Mama Thoughts

Get up 6:20.  Shower. Get dressed.  Out the door by 7am.  Drive to school.  Get to Key Club or student meeting.  Make protein shake.  Teach.  Walk out of school at 3:30.  At school by 4pm. Pick up kids.  Run home while they snack from one of 5 snacks stored in the car.  Run to store while they sit with nanny.  Make dinner.  Yan walks in at 6pm.  Eat.  Bath for Noah at 6:30, Lilah at 7:00.  Both kids asleep by 8.  Collapse on couch.  Watch one thing.  In bed by 9:30.  Rinse.  Repeat. I have to say that regardless of the routine and the repetition, this is pretty good.  The home stuff allows me to not get caught up in the work.  The work allows me to not get caught up in the kids and obsess over details.  I like it. The kids are particularly delicious. Lilah is figuring out the big sister thing.  She plays with Noah, she likes being his center.  He loves her and follows her around and repeats everything she says.  He's talking SO much.  He speaks Russian at home and daycare says

The first school year at this job where I'm not pregnant or nursing.  What an incredible difference.  I'm able to think clearly as I'm sleeping through the night.  I have won back an hour a day that I was normally pumping in a closet.  I am able to think coherent thoughts and keep to-do-lists in my head without losing them completely.  I feel like I can think about what to wear and actually execute.  I'm able to shower regularly.  I see the other teachers going through the same period of time and feel incredible empathy and sympathy for them, but am SO glad that I'm not there anymore.  Little man is adorable, has sprouted 8 teeth by now and is hilarious.  He does have a nasty biting habit.  There's a poor little girl in daycare and for whatever reason he is hell-bent on biting her.  Yesterday I got four accident reports.  They said there were even more attempts, but they couldn't keep up with the paperwork.  There's not much I can do for that little g

This is going to be a little lengthy, as I haven't written in a while.  The reason for my lack of writing is frankly my surplus of parenting.  :) The kids are home with me for the summer and the summer of 14 months and 3.5 years is proving to be a handful. Lilah is a legit person.  She speaks in crazy complex sentences and knows words in Russian that I don't know.  She was sitting and working on a Play-doh pony and making the mane.  I said that was some very pretty hair, and she said... "Мама, это не волосы, это грива."  Well dang. She and I have come to a rhythm.  We didn't jive super well at the beginning, she was getting used to me and the routine and I was getting used to her and her ways.  She brings me to my first observation of stay-at-home-parenting.  Leaving kids for hours every day is better for me, but it isn't really better for my parenting.  I feel like I'm a much better parent when there isn't that pull-and-adjust on the daily.  Just

Noah's walking. He walks like a cowboy wearing chaps and spurs.  He toddles back and forth with a huge grin on his face and has little to no fear. Lilah is getting less and less jealous and now we need to remind her to not love her brother quite so aggressively so that she doesn't take him down with her constant snuggling and kisses.  She's becoming shy in public.  It's usually endearing.  She's also stunning.  That child makes me catch my breath occasionally when she's thinking off quietly and her eyes stare off and her hair just cascades... oi.  She's a beauty.  And I'm almost sure it's not just because she's mine that I feel this way.  :) We're down to two feedings a day.  I'm really struggling here.  Tonight I was nursing Noah to sleep and after he finished eating I scooped him up and rocked him a little.  I'm really trying to get all that I can from each of these sessions just in case it is the last.  He was struggling to

I need to make a confession.  I had some serious anger my first time around motherhood.  Having a baby with colic didn't help.  Being an older first-time mom that was accustomed to her life being a certain way with a huge amount of personal freedom didn't help.  The fact that I'm just frankly a little spoiled didn't help.  I was bitter about nursing.  I was bitter about pumping.  I was bitter that I was the only one who could solve many many problems during that first year the first time around.  I was prepared for this bitterness during the second round of motherhood. I knew what I was getting myself into.  I steeled myself, was prepared to weather the storm and deal with all of the crap.  I knew I was going to be tired.  I knew I would have to make sacrifices.  And most of all I knew I was going to sit in that little cinder block closet at work for two 30-minute shifts every work day and mentally prepare myself for the piddly ounces I would output.  I knew my milk