Zoë at 2 months

Time flies.  Zoë is already 2 months old (and I am 2 weeks late with this post).  And that means that we are 2/3 of the way through the 4th trimester!  Hurrah!!  I hate to will time to pass, but the first three months are just tough.  We are all exhausted and everything still feels like it is in flux and not quite in a rhythm yet.  But little by little we are getting there with some predictability around bedtime and naps.  Jonathan is settling into the idea of a little sister and taking ownership of his role as a big brother.  He giggles when she toots at the dinner table and loves to give her baths and kiss the top of her head.  And in the mean time I am trying to treasure every moment of the last few weeks of my maternity leave.

So, here is Zoë at two months old.  She still has the most amazing big blue eyes

and as her bright little personality emerges more and more, I just can't wait to see the little girl she becomes.

 

Our big accomplishments this month?  Smiling, cooing and beginning to babble.  Zoë has the most beautiful smile ever.  It is, of course, nearly impossible to capture on camera at all- let alone capture the way her eyes sparkle and make your heart melt.

As soon as she focuses her big blue eyes on you and sees that you are looking at her, her face lights up in the most stunning baby smile and she immediately starts cooing and gurgling and bobbing her head like she is saying something terribly important.  I. Love. It.   She was upstairs during story time with  Jonathan tonight and throughout she was smiling and cooing at Jonathan which made him giggle and then start cooing back at her.  The whole thing brought tears to my eyes and made me so thankful for these two beautiful souls that are in my care.  And then, within seconds, Jonathan had a tantrum about whether to read 2 or 3 books and Zoë vomited down my shirt.  But those beautiful moments amid the chaos of normal life are enough.

PS: Thanks to my friend Sarah Day for these great pictures!!

bribery

Typically getting Jonathan dressed and out the door in the morning takes a bit of wheeling and dealing and an extra dose of patience. But today he made me laugh.

Mommy: Ok buddy, time to get dressed.
Jonathan: No!
Mommy: You already picked out your shirt, let's get ready for school
Jonathan: No, I need an M&M.
Mommy: I don't have any M&Ms. (lie)
Jonathan: No, I need a pretend M&M.
Mommy: You can have a pretend M&M if you put your shirt and pants on.
Jonathan: OK!!

This tactic worked for shirt, pants, socks, shoes, jacket, backpack and getting in the car. If only bribery was always going to be so easy!!

change of pace

Jonathan's favorite thing right now is garbage trucks.  And when a two and a half year old has a favorite thing, it means that it will permeate everything they do.  For example, during breakfast he will start insisting that his spoon is a trash can as he is dumping his oatmeal into his mouth (the trash truck).  We watch videos on youtube of real trash trucks and of other children playing with toy trash trucks (I'm actually becoming quite fond of the little song, but Daddy finds it less fascinating).

He has commandeered three of my plastic flower pots and deemed them trash cans.  He fills them with toys and then dumps them into a large cardboard box- the trash truck- again, and again, and again.  This game has completely engaged him for 90% of his waking hours now going on three weeks.  And while it has endless fascination to him, playing it in 4 hour stretches day after day after day is making Mommy and Daddy go a little bit crazy.

So yesterday I decided that during nap-time I would take action.  Stealing an idea from one of my favorite mommy blogs, I hid the flowerpots and the box and instead set out a big wad of play-dough and little bowls filled with fall leaves, dry pasta, glass pebbles, and pieces of shells we collected at the beach.

The idea was to use these prompts to create some mixed-media sculpture.  And the goal was to have some time dedicated to playing together with him in a creative way that we both enjoyed.

So when I got him up from his nap, I told him I had a surprise downstairs to play with.  He loves surprises and was so full of anticipation that I could barely change his diaper.  And when he saw the set-up he was hooked. He spent a long time simply putting his fingers into each bowl, picking up handfuls of each and then putting them back in the bowl.  He got very upset when I tried to take anything out of the bowls or to play with the play-dough.

I tried to model some sculptures, but this usually ended in him saying "No Mommy, that is not how you play with this" and then him dis-assembling my art.

Eventually he dumped all of the bowls out onto the table and then spent time sorting all of the items back into their proper bowls.

  

He never did get into the idea of sculpting with the play-dough or sticking stuff into it; but he did a lot of sorting.  Eventually he decided that the bowls were trash trucks, needing to be filled.  But overall it was a success.  We had a glorious hour of non-trash-truck play and a little exploration of something novel.  Today we are back to trash trucks.

