I'm having to make rearrangements because my father left and D is coming home and I'm fat and the kids are changing so they demand it. So, this is all tedium, but this is what I've got so far:
The kids are still going to have to get up about 8:30 or 9:00 and have no morning nap. We've been experimenting, and they are too cranky if they get up earlier. Some one of you suggested that I put them to bed earlier and were shocked that they don't go to bed until about 8 or 8:30, but there is a reason for that.
Which is, I will be starting to work evenings again for D soon. And basically when I leave D, he is more or less done for the night. So leaving him any earlier that 8 makes his day incredibly short. So, now it looks like we are going to try to have someone come in the morning for about 3-4 hours, then he will be by himself for a while, maybe even able to sit up for a while in that time so he can do more for himself, then I will come from about 4 till 8. Depending on what the social workers do with the hours, I may have to come everyday, or possibly we could get someone for a few of the days. So I will take the kids over there after their afternoon nap, then we'll all have dinner over there, and I'll probably put the kids in pjs and do bedtime bottles over there as well so I can just come home and throw them into bed around 8:00.
On Sundays for the next two months, they will have to get up at 7 am and come with me to the early service where I am teaching Sunday School. But I'm not going to stay for the second service anymore. It has made the rest of our day miserable. And I'm never going to volunteer to teach the early service again! I committed to this a LONG time ago and I must have been temporarily insane. Next year, I'm going to only do team teaching at the second service. No more "lead teaching" for two months straight. Ugh.
I'm going to start going to my gym on MWF mornings. But I'm not getting everyone up early to do it. I'll go about 10 to 12, then come back and give the kids a wee bit of playtime, lunch and nap by 1:30. Up at 3:30, snack, and over to D's. So there will be no, or very little "school" on those days, but I have to remember, there is a very nice daycare at my gym with lots of toys and other kids and nice daycare workers and they will actually have fun and learn stuff without ME!!! I need some time without them as well. Sheesh. They will still have 3-4 days of 'school' time. AND, I'll say that lugging these two 20 pound babies up and down a flight of stairs several times a day has made me quite muscle-y. But you'd never know because all of my muscles are underneath an overload of fat. So, I'm kind of looking forward to getting back to doing some cardio and taking off some fat and seeing what is under there. If it looks good, they may not be allowed to walk until they are five. The twin workout is just too good!
Also, I'm giving up the playgroup, at least temporarily. I don't think gymboree is for us right now. Its great for some kids, but Naim just doesn't like it. Aaron is fine with it. But for Naim, it is too overstimulating, too rushed, too short of a time period for him to get acclimated, he spends the whole time sniffling and clinging to my leg, which means that Aaron is just wandering off on his own not doing much anyway. I'm looking at another playgroup that is MUCH quieter, less expensive, and easier to get to by train. It is two hours once a week, and calm and relaxed, more evenly paced and thoughtful. It is a Waldorf school program, which I don't know a whole lot about, but it reminds me of Montessori but with more pretend play and drama. The only thing is, they have to be 18 months old, so that is a few months away. For now, Gymboree isn't worth the trouble, and its not like they won't be getting social time in the Church nursery and at the gym daycare, I just won't be there to see it. Which is not that bad of a bad thing.
Now I will fess up about my diaper usage. I wrote back here about how I was ditching disposables and only using cloth and/or gdiapers. Well, I still use all three. I always use a disposable at night because NOTHING ELSE WORKS. And what is the point of having a diaper on if it is going to leak all over every night? I've tried using doublers, but that only makes the diaper last until 2 am instead of midnight. I got sick of every morning (or every 2 am morning if they woke up and had a fit about it) cleaning up a big mess of pee soaked blankets. Also, the kids were getting diaper rash a lot more. So now, I use unbleached organic chinese prefolds with Bummi wraps about 75% of the daytime. I use gdiapers about 25% of the daytime, usually only if I'm going out in public or know that I need a little bit longer before I change them, or I just haven't done the cloth diaper laundry. Cloth diapers are just easier than gdiapers. I really like the company, and was hoping that I'd love the product, but I just don't. The flushing...er, clogging... is a bitch and I rarely ever do it, the assembling of the diapers is more time consuming than cloth, and they are inconsistent as far as leakage goes. The gdiaper cover, now that mine have been washed several times, are coming unraveled and the elastic waist doesn't hold everything as snug anymore. They also cost a bit more than disposables do. Cotton prefolds and bummi wraps are the simplest thing next to disposables. I use 'em, dump them in their own hamper with a bummi hamper bag and baking soda in it, then throw the whole bag (with the baking soda for detergent already in the bag) in the washing machine about once or twice a week, and barely bother to fold them up. Easy. I do cheat about once a month and use Tide and chlorine bleach on them, but you don't have to, they do get clean with just hot water and baking soda, but I'm anal that way. I have two dozen cloth prefolds and 8 bummi wraps (remember I have twins) and that gets me through with twice a week washing and cost me about 50 bucks. But still using Huggies at night, but one large box now lasts me weeks and weeks. So, call me the Lazy Environmentalist.
Finally, I will say that Naim, who has been in a constant state of whining or tantruming for the last month or so and getting on MY. LAST. NERVE., has suddenly opened up into a wonder child of pleasantness. I don't want to think that it is because my father left, but I kind of suspect that is what it is. The house is just so much more calmer now and more organized. It's not that my dad purposefully does terrible things. It's just that he's this loud, TV on all the time, lumbering, hyper guy with a small, skittish, loud, hyper dog that he never bothers to supervise. I feel like I have quadruplets when he is here. I get tense, I lose track of things, I get tired, there is always stuff going on in the house, the dog is always barking or getting into the kids toys and destroying them, then my dad yells at her. It is kind of chaotic. I forget how calm and peaceful things are with just me and the kids. Naim likes my dad. In fact, several times over the weekend he walked me over to my dad's bedroom door and pointed at it and looked at me in confusion. I finally had to call my dad and have him talk to Naim on the phone, and that seemed to help. My question is, is Naim responding to me because I'm more calm? Or is he responding to the environment as a whole being more calm? And what can be done about it next time? I mean the kid has been a joy to be with the last three days, where I swear I almost couldn't take him anymore some days in the last month or so. One thing I think is that if my dad came without the dog, our problems would decrease by at least 50% if not more. I like the dog. I don't think it is her fault or anything. The kids even like the dog. Its just that she is an old, skittish dog that really doesn't get enough attention or supervision here. I can't always be supervising two kids, a really fast moving dog, and helping my father find his glasses and his wallet all the time, you know? There is a lot more going on here than in Kansas and she might just be one of those dogs who shouldn't be in a household with children. She's just too hyped up and she destroys EVERYTHING. She destroys their bottles and sippy cups, their toys, she eats the kids food (she gets right on the table when I'm not watching and my father never pays attention). She gets up in their faces and makes them cry. I can't take all the kid's toys away because of her. So I'm going to have to work on my sister to see if she will take her instead of my dad bringing her here. My sister travels a lot for her job. I'm almost like, "Hey, I'll pay for the kennel when you are out of town if you'll just TAKE the DAMNED DOG!!"
So, I guess our schedule isn't going to be all that different. Its get up, breakfast, school or gym, lunch, nap, snack, D's house, dinner, home, bedtime. It just feels different to me because I've had a reprieve from working for D, but instead have had to deal with Naim, the dog, and my lumbering, loud father. So this schedule in a way seems calmer and less stressful than all the 'free time' I was supposed to have been having.
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