Library Book Realization

So this isn’t a “how-to” or even a creative post, it’s just a “this is my life” post.

I’ve been a mom of one child for two and a half years and I’m pretty used to it, but I’ve only been a mom of two kids for seven and a half weeks.  Life has been interesting lately, and it takes a lot to get used to having two kids. I feel like I’m constantly busy, and at the end of the day not much has been accomplished, besides feeding my baby.  Most days feel like this:

There are the occasional days that I actually have things planned and we’re out the door and productive, but not perfect.  When I took my newborn to her 3-day  checkup with the pediatrician I took her diaper off to put her on the scale, and threw it away because she had pooped, go back in to the room and realize I didn’t have a diaper for her, or wipes….or ANYTHING! I had left the diaper bag in house by the door.  Luckily while waiting for the doctor she didn’t pee (or poop!), and they have diapers for patients when things like this happen.  Needless to say, I learned from that mistake and now have diapers and wipes in the cubbies in the door for both of my girls.

Evenings are the most difficult part of the day. My baby has colic that starts when I need to cook dinner and lasts long past my desired bedtime.  Putting a two year old to bed while your infant is crying is quite the challenge.  Luckily my husband has been on a break from school for the holidays, and now that he’s started up again with school he has the ability to be home for bedtime.  I don’t know how I would do it without him!

I constantly feel tired and like I need a nap, but when I’m given an opportunity to nap I can’t sleep…I could live without that irony. I was texting my mom the other night while I was awkwardly sitting in bed with the baby sleeping in my lap, not daring to move out of fear of waking her.  I had sent a selfie of the two of us to my mom, where her reply mentioned how I looked really tired and how she was sorry I was up so late every night.  I decided that as moms we must have a super power to be able to survive the next day.  That’s got to be it, we are SUPERMOMS!

Last night somewhere in the middle of the night while feeding my baby, I was looking through my instagram account and smiling at the cute pictures of my kids.  I came across a video of my toddler going through a library book that we had read numerous times, and she was “reading” it all by herself.  One of my favorite things is that she LOVES books.  We love to go to story time at the library, then pick out new books to bring home.  We had done that about a week before my sweet baby was born and we ended up returning the books and not getting new ones for a few weeks.  I realized that there were books we had returned that I hadn’t even opened.  My toddler had flipped through them, but I didn’t get a chance to read them to her.  This morning when I heard her wake up rather than going in to the living room, turning on PBS and opting for more sleep, I sat on the couch with her, pulled over her tub of library books, and read them all with her.  We made animal noises, tickled each other, counted, and had a blast.

Not a flattering picture, but it's proof we had time for just the two of us.

I realized that I’m going through the motions, and things seem to be business all day.  I feel like I’m constantly saying, “not right now; please stop; in a minute; let’s do something else ”.  There are good times each day, like when my baby looks in my eyes and smiles a little, and when my toddler says “I want to sit err(your) lap mom” and I have room for her because I’m not feeding the baby, but I want more of those moments.  I have decided to take more time to make those moments.  More moments of one-on-one time with my girls.  More time doing the things my toddler wants to do, instead of just turning on the TV so I can get things done.  More laughter, more dancing, and more fun.
I know things will get better with the colic, and feeding will be less frequent, and I’ll be able to shower more often, but until then I’m choosing to take the times in between to remember to make more moments and not just let time pass.