Avery's new word

ME: "Avery, do you want to sing a song with me?"

AVERY: "I can't; I have crap in my mouth".

(There was nothing in her mouth)

never forget this

Hayden has been in the habit lately of waking up at 4am and dicking around for about 45 minutes before going back to sleep. Any by dicking around I mean crawling around the bed on top of the husband and I, babbling to herself, repeatedly shouting out “Hi!!!” in hopes that someone will open their eyes and acknowledge her, and trying to gain access to my boobs. It’s all very annoying but I have begun to learn to accept it, and to just keep my eyes closed and eventually she will go back to sleep.

This morning, she woke at her usual ungodly hour and army-crawled over to me, wrapped herself around me, put her head on my shoulder and said: “mama….mama…” in the sweetest voice, then sighed deeply and went back to sleep.

Happiness, peace…have I been waiting all of my life for this? Yes. And here it is and I never want to forget this feeling. How could I ever have existed without these two little girls of mine in this universe with me?

Truly this is bliss.

happiness

Well, well, well.

I suppose I got a bit ahead of myself assuming that I would be blogging it up here on a regular basis. I’m not going to lie and say that I’ve been far too busy at work with, well, work. I’ve been working, yes, but I have also been catching up on all of the political news, celebrity fluff and other randomness and fantastical offerings from Google that I missed over the year I was on maternity leave.

I have a small corner office located in a relatively quiet part of the building. I can sort of see a window. I have plants. I have earphones so that I can listen to music and watch you tube videos with sound. I have privacy and freedom from the demands of small, tyrannical children. Each morning I come in, plop down in my chair, kick off my grown up shoes (read: uncomfortable high heels) and drink a HOT coffee until it is done. The demands of my job are spaced out and often, I am finished what I need to do with a few hours to spare each day.

At home, things are wonderful. Hayden has FINALLY starting sleeping all night. I’m still nursing her in the morning and before bed, but she no longer wakes to feed and I am feeling much better for it. Avery sleeps most of the night in her own room and then comes in to join Hayden, the husband and I after that. Eventually, the girls will share a room together, but not until Hayden is a bit older.

We threw a 3rd birthday party for Avery last weekend. She had a blast. I think we had about 10 kids, plus her two cousins, plus the adults and my mother and father in law. It went beautifully. The husband prepared the vegan fare (pizzas, soy hot dogs, pasta and potato salads and a chocolate “princess” cake with pink icing) and everyone enjoyed. I tossed a bunch of toys out in the backyard for the kids to play with rather than having any organized games (can you imagine organizing games for a bunch of three-and-unders?) My girlfriend Karen came to stay for the weekend with her son, and while it was a lot of extra work (more on that later), it was really nice to see her and her 9 month old.

Avery is happily attending pre-school two mornings a week and the rest of the time she is home with daddy and Hayden. My husband is wonderful with the girls and they are all so close. Our marriage is very strong again; we are both happy and feel like the best friends we used to be, before all of the chaos. As the girls are getting a little less demanding and we are getting our evenings back, I’m finding that we almost never argue. After we put the girls to bed, we sit out on the deck and have a glass of wine and talk.

Hayden is starting to talk. She is still pretty whiny and very clingy with both my husband and I, but I know that this too shall pass. The other day the husband had to go have a shower so he asked Avery to keep Hayden happy for a few minutes and Avery replied by saying: “Okay Daddy, no problem. I can make her happy; I have silly faces.”

Avery is so good with her sister. They are both such empathetic and loving people. I have no worries that they will be close for the rest of their lives.

I have a 3 year old, a fifteen month old, a husband, a full time job, and a house and garden to keep but somehow I am finding a balance. This is happiness, and I have been waiting for it for a long time.

adjustment period

I made it through 3 weeks so far. Being back at work is not what I thought it was going to be. I mean, the workload, the people, all that stuff is still the same. I really thought I was going to get a sort of mental break from being at home with the girls, and by association, I would be able to dig my personality back out from under the motherhood pile. This is silly now that I look back on it because my personality has never really gone anywhere; I’ve just added some new dimensions to it, namely dedicated mother.

