You know you do a lot of laundry when your child asks to go to the laundry room. It’s an event these days.
I never realized just how much laundry I do until I moved in to an apartment with no washer and dryer. The laundry room is on another floor in another building in our complex, so it takes about 5-10 minutes (pending toddler walking speed) to get there.
Picture doing this every time you do laundry:
Get toddler to put on shoes, put baby in carseat for the snap and go stroller, grab laundry bag, detergent, money. Toddler insists on bringing her own stroller complete with her purse and stuffed animals. Walk to laundry room, put clothes in washer, walk back to apartment. 30 minutes later, do it over again and put in dryer, 60 minutes later, take out of dryer.
Loft living in the city, not so glamorous sounding now.
A coffee break at Starbucks, gym and grocery shopping sans kids. $60 for 4 hours of babysitting for every day activities.
Then again, time to myself for 4 hours, priceless and saves me money on a trip to the insane asylum. Something to think about…
Last night, we were doing our typical night time routine. I put Lexie in her crib, while she screams bloody murder for a half hour while I’m bathing Chloe. When I went in to get Lexie to do story time with the two girls, poor baby was laying in a pool of spit up, vomit and had pooped herself. Her entire head was soaked, along with the sheets, her pajamas and the mattress. I quickly stripped off the sheets, her clothes, flipped the mattress over and stuck her in a tub to scrub down. Meanwhile, Chloe is standing there in her pajamas, ready for her bedtime story and wondering what the heck just happened.
Maybe I should think about changing this routine?
Nap time, she decided to get all her clothes out. Some time during this project, she took off her pants and passed out on the floor.
If you look closely, you can see Chloe on the floor next to her bed.
Hmmmmm, toddler or drunken college student?
Last night we had a date night that involved dinner, The Shins in concert and a post-concert cocktail. ‘Cause sometimes you got to get away from the spit-up and poop and feel cool and hip.
Our latest toddler purchase.
“It’s like a very small homeless person lives here”, said my husband.
I’m very embarrassed that once again my blog writing attempts have failed miserably and I could not keep it up. Life seemed to be getting in the way. New baby, death in the family (grandmother), move across the country, husband’s new job and now buying a house. Let’s just say I’m ready for life to get boring.
Anyways, I had an experience this morning that I can only look back and laugh at and thought it would be worth a “I’m not a Supermom” blog post.
Let’s start with a little background. Since moving to Boston, we are living in corporate housing in Cambridge, so adjusting to city apartment living has been quite the feat. And, I thought I had it mastered. We figured out our system in doing our laundry, which is within the building but takes a few minutes to walk to especially with a baby and a toddler in tow. I even recently purchased a cute and quite realistic looking shopping cart so Chloe could help me tote the clothes, detergent and money back and forth. So, as most days are, today was laundry day. Chloe proudly had the detergent and my wallet in the cart.
Trying to be productive, after the laundry was in the washer, we went back to the apartment to drop off the cart and I grabbed my things to go to the grocery store.
For those of you with two kids, you know going to the grocery store can be a major trip. You’ve got to make sure you time it right so you don’t have any major meltdowns (i.e. nap time, hungry, etc.). So it seemed like the right time to go this morning.
I grabbed the stroller with the carseat, grabbed the Baby Bjorn and we walked to the parking garage to get in the car. When arriving at the parking garage, I smelled a familiar, unpleasant oder. Yep, my toddler just pooped herself. So, hoping no one would see me, I pulled down her pants and changed her diaper right in the parking lot of the garage, stuck it in a bag and put it in the passenger side of the car to be thrown away at the store. Nice, right? Driving next to a bag of poop.
Finally, kids in the car, everyone’s happy, clean and fed. On our way. Store is only a five minute drive away thankfully. Park. Run and grab a cart. Put Chloe’s rain jacket on that she is insisting on wearing. Put Chloe in the cart. Take baby out of car seat, put in Bjorn. Okay, ready to shop now. At last.
