Unsolicited: Parenting Stories and Advice

Oh. My. Goodness.  Road trips with two kids are no joke.  To be fair, our seven hour car trip to Rochester was mostly Leo maintenance with a handful of Seth thrown in.  Most newborn babies are so easy - they just need to eat and then they are awake and then they cry for a bit and then they fall asleep.  Feeding in the car isn't the BEST time I've ever had - wedged in between two car seats, using my down coat as a Boppy, casually wondering if I should care that I can't feel my legs.  It's annoying to have to stop, but then again, the Little Debbie selection at gas stations tends to be pretty choice.   Leo, on the other hand, different story. We decided to leave at Leo's bedtime so that he would fall asleep in the car and have some snoozes for a couple of hours before reaching the HoJo's where we would be spending our evening.  Why we thought Leo would suddenly sleep great in the car after 20 months of refusing to sleep in the car is a question that a reasonabl

When you're pregnant, everyone wants a happy and healthy baby.   No one asks for a colicky newborn or a baby with serious health complications.  No one says, "I'll take the one who never sleeps, please!"  And this desire is legitimate and true. For me, this remained my dominant feeling for the first few months with Leo.  I was so happy that he was (overall) a happy guy and we were so lucky that he was (overall) healthy.  Yes, I sometimes said, "Why isn't he a better nurser??" or "Must he spit up after EVERY feeding??", but on the whole, I was pretty happy with the child I had birthed.  I think this focus on happy and healthy is easy to sustain...until you hit the time of the milestones.  At the beginning, everyone's baby is pretty much the same.  Sure, there are better sleepers and eaters but most of this can be passed off as "just being a baby." (Again, see above - I totally was jealous of people whose babies didn't require

Since I know a bunch of people who are pregnant with their second kiddo right now (the invasion is coming!!), I thought I'd post a more useful follow-up to my first post about being at home with two kids. Here are some strategies and tools that I've found useful so far. 1. Get shit done before your partner abandons you to the wolves(i.e. leaves for work) : I'm not following this one all the time so far, but the days that I've managed to crawl out of bed after Seth nurses and get dressed, wash my face, and eat breakfast before Eric leaves have turned out to be slightly less crazy than other days.  It's just not possible to rock a newborn while reading to a toddler while eating eggs.  Not gonna happen.   2. Have a routine : While we don't have a "true" routine yet, having my days follow a basic structure is extremely helpful.  It gets me out of the house in the morning and the afternoon and I feel like it grounds Leo a little bit as well.  As a p

This blog post is dedicated to Daniel Tiger, the Fisher Price Electronic Table, anyone who has held Seth or wrangled Leo in the past 4 weeks, and various salted snack foods. For the first six weeks of Seth's life, everyone kept saying "You look great!"  "How are you so well-rested?" "Did you give birth or go to a spa for 6 months?!?  I can't tell!!"  This was incredibly sweet and also incredibly misinformed.  For one thing, having the second baby is delicious raspberry cake compared to the first - especially a preemie who wants to sleep all the time for the first few weeks. Second, I had a ton of support from both Eric and a babysitter who took care of Leo for the first six weeks while I nursed Seth and napped.  I was definitely getting the sweet end of that deal. However, I knew this time was limited and that soon I would be on my own from 8 am - 6 pm, 5 days a week, for the foreseeable future with the often discussed, much feared "two unde