As for the mental break, I don’t feel refreshed or free at all. I just miss Avery and Hayden terribly. The first week was by far the worst. I was crying every night after the girls went to bed. Coming back to work created such a deep sense of loss that I truly went into a sort of mourning period. I just kept agonizing about all of the time I am going to miss with them now. Hayden has been having a hard time with me being back too. I have been sneaking out of the house in the mornings so that she won’t see me. The husband tells me that she doesn’t cry for long after I leave, but when I come home she will not let me go. If she sees me walk in the door I can forget about going pee and getting changed out of my work clothes. She will scream and cry until she is in my arms.

I know this will get easier for Hayden and for me. Avery has accepted that I go to work now and she gives me a kiss and tells me she loves me before I leave. When I come home she bounces over to see me with a big smile on her face, ready to tell me about her day. I think going to pre-school three days a week has helped Avery to be apart from her father and I, and in turn she has been able to deal with me going back to work a lot better than she would have a few months ago.

Of course, my husband being home with the girls has made it a lot easier for me to leave. He was able to trade all of his day shifts for the year. We won’t have to worry about daycare (save for the few evenings a month when my girlfriend looks after the girls at her house for an hour while the husband leaves for work and I return home) until next January. I am looking into getting a nanny.

The guilt I assume will never go away. This is just something I am going to have to accept. I don’t know what is harder: staying home with the kids or working full-time. I know my patience was running thin towards the end of this maternity leave and I was looking forward to getting away for a bit, but now that I am working I feel even more stress trying to get everything done and then I am short with the girls anyway. And boy do I ever feel shitty about that. I am away from them all week and then I feel like a terrible mother if I lose my patience with them on the weekend.

Hayden is still waking up 3-4 times a night so I am definitely sleep-deprived, which I know contributes to the lack of patience.

Anyway.

There is a lot going on, not just as far as the girls’ development, but of course with family and friends and all that good stuff so I will make sure to explore these subjects more closely in the next entry. Until then, I will put my head down and work until the hours pass and I can be home with the girls again.

returning to work, and to the blogosphere

I will be returning to work next Monday after a year home with my second little one. This means of course that I will have much time to Google as well as to finally write in this blog. I swear this is the only place that any of my girls' childhood will be documented so I had better get to it.

So a new title, a new dedication to my writing, and hopefully, some much more interesting content than was given in the past.

Going to be a regular Samuel Pepys, I am.

All I have time to write for now...

Merry Christmas!

looking back, looking ahead

Where has the time gone?

Hayden is almost six months old, Avery has turned 2. I was going to give up on this blog because I don't even have time to take a shower these days, but the other day I was thinking that this is probably a good way to keep a record of the girls, help me blow off some steam, and to remind me to be thankful and appreciative of the litle things...and the big things.

Hayden was colicky from 6weeks old to about 3 months old. I was so worried that I was going to have a really unhappy, high needs baby. Avery was pretty high needs but never had the colic so I was not too impressed. In fact, I went down the rabbit hole again and fell under the spell of post-partum depression. I pulled myself out of it after a couple of months and have remained pretty happy since.

I've learned to appreciate babyhood, and also to let myself sometimes wish for it to be over, but only on the very hard days. I have learned to appreciate the relationship that my husband and I have. Having babies with someone changes a relationship in many ways. After my husband watched me try to push a baby out, have two c-sections, and help me go pee and wipe and put my underwear on me in the hospital, it has finally opened my eyes to the fact that this man loves me. All of me. And he loves our girls. I think he is one of the best fathers out there. We have bad days, but I would say that the good ones outnumber the hard ones.

I'm going to keep writing in this blog because I have lots to write about. I have wonderful, beautiful, happy children and I want to document them. I'm going to do my best to write often, though I think this is a lofty goal right now.

For now I'll squeeze a few sentences in here and there between baby naps and loads of laundry.