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Aerin, Baby, Claire, Home, Motherhood, Personal

A Day in the Life… (Part One)

Apr 04. 2012

Ever since I became a mother of “two under two,” I have received a few requests for a “Day in the Life” post, detailing what a typical day is like for me.

Better late than never, right? 😉

This post chronicles the first half of Monday, April 2, 2012. Claire had just turned 18 months old, and Aerin 5 months.

(Please excuse the poor quality of some of these pictures as they were all taken with my phone and I usually only had one chance to get a shot!)

6:54am: Aerin wakes up, which means that I must also get up for the day. I keep her sound machine on so that there is less chance of our waking J, and quietly change, feed, and play with her, waiting for the rest of our family to awake.

8:15am: Claire wakes up. She usually wakes up between 7 and 7:30, so she’s slept in a bit today. I leave Aerin in the Bumbo on the floor of our living room while I prepare Claire’s morning bottle (yes, we know we should wean her from this) and go say hi to my firstborn. She giggles when she sees me and throws her arms up so that I will pick her up. I change her while she drinks her milk.

8:20am: J wakes up. He takes over for a bit while I brush my teeth and wash my face. Then I entertain the girls while he gets ready for work.

8:45am: J leaves for work. Claire calls out “Bai!” while waving a hand.

9:00am: It is time for Aerin’s first nap. I turn on Ni Hao Kai-Lan on Amazon Instant Video (we have a computer hooked up to our TV) so that Claire can sit still while I put Aerin down. Luckily, it only takes 5 minutes for Aerin to fall asleep.

9:05am: I prepare breakfast for Claire and I: scrambled eggs and yogurt. I also make a cup of coffee for myself, and we eat — or rather, I eat and feed Claire— while sitting cross-legged on the playmat while watching Kai-Lan solve yet another problem her friends have caused. (Rintoo is a jerk, Tolee is a wuss, and Hoho is just plain annoying.) When we’re finished eating, I continue to keep her entertained with books, toys, and stickers.

9:50am: Aerin wakes up. I give Claire some Korean shrimp-flavored crackers to munch on while I go tend to the youngest member of our family with a diaper change and a bottle.

Aerin, Baby, Claire, Motherhood, Parenting, Personal

More Difficult Than Twins

Apr 02. 2012

The first few weeks without J’s parents weren’t too bad. I really thought that I could do this.

But in the past week, Claire has started to act up.

My parents think that it’s because up until now, Aerin was still a young infant — just kind of there, taking up room and requiring only the most basic needs met. But now that she is really starting to become interactive, not only demanding more of my attention but also garnering more from others as well with her smiling, cooing demeanor, Claire has begun to take notice.

And she does not like it.

Before, she wouldn’t mind if Aerin would play with her toys or her old baby products. She wouldn’t mind to see Aerin strapped to my chest, just as long as I was still paying attention to her too.

But now, she cries when she sees Aerin lying in her old activity gym. She demands to have Sophie back (even though she has never taken much interest in the popular teething toy). And whenever she sees me with Aerin in the Bjorn? She will whine for me to pick her up too.

She has even begun to hit me and her little sister!

This was what was the most upsetting out of the numerous things that went wrong last week: knowing that Claire — now a year and a half years old and at a stage where she requires much love and attention to thrive and be happy — is not receiving nearly as much care as she deserves.

There is also the fact that Aerin, who is now 5 months of age, needs a lot more from her caretaker(s) as well.

J and I have decided that I need help. But finding a part-time nanny to lend me a hand will also require a lot of work on my part, which I am already reluctant to do because I am so. Damn. Tired. ALL. THE. TIME.

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Baby, Motherhood, Personal

Why, Yes. I Do Feel Like an Asshat!

Mar 31. 2012

As stated in my last post, this past week has been a whirlwind of sh*tstorms. Suffice it to say that the past few days have probably have been my most trying as a mother of two. Maybe I’ll write about the events that transpired in a future post, but there is a chance that I may need to erase from my memory banks these occurrences and my resulting feelings and reactions from them — and leaving them written out on a public blog may not be the best way to go about accomplishing this goal.

I have recently re-read Tina Fey’s Bossypants because it is a quick and funny read that does not require much thinking. I laughed out loud as I read the below passage:

I learned how long a morning can be. If you’re at work at 5:30 A.M., five hours go by and it is 10:30 in the morning. (I didn’t experience that again until I had a newborn baby. It does make you feel like an asshat for all those college years when you slept until 12:45.)

My mother told me yesterday that my life will never be as comfortable as it was when I was in college. I disagree, because I hated school and I hate being dependent on others — even my own parents at that young age — for money. For me, it was better when we were DINKs (double income, no kids), because at least we could sleep in on weekends and our combined income which supported two people was more than what J’s single income now supports for four.

But having less (in time, money, and other luxuries) does make me so much more appreciative of the little things; I am so much more thankful for what I do have, as well as what I had. For instance, I can’t believe I used to b*tch about getting “only” 5 hours of sleep the night before. Or spending $700 for a wallet and not batting an eye when a $100 handbag seems like such a luxury now.

Aerin, Baby, Parenting, Personal

Sleep-Training Aerin

Mar 26. 2012

I am by no means an expert on baby sleep, but the (very) general sleep pattern that my girls seemed to have followed is:

0 to 2 months old: sleeps most of the day, but also wakes up often. She is still getting used to being outside of the womb.
2 to 4 months old: the sleepy newborn stage. She is finally used to the outside world and is “resting” from the trauma of birth. (Did you know that oftentimes, being born is much more difficult than giving birth? Think about how traumatizing it must be for the little guys!)
4 months onward: sleep goes to crap again, otherwise known as the 4-month sleep regression. She is starting to discover the world and is simply overwhelmed.

We sleep-trained Claire at 4.5 months because not only were we, as her parents, dead-tired and cranky, she was also miserable from the lack of sleep. Getting her from waking up 5-6x per night to 3x a night took about a week, and getting her to nap more than 20-30 minutes at a time took about two months. I used Dr. Weissbluth’s extinction method in both cases, and while sleep-training was one of the toughest things I did as a parent, I also believe that it was also one of the most worthwhile — Claire is such a happier child when she is well-rested!

With Aerin being a more laid-back, happier baby who slept better than Claire from the get-go, we had been hoping that we wouldn’t need to sleep-train her. And as she neared 4 months of age, I kept my fingers crossed that she would skip the dreaded 4-month sleep regression (as some babies do)…

But no such luck. Aerin’s sleep regression hit a couple of weeks before she turned 4 months old, and it progressively got worse. At one point, she was waking up every hour! She also seemed to have the same trouble that Claire had with naps, waking up just 20-30 minutes into her nap just as the deeper, more restful sleep cycle begins.

Baby, Books, Geek, Giveaways, Parenting, Reviews

“My Little Geek” ABC Book — Review and Giveaway!

Mar 21. 2012

Ed note: When this post was published earlier today, it somehow published a version without the Rafflecopter widget and instructions on how to enter the giveaway. 🙁 I have no idea what happened, and I apologize for the mistake. Here is the correct version.

Your kids will be smart enough to know that A is for apple and Z is for zebra…why not broaden their horizons a little? And while you’re at it, why not add a geeky twist?

My Little Geek will allow you to do just that. This kid-friendly board book will certainly help adult geeks teach the ways of geekdom to their little ones, from “Android to Zombies.” Written by Andrew & Sarah Spear, and illustrated by Edit Sliacka, My Little Geek is full of wonderfully adorable pictures and nerdy concepts that is sure to expose your children to the amazing world of geeks.

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