Austerity Measures

About a month ago DH and I both started feeling uncomfortable with our credit card bill.  Not only because most of my maternity leave is unpaid, though that was a factor.  I felt uncomfortable with what spending that amount of money said about us- about what we value and what we let define us.  I don't know how many times a day I would log on to amazon, but having some new thing was my solution to any problem.  I get a huge thrill out of knowing that a package is on the way, and amazon one-click is WAY too easy.  I found myself looking around and valuing myself based on the things that surrounded me rather than who I am.  Buying something new was like a drug- I needed just a little hit every day to make me feel OK.  And at the same time, I felt like we were being overrun with stuff.  Drawers, cabinets, shelves are literally overflowing with stuff that we don't use, but have "just in case".

So we decided to see if we could go for one whole month without spending any money on things besides groceries, toiletries and child related necessities (shoes when Jonathan suddenly outgrew his tennies; warm sleepers for Zoë when the temperatures dropped, etc).  We have almost completed our month and have been remarkably successful in keeping to our goal.  I couldn't help myself and bought a stuffed elephant for Zoë that was just too cute and we stopped for fast food once.  And now that our month is almost over, I am thinking about how it has affected me.

The first, and most obvious, thing is that I have stopped impulse buying.  And I like it.  I hate the feeling of unpacking your bags when you get home and looking at that item that was only $1.99, but you know you don't need and have no space for.  I like knowing that the things in my bag are things we need, not just things we want.

But the bigger thing that I have noticed is that I find my mind a little calmer a little more of the time.  Since there is no point for me to make a mental shopping list for much of anything or to plan projects, I have found myself being in the moment a little more often- whether that moment is playing with Jonathan, being spit-up on, or enjoying the rare quiet when the kids are both napping at the same time.  And I am really enjoying that extra space to just be.  I would like more of it.

So I definately think one month was good, but not enough to get me to where I want to be.  I want that mental space to be permanent.  I want to not even be tempted with those impulse buys. I want less clutter.  And I think my thought patterns will take a lot more than one month to change.  I'm not sure yet what this will look like going forward, but I am hoping we will work out a way to keep these changes going.

fresh air

Today has been a welcome breath of fresh air and relaxation after a few rather stressful days.  Life with a newborn is always exhausting, but yesterday was a remarkably trying day.  She fussed all day.  Not outright screaming most of the time (though we had our share of that too), but that revving up to scream "eeh eeh eeeeeh" noise- like an engine turning over but not quite getting there.  Literally all day.  Jonathan was having one of his 'terrible twos' days where we were living on the edge (or careening over the edge) of a tantrum all day.  DH worked late; dinner was a chore; bedtime was a disaster.  They screamed; I screamed.  We all ended the day on a bad foot.

After they were both finally asleep, I remembered how sweet and wonderful they really are and I sat in the kitchen and cried thinking about all the ways I failed them during the day.  How I lost my temper when Zoë probably had a tummy ache all day.  How I shouldn't have yelled at Jonathan when he tripped over the bouncer and banged his head, accidentally kicking the baby on the way down.  How a better mother would have a little more patience than I exhibited today.  How I hoped they knew how much I desperately love them despite my behavior.  I went to bed not only feeling tired, but like I was the worst version of myself.

But today has been like a ray of sunshine.  Zoë had her best night of sleep yet- asleep at 8pm and up at 7:30am only waking once to nurse- so I started the day a little more well rested than normal.  There was no preschool for Jonathan so after delivering a meal to some friends with a new little one, we headed to the playground.  We met another friend with a toddler and a baby and spent some lovely time in the sunshine chasing little boys and laughing together about the insanity of taking care of two little ones at once.  Zoë slept.  We had a lovely lunch and then nap-time where both of the kids slept a glorious 2 hours at the same time.  I swept the floor, sorted some laundry, prepped food for dinner and still had time to sit and drink coffee in the quiet while working on my latest project. I could feel the stress that had built up behind my eyeballs quietly melting away all day.

I know there will be more stormy days.  Days where everything goes wrong.  Where I loose my temper, fail to roll with the punches, and am not the mother I want to be. But my hope is that as long as I do my best to demonstrate how much I love my little munchkins every day and try to model patience and joy, things will be ok.  The kisses and smiles will outweigh the times when I slip and loose my cool.  And with a few days like today thrown in the mix, it gives me hope that I will make it through the craziness of being a Mommy with enough sanity to tip the scales the right way.

trick or treat

So this year, our little man had his first real Halloween experience.  And it was a hit.  I mean, really, a holiday that involves mainly getting to wear a costume and then have people give you large quantities of candy?  I'm not surprised that he deemed it his "favorite holiday".

Zoë donned the obligatory baby pumpkin costume (even though orange is really not her color).

And Jonathan went as a dragon.

This is actually his costume from last year, and I was super excited it fit again because the way his tail bobs when he walks in it is so cute I can barely stand it.

Our neighbors set up a miniature carnival that Jonathan loved.

And he went with Daddy to a few houses.

And was introduced to the concept of gluttony.

He has talked about trick-or-treating every day since halloween and often insists on wearing his costume for as much of the day as possible.