2U2

I am definitely learning that having two children under the age of 2 can be pretty difficult. They are testing out my Mommy skills in high gear this week. Colin has been home sick from daycare. He has a nasty cold and had a fever up to 101.6. Audrey has decided that she doesn't want to be remembered as our "easy" baby and is starting to act more like Colin did at this age. She is no longer going 3-4 hrs between feeds at night. She got up 5 times last night. And both of them were up bright and early at 630am. She has also been a lot more difficult to keep happy during the evening hours. So it has definitely been a tough week but we are managing. There's a few things that are helping make life with 2U2 a bit easier.

1. Premade meals. It is so great to have friends that are good cooks! Denice was so kind as to offer to spend a Saturday cooking with me while I was pregnant. We did this before Colin was born also. We got together a couple months ago and spent a whole day cooking. We made a ton of meals and I have a freezer full of stuff ready to go. My mom was here for 3 weeks and did the cooking so we have started using these meals now that she's gone. It is so nice to not have to worry about preparing a whole meal right now. Hopefully by the time we are through the frozen meals I will have this down a little better and occupying both kids while making dinner will be a more manageable task for me.

2. Babywearing. I bought an Ergo before Audrey was born and was loaned the infant insert from Breck. I got it out to use for the first time this week. It has been pretty helpful. I've been able to wear Audrey and continue to play with Colin, get some housework done, or cook dinner. Between yesterday and today I got the floors all vacuumed and mopped while wearing her.

3. "Hand". Colin can be pretty needy and likes to have us pick him up and carry him. When he wants our attention the most, he tries to get us to carry him around. When I was pregnant, especially towards the end, it got difficult to carry him around. When he would ask me for "up" I would instead offer my hand and we could walk together holding hands vs me carrying him around. We also started using this method when he would want something but not be quite sure how to tell us. He would get so upset about it and we'd offer our hand and have him take us to it and show us what he wanted. This has carried over pretty well. Now he is asking for my "hand?!" instead of always asking to be picked up. This is a lifesaver when he wants me and I am already holding Audrey. It is also helpful to not be carrying him all over especially since I'm already carrying her enough.

4. Colin likes to help. This has been the greatest. Colin is really enjoying helping out with the baby. It didn't happen immediately, it has taken some work though. Sometimes when I am going to change her he will get upset that I am leaving him. I ask him to come help me and he gets so excited about it. He opens up the drawer, hands me a diaper, and throws out the dirty diaper. He has been helping out around the house in other ways too. He loves putting clothes in the laundry shoot. I think he puts all our dirty clothes in there. He definitely does more of that task than I or Paul do. He also really enjoys loading the dishwasher. Today he was really good at helping me clean up his play area. We spent 10 minutes with him putting almost all the toys away before we had dinner tonight. This has been the greatest thing. It allows us to have time together, it gets some of the "chores" done around the house, and Colin thinks it is fun so he's happy. It's a win in all ways.

Colin is learning some "tricks" of his own, to get my attention. Today it was
"shoe on" all day. He kept taking his shoe off and then "uhoh" and then come over to me with it and "mommy, shoe on" so I'd put it on. I put his shoe on WAY too many times today. It was definitely his little "trick" to get some attention. We have worked a lot on the concept that it's not "uhoh" when you do it on purpose but he doesn't seem to get that one yet.

Hopefully we keep on finding ways that make things easier!