None of this is new, and I’m certainly not alone in struggling, but I feel like it needs to be repeated. So much of the country (world?) has moved on. They’ve declared the pandemic over. Masks are gone, people are going to concerts and eating at restaurants and working in the office. Everything is supposed to magically go back to “normal.”
Except.
It’s not true if you’ve got small children.
This might finally be the month that breaks me, because having three mobile children is definitely harder than two and a baby. I think we can finally say you’ve figured out this crawling thing, although not well enough for us to realize that when we put you somewhere, you’re not going to stay there. You’re moving just enough that we’re still surprised to find you in a new spot. You bounce and spin and take a break to sit and then get up and move another step or two, but you’re definitely moving, and obviously thrilled about it.
I’ve been talking about videos quite a bit lately. As much as I love photos and am definitely a photo person, I’ve shifted my focus to videos the past few months. A photo can never let you hear someone’s voice or laugh, really see how little your kids were, and just doesn’t capture the magic in quite the same way. So while I’ll still continue to fill my house with printed photos and books, I’m trying to focus a bit on videos too.
I recently got a professional video made of our most recent vacation, but while I was at it I also bought 3 extra videos to do first year compilations for each child. Obviously one of those is still unfinished, but I have the other two and had been showing them off to friends and family. And that’s when I realized that most people aren’t aware that I make a short video every month and put it on this website.
One of the coolest parts about becoming an adult is realizing you really can make up your own rules a lot of the time. Things are still way less fun than I thought they would be, and I’m still mad that you don’t really get to pick the color of your car or your house like I thought you would, but every once in a while being an adult is totally worth it.
Phew April is a busy month, and we still have a week left!
I think the small humans are feeling it too. Emotions have been high, boundaries are being tested, and we’re all exhausted. Luckily we’ve had plenty of fun too.
In our first piece of big news, we converted G’s bed from a crib to a toddler bed! Besides the fact that he asked (and that’s reason enough at this age I think), he was starting to learn that he could climb into it and I wanted to stop that before he realized he could climb out too. We made it 3 wonderful years with him contained, and now we’re working hard to make sure we don’t find him wandering the house in the middle of the night.
Work has been insanely busy and stressful lately, I feel like I don’t get to see my kids enough during the day, and there’s never enough time to cross everything we need to do around the house off my list, but last weekend was the first weekend since F has been born that we haven’t felt like we were drowning. So there’s that!
I’m not sure why it happened, but about two weeks ago, it appeared. And has been a constant presence ever since. She always loved her tongue, of course. She curled it, and stuck it out at us, and did other things you use a tongue for. But lately? It’s always here. And always curled slightly and pointed up towards her nose.
I don’t even know how to describe life right now. Some moments are calm and I’m so content my eyes well up with happy tears looking at my big beautiful family. Some are so chaotic that I can’t catch my breath and I’m constantly running and I don’t know if my kids are fine or if I’m failing them. And some days I feel like everything I’m doing is wrong and I’m definitely failing them. So I guess if I give you an answer one day and you don’t like the answer, just ask again a few minutes later?
After a few boring months, this was a big one for you! Not only did you leave the house, you left the state and flew all the way to Florida! And then we discovered that you aren’t really used to being outside, and it’s a huge adjustment. We’ll just say it wasn’t your favorite, so after a trip to a playground, a hike to the river, and a farmer’s market all in the first two days, we mostly let you stay in the house after that.
At this time of year I am 100% looking and planning forward to all the events in the next two months, since April and May are always busy months for our family. So St. Patrick’s Day is not much more than an annoyance. Weird coming from the person with Irish heritage, but “celebrating” this holiday has always had negative connotations to me - pinching and food I don’t like and alcohol. It was the one day I always made sure to not be home when I lived in Southie.
There was so much prep work for this trip. So much. It had been two years since we’d really gone on a trip like this, plus this was our first trip as a family of five, and had so many unknowns, so I think we went a bit overboard. Our motto was better to be prepared than surprised, but I think it worked.
Aside from packing suitcases, flights and having a place to stay, there were other details. Leading up to the trip we rented baby gear and coordinated it getting dropped off at the rental house. We put in Amazon and Target orders of snacks and toys and diapers and anything we could possibly think of needing while we were there. There were things like masks to think about and any other Covid related extras to plan for. We rented a car, asked someone to check on the cats, and figured out the car seats.
I really never thought it would happen. I refused to pack suitcases, I didn’t have a rental car booked - I was so sure that something would go wrong and we’d cancel again. I was having some major flashbacks to the last time too. When we had our paper chain countdown going, and I had to throw it away before we reached the end, and then sit my two year old down and tell him that we’d be staying home for a while.
So I guess this post is fitting to follow the last one. I wish I could say it’s a triumph over the pandemic, but it’s not. We still have a 60% unvaccinated household, although I hold out hope that will change by this summer. But maybe we’re slowly finding a way to live with this pandemic. To find a way to live but also be safe? I hope that’s the case.