Shopping went very smoothly. No struggles from either kid. Lovely. Time to check out. Everything is rung up, the groceries are in the cart. There’s only one problem. No wallet. I remembered that my wallet was in Chloe’s mini cart from the laundry this morning. Shit. I wanted to cry right there. The cashier and bagger felt very sorry for me and understood, for they could see my sleep-deprived eyes. They pushed my cart aside and are probably still waiting there for me to come back to get them.
Once we arrived back at the apartment parking garage, the baby was asleep in the car seat and Chloe was asking for a nap. I knew that I would not be going back. So, I strolled back to the apartment, with my diaper bag and Chloe in my arms (she didn’t want to walk). Now I’m back home, no groceries, laundry still in the washer and Chloe sleeping.
To my friends that don’t have kids, cherish the days of easy, worry-free shopping. Cherish the days of just walking out of your house with nothing but a cell phone and wallet.
Though it sucks, and I’m at home with none of my groceries in which I had a carefully crafted list for. It’s still all worth it. Just brush it off and go on with the day, as there’s always another adventure around the corner. As for my next adventure, taking the dog out in the rain with both kids.
Today was Chloe’s first official day of school. I came in with her, sat there and observed her for a few minutes and realized she’s going to do fine with me leaving. I said my good-bye and she didn’t even look up from what she was doing. Way too occupied.
Now, it’s my time. I’m trying to be good so I went to the gym, had an hour and a half work-out, came home and walked the dog. Exercise done for the day.
I picked her up at noon and I quietly entered through the back door, so I wouldn’t interfere with the toddlers’ “working”. I watched Chloe from the doorway. She didn’t even noticed I walked in. She was happy as can be, working on putting objects in a jar and taking them out again. When she finally did notice me, she turned around, gave me a smile and proudly showed me a box with latches she had discovered during class.
I walked out with a tired, but very content girl. I came home, read her a couple books, sang a couple songs and put her down for a nap. I got to eat my lunch sitting down, clean the house, do some laundry and write a blog post all during her nap.
I think this school thing is going to work out okay.
Skinny jeans. If you’re like me if have various stages of jeans. I’ve got five:
1. My super skinny, going out on the town, the stars must be aligned perfectly, I can only wear these for a few hours jeans.
2. My skinny jeans, can wear all day, just not eat a huge meal, and creating the illusion that I may have dropped a couple pounds, even though I haven’t.
3. My medium, comfortable all day, all-time favorite jeans. Not too sloppy and don’t mind chasing a toddler around in them.
4. My getting chubby jeans. These are the jeans that I typically keep folded at the top of the closet in a hard to reach area and get out in case of an emergency.
5. My fat-ass, definitely gained 10 pounds jeans. These are the ones that I’m kind of embarrassed that I keep because they are at least two to three sizes too big. But post pregnancy they definitely come in handy. Or around the holiday season when I’ve had way too many sugar cookies.
I had to retire my #1 skinny jeans a few weeks ago. To which I wore only a total of two times. That’s what I get for purchasing my one and only size 0 white jeans. Oh, will I ever fit in to these again? Or will they live on to taunt me?
Being 13 weeks preggo, I wore my #2 skinny jeans for the last time this weekend. Of course, I’m sure I was sporting a nice muffin-top with my baby pouch. Now, it’s time to retire these for 9 months of hibernation.
I’m currently at stage #3, quickly coming up on stage #4. And will probably forego stage #5 altogether and just give in to the maternity jeans and stretch pants by this point.
R.I.P. skinny jeans. Someday we will meet again. Hopefully. Have a nice sleep in storage.
My hair is shiny, my appetite is ferocious and I’m saying “no” to wine. This can only mean one thing.
No, I’m not training for a marathon. Well, kind of.
I’m preggo. Bun-in-the-oven. Knocked up. Whatever you want to call it.
Doing it all over again. The sleepless nights, the spit up, the endless amounts of baby poo and diapers. But hey, then there’s the unconditional love, the first smiles, laughs and all the amazing moments we get to relive all over again. Plus, Chloe gets to be a big ‘sis.
Baby Deux will be making it’s debut in the world sometime around December 12th. Merry Christmas. I have a feeling it’s going to be a crazy holiday season this year. Suppose I should start my shopping early?
