November 3, 2024

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

Are sunday's coming faster?  I think they might be!

This week was halloween and the twins first birthday.  I had 2.5 days off paid work and 2.5 more days than usual watching kids.  I've been thinking a lot about the work-life concept that people keep mentioning to me as I start back at work.  

My time log this week shows over 45 hours of active childcare along with my two days of nanny cover.  When people talk about missing their kids when in work (or when people say, as they have, "I don't know why you would have kids if you plan to work all the time and just put them in childcare") I start to wonder - how much time should I spend with my kids?  How much active parenting is the "right" amount according to the anti-daycare club?  

My kids are up at 6:30am and sleep at 7:30pm.  If I work from 9-5 I will have a minimum of 30 waking hours a week with my kids - basically the same as a job - plus another 30 hours on the weekend.  Is the argument that 60 hours a week is too little time for active parenting and I should be doing 97.5 hour a week, and the real benefit to the kids is between the 60 I spend and the 97.5 I could spend if I wasn't in work?  

I digress.  This is sunday update!

Reading

Slowly reading The Ministry of Time.  I'm 25% through and it seems to be *almost* catching my attention.  It's an interesting plot - I hope it goes somewhere soon.

It's also National Blog Posting Month! Which is far beyond my writing or reading capabilities at the moment.  IF you want some great reading, check out San's blog for the complete list.  There will be lots of great blog reading this month!

Sports

When I was looking at buying a Peloton I did a lot of research on whether I could have it in an attic room and what the noise levels would be.  One reddit commenter said "It will be noisy for the first week, but after three months you won't hear it at all".  Jokes.  It's not very noisy at all (fyi!) but I am LOVING it so far.  It is week 1 though.

  • Monday: 
    • 30 Minute Halloween Ride
  • Tuesday: 
    • 45 Minute Your Day One Ride
  • Thursday: 
    • 30 Minute Halloween Ride with Ally Love
    • 10 Minute Core with Callie Gullickson
  • Friday:
    • 30 Minute Pop Ride with Ally Love
    • 30 Minute Core with Robin Arzon
  • Saturday: 
    • 30 Minute 1989 Taylors Version Ride with Ally Love
    • 30 Minute Full Body Strength with Selena Samuela
  • Sunday: 
    • 30 Minutes Sundays with Love Ride
Sleep
7.25 average.  I would really really like to be a person who wakes up at 4:15 in the morning.  At 4am I can have an almost guaranteed 2 hours before kids wake up.  But to do this I would need to be in bed by 8pm.  I can do this... except when I have dinner things.  Or evening things.  I don't really think it's possible to bounce between early and later nights.  I probably just need to be a 9pm to bed person, and a 4:30 to 5:00 wake up person.  5:00 is fine for wake up, but 2 hours of me time in the morning just sounds luxurious (and more luxurious than sleeping until 6, which probably shows how much I covet "me time" right now)

November 1, 2024

Halloween recap 2024: One year old twins are far less spooky than newborn ones.

Halloween 2023.  Waiting to take these two tiny things home.  
They were born on the 30th at 8pm and I was promised I only had to stay in hospital for 24 hours.  [This is not because I am some awesome person who wants babies at home, this is because I was on a 6 person ward with 7 babies.  And the food was terrible.]

We got home by 9pm, to a post halloween street and a post-halloween house.

Then, I didn't sleep for 6-8 months [slight overstatement]

Onwards.... and upwards?  Halloween 2024:

Nora

Audrey
So much orange.

It's half term in the UK, so the kids are off school and I decided to take a few days off 9-5 holiday paid work.  We went to a friend's house for halloween activities in between the babies morning and afternoon naps.  Another friend came by for a kid play date during afternoon nap.  The kids drew spooky pictures.

Our neighbor invited us for a drinks and nibbles party from 4pm.  We showed up at 4:45 and were the first people there, then we left at 5:10 because we have so many kids, and no one else had come yet either.  In a former world I would have felt awkward about this. However, they have kids too (although older than ours).  Someone has to be the first person to a party.  And also, we have so many small kids and of course we were going to be early.  I've decided we do people a favour by being the first, and also by leaving early, we are the official party starters AND we get out of the way quickly so the actual party can start.  Andy calls our presence "tranquility as a service" because when we leave a space the tranquility of not having four small kids around is highly noticeable.