I’ve thought about writing this post a million times, but since we were IN it, it felt like maybe I should wait. Until it was over. Now I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will be over. And the before time, it’s so far away now, that it’s hard to remember.
So here is a very messy, probably very long, in between post about this pandemic we’re living through. Because some day our kids might ask. Because it’s probably not a bad idea to write down some memories. To reflect on the craziness. I’m going to break it up into sections - it probably won’t make it any shorter, but maybe easier for me to write.
Sometimes I feel like there’s nothing to update because every day seems the same, but at the same time everything changes so quickly that I have too much to share. Like E’s favorite song lately is Rihanna’s Umbrella (because what a cool thing to sing about!) and G’s favorite song is ABCDEFU (“She sings it wrong!”).
The baby baby is suddenly huge. I looked at her the other day and almost didn’t recognize her face. It doesn’t help that I think daycare has been brushing her hair so it doesn’t always stick straight up anymore, but suddenly she has these big cheeks too! She’s also huge, I just weighed her and she’s about 17 lbs which means she’s moved up a diaper size and a sleep sack size, but long gone is my tiny ity baby. It’s okay, because she’s almost entering a really fun phase, where she’ll be able to sit and play with us, and she’s starting to get really excited about food. I still don’t really have the energy to want to feed her table food even daily, but occasionally she’ll get to chew on something we’re eating and so far she loves it. And if not, she just chews on my shirt instead.
By some weird turn of the calendar, you don’t really get a half birthday this year. It’s better than being born on a leap day, sure, but it did give me a bit of pause when deciding when to celebrate. The answer of course was whenever we wanted to.
This was a big month for you - you started daycare! You were getting extremely bored at home every day, and seem to be doing well at school. Except for the first day when you came home so exhausted you could barely make a noise or keep your eyes open, you’ve adjusted great. You don’t cry at drop off, and they say you’re happy during the day. E occasionally peeks in the window at you and finds you napping in a crib. It’s both weird and fun to be driving home from pick up with three children in the car. Sure it takes us a while to get everyone strapped in, but you’re a pretty good sport. I don’t want to jinx us, but you may be my baby who has hated the car the least. Not enough to sleep in the car, but I’ll take neutrality.
Is there a limit to what I’m willing to do to make my children happy, assuming it’s something I’m able to do? I’m seriously asking, because I haven’t found it yet. Instead, I find myself decorating the entire house for Valentine’s day, when I’m pretty sure I used to hate Valentine’s day and would often wear black in protest. And then when a certain preschooler tells me that we need to decorate MORE, and this should include Elmo and Abby decorations, I find myself hand creating them out of construction paper.
Nothing about this pandemic makes sense to me anymore, but one of the more annoying things is that some daycares let parents into the buildings while others do not. I understand the logic, and I’m not someone who’s going to fight against people who are trying to keep my children safe, but I will admit that it would be so much easier if I was allowed inside the building.
Yes I’d like to be able to see what’s going on in my children’s classroom, and be able to check that they have enough extra clothes that still fit them and if the baby needs more diapers or not, but also because it would be easier to gather everything. It would be nice to be able to strap the baby into car seat and gather all the things that need to go back and forth every day from inside a building. And not in the cold or the rain.
Well this month you have officially moved from a baby that is content to be along for the ride, to our ‘baby baby’ who wants to explore and do. No longer can we put you down on the floor with some toys and expect you to be content. You need to be entertained and experience and see new things. Which has been hard since we haven’t left the house this month. It makes me hopeful that your transition to daycare will be smooth, though. The other day E was explaining to you what daycare would be like. He was telling you what your room was going to look like, and made sure you knew that he’d be able to see you and check on you through the windows multiple times per day.
My alarm has been going off at 5:30 recently, which is actually sleeping in for me. I get up, make breakfast for E and G, shower and get myself dressed, and then I’m on kid duty. It becomes a very loud and wiggly assembly line as each child needs to be changed and dressed and chased around the room. So many wiggly feet to capture with a sock.
I was halfway through dressing the smallest, and trying to corner the middle since he was next, when E caught me yawning one morning. “Mama are you tired?” he asked me.
We’re creeping up on our two year anniversary of being home. Our two year anniversary of our two week home quarantine. There’s a whole lot of feelings that accompany that, but right now I’m more focused on the fact that I’m going crazy. Two years of not really leaving your house will do that, I’m sure. But here’s the clear evidence: we decided to potty train and sleep train at the same time. I’m not sure how or why this happened, but this is where we’ve found ourselves. We had grand plans to send the third child to daycare so we’d have some time at home to focus a bit more, but daycare messed up those plans. They claimed that one child was sick, so they sent home the whole family. Fine policy in theory I guess, but this is the second time they’ve done that, and we’ve yet to see an actual sick kid. Apparently one of the tiny ones have discovered an easy way to make the teacher believe they’re “sick” and get sent home. I really thought I had years before this level of treachery.