The first week down

First, a few pics of Teia. We've taken so few :-( but here are some recent ones.

It's Friday evening so I have officially survived my first week of parenting two children on my own. It was kind of a cheater week b/c Greg kindly went in late on Monday morning to help me get Kai to daycare on time (something I was fretting about), and Wednesday was Veteran's Day so Greg was home all day. That means I got 2 bike rides in this week (yeah!) and really only had to manage 3.5 days on my own.

Everyone I know who has 2+ children has told me that it is hard, really hard. They weren't kidding. You kind of have to take the attitude that you take in a hard, long endurance event when you just put your head down and do it. The most stressful thing about it currently is when both kiddos need you RIGHT NOW. Seeing as nursing Teia can take up to an hour, Kai has to do alot of waiting around. It's also hard to plan how to get both of the kiddos out of the door on time when you a) don't know what time Teia will wake up, and b) you don't know how long she'll nurse for. I hear this part will get better. I hope so.

Teia has done her best to make this a bit easier for me. I couldn't really ask for her to be more chill. The only real challenge so far is that she really, really prefers to be stuck to me pretty much all day, rather than hanging out on her play mat or in her chair or in any of those baby places that are supposed to give parents a break. She has earned herself a Hawaiian nickname - Opihi - which is a limpet. They are those little sea creatures with pointy shells that stick to rocks or whatever they find themselves upon. Teia is my opihi.

I've had good moments and not so good moments this week. The good moments mostly come when one kiddo is asleep and I feel like I'm doing a good job with the one I'm with. The not so good moments come when I have just lulled Teia to sleep in my arms and Kai starts to scream, loudly, in frustration about something, and wakes her up. Then I am trying to calm two children with one free arm. Not easy. But Kai is slowly getting used to his sister and it is cute to watch as he slowly makes room for her in his life. He has counted her toes and fingers and today he even touched her! During lunch today, Kai and I were eating and Teia was sleeping upstairs so we had the baby monitor on the table. She let out a squeak and Kai looked at me and said "sounds like Teia!" I had to laugh. I do really look forward to some time in the future when they are best buds .... (I can hope right!?)