more fun every day. We love watching her learn, listening to her laugh and helping her explore her little world. Every day is a gift.

She no longer sits still long enough to take good pictures but Auntie Gina got some good ones at Christmas-time:

Survive

I have thought a little bit of what my "word of the year" should be and each time I come up with the tongue and cheek answer of "survive." I think there will be a lot of days this year where we simply put one foot in front of the other, where we go with the flow and just try to make it til bedtime.

Most of the time I am slightly terrified of adding a baby to the mix; it feels like we just got things figured out with one kid. The reasonable side of me knows that it will be alright; that many people do it but the emotional side of me remembers how long it takes to breastfeed a newborn and the many hours we spent bouncing and shhhhhhhh-ing and crying. Zoe may not have been the world's easiest baby but I think she was fairly average. 

There will be a few weeks (I haven't actually figured out how long since it doesn't really matter - it is what it is) where we wont have an income. My PTO and short term disability will be used up and Christopher isn't teaching. Christopher is trying to finish his dissertation this year. And we aren't sure yet what we will do for child care once I do go back to work. The solution may involve me changing hours or changing jobs.

People often ask if we wanted to have our kids close together. The best answer I can give is "we do now." And then, someone says that I am a poster child for getting pregnant while breastfeeding. Thanks. I know. I know. 

Props to the people who have told me that they have done it that it is hard work at first but gets easier. Props to my friends who have reassured me that they loved growing up with siblings close in age.
Props to my new niece who demonstrated how wonderful it is to have a newborn fall asleep in your arms. (I had also forgotten how tiny they are and was reminded that baby boy will be much lighter than Zoe.)

I have been imagining (positive imagery people!) what it will be like to sit and nurse a baby while Zoe is running around and how we can go for walks with the Moby, stroller and Loki. I don't know what Zoe will be doing in a few months but I think she will quickly be getting to the stage of being more verbally redirect-able. I am working on independent play with Zoe and she is doing great. We are coming up with strategies for the sleep loss and planning to make lots of freezer meals. We are redecorating the office on a budget and are getting rid of things we don't need.

By the end of the year, we should be fairly adjusted to being a family of 4 and there should be many many paged of Christopher's dissertation written. We may even have a plan for the next years of life.

"Survive" may seem like a small goal and I know we will do much more than that but it seems like a good place to start.