Just a quick post to say that I spent the last few hours cooking several main dishes for the week, all of which can also work for W's lunches. I made a red lentil thing that goes over rice (all homemade), linguine with chickpeas and (not homemade but organic and yummy) red sauce, mac and cheese (again, not homemade but relatively good organic Ann.ie's from a box), batches of steamed broccoli and zucchini, and some beautifully sauteed tofu cubes (W loves these!).
In other words, I--the woman who is perpetually unprepared for her life these days--is prepared for the week and can whip up meals without too much stress. I'll make more veggies on the fly to accompany these dishes, M will make some chicken for W's lunches, and we can do fruit on demand. The only other thing I'm contemplating is a batch of oatmeal for mornings. Will oatmeal keep for several days if I make a big batch and scoop out a bit at a time for me and W to eat for breakfast? Or will it get gluey? I'll have to goo.gle it and see what's what. Mornings are too busy for me to make oatmeal. We run out the door by 7:30 and even when I get up at 5:45 it's tight. Toddlers move so slowly!
That's it. Nothing brilliant to share or smart to say. But I'm proud of myself and I thought you might be proud of me, too!
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
slammed
It's week two of the semester and I am just now poking my head out to see that the world still exists. It's also week two of E going to day care. I like our day care a lot and all, but still....it's so hard for me to be sending a tiny little four month old baby there three days a week. She's really fine. It's just me. I wish I was at home snuggling with her.
So I'm feeling completely slammed. My days are a long list of things to do: wash bottles, organize W's lunches and make sure he's getting enough fruits and vegetables, wash my work clothes and organize my pumping stuff, make my lunches, etc. I remember this feeling from when I went back to work with W--it felt then like I'd never adjust and that I'd always be working through long lists and doing prep work for everything to go off without too many hitches. And then I got used to it. I stopped feeling so slammed and overburdened. It started to feel like a normal routine.
Maybe I'll be there next week. I have so many comments I want to make (I'm going to spend some time at work today catching up on my blog reading...yay!) and there are posts in the hopper that I haven't had time or mental energy to complete. Soon, soon, I hope.
This working full time and parenting two little ones is hard. Heck, parenting in general is hard, who am I kidding? You want to know the hardest thing about being back (and this is a totally vain and selfish concern)? My clothes aren't fitting right and I feel like I have no time to go to the gym or cook really good healthy food (we're living on boxed foods that I'm adding veggies to and trying to jazz up--so not adequate--and I know I'm making a futile excuse to myself about time and energy). I feel like I'm sausaging myself into my pants today and my sweater is clinging in all the wrong places. Meh. It's hard to feel comfortable back at work and in front of a classroom when my body feels so uncomfortable.
All else is well. E is making raspberry sounds like crazy (so soon!) and she's reverse cycling, or eating all night to compensate for not eating much at day care. That should right itself soon enough, I hope. W is fine, too, but sleep remains a challenge. He's been back in our bed for two nights in a row now and he's looking so tired during the day, too.
I feel like I'm doing nothing well because I simply have too much to do.
This will pass. I will get used to the schedule and routine. I will find time to work out some of these kinks. My clothes will fit again (dammit!). How are things in your world? *Yawn*
So I'm feeling completely slammed. My days are a long list of things to do: wash bottles, organize W's lunches and make sure he's getting enough fruits and vegetables, wash my work clothes and organize my pumping stuff, make my lunches, etc. I remember this feeling from when I went back to work with W--it felt then like I'd never adjust and that I'd always be working through long lists and doing prep work for everything to go off without too many hitches. And then I got used to it. I stopped feeling so slammed and overburdened. It started to feel like a normal routine.
Maybe I'll be there next week. I have so many comments I want to make (I'm going to spend some time at work today catching up on my blog reading...yay!) and there are posts in the hopper that I haven't had time or mental energy to complete. Soon, soon, I hope.
This working full time and parenting two little ones is hard. Heck, parenting in general is hard, who am I kidding? You want to know the hardest thing about being back (and this is a totally vain and selfish concern)? My clothes aren't fitting right and I feel like I have no time to go to the gym or cook really good healthy food (we're living on boxed foods that I'm adding veggies to and trying to jazz up--so not adequate--and I know I'm making a futile excuse to myself about time and energy). I feel like I'm sausaging myself into my pants today and my sweater is clinging in all the wrong places. Meh. It's hard to feel comfortable back at work and in front of a classroom when my body feels so uncomfortable.
All else is well. E is making raspberry sounds like crazy (so soon!) and she's reverse cycling, or eating all night to compensate for not eating much at day care. That should right itself soon enough, I hope. W is fine, too, but sleep remains a challenge. He's been back in our bed for two nights in a row now and he's looking so tired during the day, too.
I feel like I'm doing nothing well because I simply have too much to do.
This will pass. I will get used to the schedule and routine. I will find time to work out some of these kinks. My clothes will fit again (dammit!). How are things in your world? *Yawn*
Friday, January 6, 2012
sleep
It sometimes seems that the first few years of being a parent revolves around sleep. How do I get my kid to sleep on her own? How do I keep her asleep after the first few hours? How do I sleep when I have so much to do after the kid is safely in bed? Where should my kid sleep? What wakes my kid up?
I'm in the thick of sleep disturbances at the moment. W has been refusing to sleep on his own and we've let him back into our bed because honestly, he's going through a lot right now and we don't have the stomachs to make him sleep in the crib by himself. E sleeps, but she's got a perpetually stuffy nose and I haven't found a good place for her to sleep yet (crazy, I know...she's three months old and she's sleeping in a bouncy chair. And E also has really bad gas, so she screams in pain every hour starting around 2:30 a.m.--she's not awake, but she's not peacefully sleeping either. I think the bouncy chair is making it hard for her to release the gas and it builds up, thus waking us all at 2:30. And 3:30. And 4:30. You get the idea. Sleep is eluding us and I'm feeling completely stuck on how to solve any of these problems.
I'm not asking for advice because I know by now that there is no magic answer. Kids' sleep patterns are variable and unpredictable. I'm going to try putting E in the pack n play for sleep. We don't have a crib for her and are trying to avoid buying one, but W is not ready for the toddler bed, so there we are. Maybe the pack n play will work. The arms.reach co-sleeper is just not working no matter how I try it. I love the idea of the co-sleeper, but it didn't work with W and it hasn't worked with E. Does anyone have a good experience with them? Sigh.
I'm feeling a bit like a walking zombie these days and I'm really back to work the week of the 16th because I'll be teaching a class of 35 students. I'll need to be somewhat sharp in order to not feel completely embarrassed doing so. *yawn*
I'm in the thick of sleep disturbances at the moment. W has been refusing to sleep on his own and we've let him back into our bed because honestly, he's going through a lot right now and we don't have the stomachs to make him sleep in the crib by himself. E sleeps, but she's got a perpetually stuffy nose and I haven't found a good place for her to sleep yet (crazy, I know...she's three months old and she's sleeping in a bouncy chair. And E also has really bad gas, so she screams in pain every hour starting around 2:30 a.m.--she's not awake, but she's not peacefully sleeping either. I think the bouncy chair is making it hard for her to release the gas and it builds up, thus waking us all at 2:30. And 3:30. And 4:30. You get the idea. Sleep is eluding us and I'm feeling completely stuck on how to solve any of these problems.
I'm not asking for advice because I know by now that there is no magic answer. Kids' sleep patterns are variable and unpredictable. I'm going to try putting E in the pack n play for sleep. We don't have a crib for her and are trying to avoid buying one, but W is not ready for the toddler bed, so there we are. Maybe the pack n play will work. The arms.reach co-sleeper is just not working no matter how I try it. I love the idea of the co-sleeper, but it didn't work with W and it hasn't worked with E. Does anyone have a good experience with them? Sigh.
I'm feeling a bit like a walking zombie these days and I'm really back to work the week of the 16th because I'll be teaching a class of 35 students. I'll need to be somewhat sharp in order to not feel completely embarrassed doing so. *yawn*
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