There are a few toddler bad habits we've been able to avoid by not allowing them in the first place. The twins have never slept in our bed. They only drink milk and water so we don't worry about having too much juice. They're on a good schedule for bath, tooth brushing, and bedtime so we're lucky and the routine usually goes pretty smoothly.
But I don't want to sound like I'm bragging because I've caused some of our biggest challenges myself. I'm so lucky to have a boy and a girl, but I've over indulged in some of the fun of having a girl. I've splurged on shoes and clothes for Chloe and not long ago I let her pick out her outfits in the morning. After breakfast she'd ask for a "pretty dress." This was the beginning of dresses only.
At first it was fun and fine to let her pick out her clothes. Then I realized I'd given her too much control. One morning after being dressed, she got upset and decided she needed to change clothes.
Then she wouldn't let me pick her outfits at all and it would take forever for her to decide what to wear. She'd stand in front of the closet, like most women have done, and just look back and forth over the clothes without ever making a decision. I'd pull a few outfits to choose from and still she couldn't make up her mind. It sounds kinda cute but really it was aggravating and time consuming.
I decided I just needed to pick an outfit and put it on her. Of course this did not sit well with our toddler fashion diva. For the past week I've pick her outfit and battled past the tantrums and tears without backing down. Sometimes I'll give in and let her pick out her shoes but then we end up with a spring flower top, bright green skirt, and her purple winter boots.
This drama was because of my own actions and now I'm having to work through the fussiness to get back to a normal morning routine. Each day it gets a little bit easier, but we're still working.
I think anyone will agree that raising kids is hard work. I've had to struggle a bit to determine what will work best for me as a mother and woman. How to structure my career moving forward and find time for myself as well as the demands of being a parent.
Basically, hard-driving career has been put on hold. I'm working part-time and really enjoying what I'm doing, but the bulk of my time and energy goes into planning for the twins, running the household, and making each day go as smoothly as possible for the family in general.
Last week was a little bit different. Carl had a week long business trip to Vegas. Although it may sound glamorous at first blush, I know from personal experience this kind of business travel is not all it's cracked up to be. First of all, after two days of Vegas anyone would be exhausted from sensory overload. Add to that attending a conference, being "on" all the time for clients while away from home and family and it really is hard work.
The flip side of that is I'm a single Mom for a week. For the first part of the week, it was a little bit more work, but still manageable. However, last week was also Spring Break. The twin's school was open the first three days, which was good because I needed to get some work done, but Thursday and Friday I was a single, stay-at-home-mom.
Initially I had big plans, the zoo on Thursday and the Arboretum on Friday. Fun, fun, fun, when you get to stay home with Mommy.
We were a little slow getting up and out the door on Thursday. Since this was also the week after Spring Forward Sunday and I didn't mind letting everyone catch up on a little bit more sleep. When we made it to the zoo we weren't the only ones with the idea. It took over 30 minutes just to park and walk in since we had go to the remote parking lot because of the big Spring Break crowds.
When it's super crowed at the Zoo, like Spring Break week, I just try to keep it simple and not worry about seeing or doing too much. So climbing on rocks is part of the fun, meaning the twins are the animals at this attraction.
Since it's a little hard to see the animals with such big crowds we really enjoy the rides like the monorail and the camel.
We were only there two and half hours but that was more than enough and we were all exhausted. We made it home for naps, but we needed to go to the grocery store and I just didn't have the energy. We were lazy the rest of the afternoon.
And frankly, we were lazy Friday morning too. I had originally planned to take the twins to the Arboretum, but I really couldn't stand to face any more of the Spring Break crowds. Our big adventure was to the grocery store. The twins seemed to enjoy that just as much.
Carl made it home around 6pm on Friday night and every single one of us were happy to see him.
All that to say, being a stay at home Mom is really hard work. Because of the balance between work and family I've built for myself, I'm able to be a bit more calm with the twins. Being cool and calm Mommy is so much harder when we're together all day long.
I'm grateful for part-time work and my hat is off to stay-at-home Moms. That's really a super tough job!
