My husband and I divide responsibilities for the babies in lots of things. He excels at getting up in the middle of the night and finding out what's wrong with the baby that's making the commotion. I do better getting up early to prepare breakfasts and get the dishes put away.
In the mornings, after I've gotten the children downstairs and the small one bottled, my husband helps to get my son ready for school and I head off into the throes of traffic, or, preferably, the lack of traffic. Some days you win, some days you sit in a long line of cars.
Each morning there are multiple breakfasts to be prepared. My coffee, things for my son to feed to himself and a bottle for my daughter. Oh, arugh, and I almost forgot the dog's food. And that exact scenario has happened too many times. On a very few occasions the dog has gone without breakfast for part of the morning. One time she even went without dinner. Several times she's gotten dinner hours later at the adult's bedtime. And I feel terrible any time any of these scenarios happen.
The dog was number one for so long. She is patient and kind and always available to clean up any food matter the children drop, or throw, or drool. So I had to come up with a way to make sure I don't forget her.
One of the first things I do when I come into the kitchen in the mornings is turn on the coffee maker. While it heats the water up, I start preparing breakfasts. I decided if I said to myself, "Coffee Dog" when I turn on the coffee machine, I'd go next to get her food and she and I could be served first. The dog and I will still be first, even if we're lower priority sometimes. So far, the Coffee Dog system is working and I haven't gotten the sad look of, "you forgot me again, mamma" from the dog.
The Big Boy Update: Cleaning up the room all by himself. A few mornings ago I got my son up and changed him. I put him on the floor and told him we were going to go eat breakfast after I changed his sister. He had some toys on the floor that he'd thrown out of his crib from earlier as he'd been awake before breakfast so daddy had given him some things to occupy himself with. At this point, those toys were all over the floor in front of his crib. I asked him if he could put the toys up while I changed his sister. I didn't expect too much, but he's seen us clean up all his life and he does practice putting things away at school. As I looked around, he was putting the pieces into the container toy. He got every one in. Then he carried the container into the closet and put it away. He came back, got the two books on the floor next, put one through the slats of his bed and then went to his sister's crib to give her a book for later reading. The floor was completely cleaned up. I was very impressed. Go baby. Also, he's just turned twenty-one months old today.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: About that pacifier... She likes her pacifier. This is good, because for a while we thought she was going to get attached to her thumb. But even the pacifier is not ideal, as no sucking dependency would be even better. So we're starting to measure how dependent she really is on the pacifier. We've removed the permanently attached pacifier from her car seat. This was the one she could get to all the time for self-soothing while we're driving. Otherwise, she doesn't get a pacifier unless she's in the crib, but she always expects one and whenever you go into the room and she's awake in the crib, she always has it in her mouth. So we're not in a terrible state, but it's going to take a bit of work to remove it from naps and bedtime. Today she's ten months. I think we've got a little time before we should be concerned.
Fitness Update: 5K Uncle Jonathan. Uncle Jonathan has been in running training too. I've seen him go from one minute runs to four nine minute runs yesterday, running over 5K. He's signed up for a four mile race with us in October and the 10K portion of the half marathon my neighbor and I are running in November. If my son could say, "Congratulations Uncle Jonathan," I think he would.
Someone Once Said: There are human beings who have very little but are rich in dignity and self-respect. Their hospitality is not for sale, nor is their charity
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