Survival Mode

With two babies under eighteen months, one acquires tailor-made resources to get through the minutes, the hours, and the days of taking care of two little babes.

The following are but a few of the resources that have made my life livable.

Jericho

There's too much to list for why Jericho is essential to my survival. I shall be brief. One morning Jericho left super early to travel out of town for the week. I came downstairs hours after he left, groggy and grumpy and grumbling. I discovered that before he left, he'd unloaded the clean dishwasher. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I actually teared up.

Grandparents

As with Jericho, wayyyy too much to list in a blog post of the never ending service the GPs render. They babysit so Jericho and I can have nights out with friends or even just a quick bite across the street before making the one-hour drive back home. The GPs Smith asked if they could come over for dinner one Sunday. I told them I didn't have much to supply us all for dinner. They brought it all from their house. I decided to take a nap before they got here and I woke to my mother telling me dinner was ready. They'd come over, made dinner and helped take care of the babies. Why did I ever move out of their house?

Friends

I have visiting teachers/friends/neighbors that comes to my need at the drop of the hat. They steal my babies from me at church. No arguments here. I have this one friend that had a baby about the same time as me. We share many things. We have adorably crazy little babies. We have the same post-pregnancy physical ailments. We run into each other at Wal-Mart at the same odd hours at night in our sweats. We both cry for legitimate and humorously illegitimate reasons. We don't fold clean laundry. And we both hold very dear the remedial powers of a greasy cheeseburger.

McDonalds

[Speaking of greasy cheeseburgers]

I received two words from a cashier at McDonalds I never knew I'd hear and never knew would make me so sad. Two words that made me want to exclaimed, "That don't mean you know me!!!". She said to me, "Back again?" Two simple words that made me want to cry. In my defense, my McD's runs are not that frequent. I didn't recognize her so I'm making myself feel better by thinking this cashier just happened to be there both times I went within those couple of weeks. Or maybe it was within one week. It's all a big Diet Coke blur.

Does this gross you out to hear that I frequent McDonalds? Why do I even go to McDonald's? I shall explain. I generally have the attitude discussed by Jim Gaffigan. It represents all that is wrong with the stereotypical fat American. In my world, I go for survival. I go because it's practically in my backyard. I go on a morning when sleep was fleeting the night before and the babies are on the same fussy/noisy/need-to-go-to-sleep schedule. I call them our Family Drives. We listen to Harry Potter. I get an impressively large Diet Coke. Sometimes a biscuit, depending on the hour. Sometimes two cookies [for a dollar], depending on the level of emotional turmoil. And then I drive through my wonderful little town until the Diet Coke is gone. Everyone always chills out. The babies always go to sleep. I get to see their sweet faces while they sleep and while I listen to a book and wind down from some of my stress.

That is why I go to McDonald's. If there was such a thing as a drive-through Panera, I'd go there. But until they make one in my town, I'm sticking with the McDonald's. Judge as you wish.

It's called survival mode. It's something I heard other moms talk about but never truly understood until I was in it. I have a feeling mine might last a while. Now if only I could figure out how to incorporate the gym as a survival mode resource.

Four Months Ago

Four months ago, we had another baby. We had a teeny little spitty beautiful baby boy.

Now we have a four-month-old, still beautiful, still spitty, bigger baby boy.

Every time we hit a month milestone I think, "Wow, another month, and I've still never done a monthly update on my blog." Not that my readers are sitting on edge wondering how much Holden now weighs. I do intend on publishing this stuff one day for my own records and I need to record this stuff so that he doesn't feel less loved than his sister, who has a diligent monthly update for the first year of her life. Man those firstborns can really kill it for the follow-up siblings.

I thought that Holden was big for his age. He seems to be growing out of his clothes faster than Sydney did and he's bigger than my friend's baby who is two weeks older. But according to his stats, he's 25% for height and weight and 75% for his head. Those measurements should indicate that Holden resembles an orange on a toothpick but as you can see, he's a studly little man with no likeness to oranges or toothpicks.

He's made four months worth of physical progress but my most significant status for him is that I love him to pieces. Some days, I wake up and look at him and think, "I don't know how he did it, but he's cuter today than he was yesterday." He's warm and cuddly and lets me hold him and rock him to sleep. He lets me kiss his cheeks a thousand times a day and smell his sweet little angel baby smell. He's completely mellow. Although his mellowness is probably accentuated due to the contrast to his completely nutty toddler sister. Aside from the fact that he spits like a llama, he's perfect. Even the pediatrician told me so and you know she only ever tells that to me.

Holden is so lovely and sweet and makes me so happy that I look at him and think, "I can't wait to have another one so I can be this happy times three." [Don't worry. We're still on pregnancy hiatus.]

My favorite thing about him is that he loves to smile and giggle. You hardly need to look at him and he bursts into the biggest little baby grin. Look at that face. Seriously. If you need a pick me up, come on over and give Holden some snuggles and he'll smile and bury his little face in your neck.

He's pretty much awesome. 

Resolutions? ME??

With the new year comes new goals. At least that's the premise. We probably aren't making new goals but revamping our drive to accomplish the same goals from last year. That's what I do anyway. Maybe there are some people out there that they make 20 goals every year and accomplish them with dramatic flourish. I am not one of those people.

For example, I failed my goal last year of not being pregnant. I will remake that same goal this year. If I only accomplish one thing this year it will be:

1) Not be pregnant.

Seven days in. So far so good.

I have previously written on the subject of goals and resolutions. Go read those if you want. I'll wait.

My mindset from those posts has not drastically changed since writing them. I hate making new year's resolutions. They seem weak and like I'm only making them because that's what everyone else does this time of year. Plus I'm sure there is some statistic out there that says that like 86% of resolutions fail. Actually, I just looked. It's 78%. With that kind of failure rate, what's the point? Then I'll have all these resolutions mocking me yet again.

But I still make them. I can't help it. I get this motivation to start anew. It's the only time in my life that a true transition period is obviously marked. I have no school or job to break up the space time contiuum of a stay at home mom. Heck, half the time, I don't even know the date or day of the week. This year in particular I feel especially defeated. I had two babies back to back and my ability to maintain control in this world of infantile chaos lies in question almost daily.

This year will be my year. I hereby proclaim this year the year of Kelley!!

Here we go. I will make my goals in the secret public journal of my blog. [In no respective order of importance, except for the aforementioned #1.]

2) Take more pictures of baby #2 [in my defense, I mainly took more pictures of baby #1 because daddy was overseas]
3) Blog more. Lots more. All the time. Get those creative synapses firing. Churn out the cathartic prose.
4) Be healthier.
5) Be happier.
6) Be spiritualier.
7) Use my beautiful new sewing machine that Santa Jericho brought this year.
8) By this time next year, have Sydney potty trained. [Gack!!!]
9) Implement and follow a structured family budget.
10) Play sports. [I miss them so much. My heart aches to run up and down a basketball court. But must get going on #4 first because my ab muscles can no longer support my core in the act of running.]
11) Read lots and lots.

There we have it. I will put them in written form around my house to stare me in the face. Glaring their critical eye. Daring me to abandon them. I wish you tenacity with all of our goals, if you make them. Perhaps you're an inherently better person than me and don't need change. If not, cheers. Let's make the most of this year! Feel free to join me in any of our shared pursuits.