Maybe I should start with a normal, er, empowering (?) evening at the Jones house. I pick Mia up from school around 5. She runs to see me, we gather her things, she says "bye" to her buds, and I carry her out. We get home around 5:20. When we get inside, she follows me around while I change clothes and put away/start laundry. By about 5:40 she's ready to eat. Now, Mia is in a phase where she is not super keen on anything foodwise (except Jello and goldfish), so often times it is a challenge to find something that will end up AT LEAST mostly in her mouth and not as much on the floor. This is a challenge I can handle....afterall, I have this "mommy" thing down. Being the saavy mommy that I am, I bought chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs, we even refer to it as "dinosaur chicken", and I always have mac n cheese (another go-to) on hand. If she is not interested immediately, I use my keen mom skills and act like I am going to eat her food.....most of the time the idea of sharing is offputting enough to make her eat whatever is on her plate without hesitation. I'm so clever. Post meal I wet two paper towels, one I give to her to "help" me clean her tray, the other I use to ACTUALLY clean her tray, face and hands. See?? Cle-ver. We normally head up stairs shortly after dinner for bath time. We go to her room, strip her down and she sits on the potty for about .6 seconds then announces with such pride "I DID IT!" This means nothing. There is a chance I made too much of her sitting on the potty at one point in time, and now the act of sitting is the accomplishment....she saves the tee-tee for the bathtub. Eh, you pick your battles right? Most of the time she loves bathtime so this part of my night consists of me sitting on the floor in her bathroom watching her put bubbles on her face, then wash them off. When she gets bored, we dry off and I douse her in acid, or at least thats what you't think I was doing based on her reaction to me putting her pj's on every night, then once the drama of getting dressed has passed (it's generally VERY short lived) we grab paci (we'll cross that bridge another day) and head downstairs for one episode of either Mickey Mouse, Bubble Guppies or Sophia the First (which we refer to as Fia). During the show, she cuddles up next to me and settles down for the night. 30 minutes later, we head upstairs, read 2 books, rock for a minute then she goes to bed.
NOW, that is NOT AT ALL indicative of what happened the other night......from the moment we walked through the door of our house, all she did was whine, cry, and throw fits. She didn't want to come with me to change, then when she finally caved and came, she didn't want to leave the closet. She wanted me to pick her up while I peed, and was unhappy that I waited until I finished (how selfish am I?!) She didn't want to eat dinner. When she finally told me she wanted rice, she didn't want to sit in her high chair. I took her to our dining room table, she didn't want to sit in the chair. She DID, however, want to stand in it (which is not allowed), so after attempting to fight that battle, she didn't like the fork she had, she wanted a big spoon, but NOT the big spoon I gave her, so of course that was thrown across the room. I was finally able to get her into her high chair, and convince her to eat some yogurt.......at this point, that was a win. I had 3 minutes of no whining. UNTIL I had to wash her hands and face. Lord help, you would have thought I was torturing her. We FINALLY made it upstairs and she didn't want to get undressed (at this point I had convinced myself that if I could make it through bathtime and getting her dressed, then 1 glass of wine wouldn't hurt anything.....luckily my better sense took over later and I did NOT drink anything.....it also helped that we didn't have wine at the house ;-)). She fought me all the way through what has to be the shortest bath in the history of baths, then we struggled through getting dressed. I think by that point, we were both over it. I realize she is 2.....and I realized she was tired. I was tired too. Sometimes I forget I'm ridiculous pregnant, so on top of battling this toddler for the last hour and a half, I was forming brain cells in my uterus, and creating finger prints and hair follicles.....and clearly that is a lot more exhausting than I remembered it being. We made it downstairs, her eyes were puffy and she had that funny hiccup-y breathing going on from crying for so long. My hair was a mess, I was covered in bathwater and I looked like I had just been attacked (mostly because I had). It was not a good night.
There were many times that night that I knew I was not cutting the mustard at this whole "mommy gig". I was failing on every front. I couldn't manage to tame a 2 year old, how the heck was I going to possibly survive with 2?! But then, something happened.......we both sat on the couch, and she curled up next to me and put her little head on my tummy, and she was calm. And so was I. She went to sleep pretty easy that night. I think it was her way of calling a truce.
I think it's fair to say that I most definitely do NOT have this mommy thing down, BUT we make manage to make it through the day. My kid is clean and fed, she knows her routine and at the end of the day, she snuggles up to me, and I know that at least I'm not completely failing. I have no idea what it's going to be like in 10 weeks when Bella gets here. I know it will not likely not resemble either of these two scenarios as they only involve Mia and I.....what I need to remember is that at the end of the day, God has entrusted me with these two little girls and I think in some kind of way, they know that, and will love me despite all of my shortcomings.
I'm not scared about 10 weeks from now. I'm no where near ready to be a mother of 2, and I certainly don't have "it" figured out. But I'm willing to do my best and I pray that at the end of the day, be it a good or a bad day, my babies can snuggle up with me and we can find our "calm".
10 weeks? Bring it.
Well I guess that's about it for now. I have my next doctors appointment at 32 weeks. So far the bi-weekly appointments have resulted in my doctor telling me that Bella has a strong heart beat and I am measuring "right on" with my due date. I guess that's all I can ask :)
Here's some catch up pictures until next time:
