It was a genuinely pleasant day for me. Brady slept in a bit and got to go to work for a normal time, instead of ridiculously early. So he was well rested, which is always nice to see. I, on the other hand, am struggling with the earlier hours my kids are choosing to run. I know its silly, but anything before 9:00 is still painful for me. I knew our beautiful 10:30 wake ups couldn’t last forever, but they were lovely. The kids were both awake and moving around a bit before 8:00, which was tough. Luckily, Dekker still doesn’t leave his bed until I go to his room, so he’s contained and fairly happy. And Laela isn’t a tough job in the morning. All she requires is some milk and a snuggle. I love that in the morning, too! Once I was up and at ’em, I felt good. I was decently rested, and both of my kids were happy.
Once Dekker had eaten his breakfast, and it was time to venture to the basement, Laela was ready to go for a sleep. Its always nice to have a bit of one on one time with him, for some more hands-on playing. Deks is really good at playing on his own, and sometimes even gets annoyed if I mess with his toys or his games too much. But I like being available, anyway. What I’m loving about the cycle of waking up earlier is that he gets tired earlier. So we had lots of really good snuggles in the late morning. When he was really fading, and I could hear Laela starting to fuss a bit, I went upstairs to get Dekker’s lunch, my smoothie, a bottle, and the little lady. There was much rejuvenation, and the afternoon began well.
They were both silent and dead to the world in their beds at 2:00pm. Thats a bit too early for my taste. I mean, its fine for Dekker! Then he gets in a full evening of playing instead of just an hour or two. But Laela waking up around 5:00 is too early. She’s not at the point yet where she stays awake for three hours at a time yet, and she goes to bed at 8:00. I don’t know. I don’t worry too terribly much about scheduling, and I’m certainly not complaining that my kids napped at the same time, but the evening was a bit touch and go with L.
I think I’ve mentioned in the recent past that Dekker has been struggling with supper. He’s thron fits as we sit him at the table, and he’ll refuse to eat the food. He’s not normally a picky eater at all, so we’ve been a bit stumped. Since he’s been napping a bit earlier/shorter, and he’s had more playtime, we’ve been giving him more playtime between his nap and supper, and thats helped for sure! However, once we’ve finally got him sitting at the table, he only wants breakfast food. I haven’t fought that too hard, as I can appreciate breakfast for supper as much as the next person! But today, I suggested toast and cheese, and he was thrilled! So he had grilled cheese and cucumbers for supper without a single complaint! I know its not exactly the food of a clean eater, but it worked, and he devoured it happily. I was so relieved!
We spent the evening downstairs, trying to cheer Laela up while waiting for Brady to get home. Finally, the little girl had just had it, so we went upstairs to Dekkers room and stripped them both down to diapers. Laela always gets a little happier when she’s naked. So I sat on the floor with Laela and Dekker very literally ran circles around us. Brady finally arrived home around 7:30, and joined the fun for the last half hour. We did some diaper changes and put them both in fresh jammies, and said goodnight. Dekker was really, really sad when it was nighttime, but that actually made me feel like today had been super successful, and he had a lot of fun, and was sad to have to stop. I get that, and it makes me feel like, today, I did my job well!
I have a lot of encouraging friends, and I’m not trying to put myself down in some huge way. But I definitely have days where I don’t try as hard. I’m less involved in my kids games, or I watch too much tv, or I’m less patient, or soft spoken. I think we all have days where, if we were brave enough to look at ourselves, we would see that we had dropped the ball. Yes, there is always room for improvement, but it doesn’t feel like a day that I totally screwed up 🙂 I had real, genuine FUN! And so did my kids!
I really loved today. I can’t wait for many more like these 🙂