Halloween is not a super big deal over here, and trick or treating is relatively new as well.  We have a very decorated halloween house so we did get a lot of trick or treaters. We have out oranges colored like pumpkins, and no one threw them at our house which was nice.

The kids came home for a quick dinner (sausage mac and cheese) and then we met up with a family of 3 kids (ages 10/7/5, to match with our 6/4/1/1) and all went out trick or treating together.  
It was Isaac and Lilah's first time trick or treating and they had an absolute blast.  We only knocked on doors of very decorated houses, and the kids got a manageable amount of candy.  Still more than any human should eat, so I am wondering whether we try and buy it off them for lego or a craft book.
Lilah's candy haul

We were all back by 6:45, babies asleep by 7, kids asleep by 7:15, me asleep by 8:15 with 8 solid hours of sleep.

I enjoyed this halloween a lot more than last year.

Did you have a good halloween?  Do you like halloween?  What's your favourite halloween candy?  Mine is a Reeses Peanut Cup Pumpkins, or anything Reeses Peanut Butter Cup.  I have zero interest in sugar sweets.

October 27, 2024

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep

Happy Sunday! Today was one of my most favourite days of the year - PUMPKIN CARVING PARTY DAY!  Last year we did not have a pumpkin carving party due to the imminent arrival of twins (I was meant to be induced on the 27th of October, but the babies didn't come until the 30th).  Even though our life is pretty crazy right now we decided "how bad can it be?" and invited 20-ish families over to carve pumpkins.  10 came, and at most there were 17 kids running around.   Thankfully it didn't rain.
Carving set up (so glad it didn't rain!)
My favourite part of pumpkin carving party is, of course, snacks.  This year we made breadstick wands & sausage mummies and a spooky spider pizza (pizza with olives cut up to look like spiders).  People brought over cakes and sweets and we set up a tea and coffee table as well.  Top tip for parties - put all your furniture on the side of the room or in another room.  Not having furniture makes rooms look much bigger (I forgot to get a photo though)
Reading
I finished The Stand in by Lily Chu.  It was very cute! I am still slowly reading The Plan which is filled with smart pieces that I'll probably forget.  One of the sections I just read is on making things smaller - so instead of worrying about ALL THE THINGS you can worry about (or perhaps plan/solve) one small thing.  On Friday I was worried about how was I ever going to survive a whole day of watching twins and a four year old, but then I realized I didn't have to survive a whole day - I just had to survive until 1pm when L would go to nursery.  And I did survive! 

I finally got to the front of the Libby queue for The Ministry of Time which is my next read.
Sports
Monday: 
    30 Minute Full Body Strength (Peloton, Rebecca Kennedy)
Tuesday: 
    Climbing at Climbing gym with tuesday sports buddy
Thursday: 
    Gym with Gym buddy (arms)
Saturday: 
    15 Minute Run (Peloton, Kirsten Ferguson)
    10 Minute Postnatal Core Phase 3 (Peloton, Robin Arzon)
    15 Minutes of Peloton Midnights Ride (Peloton, Ally Love)
Sunday:
    30 Minute Peloton Midnights Ride (Peloton, Ally Love)
    20 Minute Low Impact Ride (Peloton, Robin Arzon)
    10 Minute Barre (Peloton, Hannah Corbin)

I bought a Peloton!  It is second hand, it's very shiny, it fits perfectly in my office (photos soon!) and I am very excited.  I spent so much time googling whether on not a Peloton could get up loft stairs and found various answers - a youtube video of a slightly overweight middle aged man lugging up stairs inspired me to just try.  It was unclear whether peloton could be disassembled.  Fun fact, it can:
I'll write a better post about this someday, but in case you are curious it is very easy to disassemble a Peloton and carry it up two flights of narrow stairs and into an attic.  
    Step 1: Marry an engineer who is also a bike mechanic.
    Step 2: Convince* said partner to disassemble Peloton and reassemble in attic room.
        (*or bribe with beer)

Sleep
Currently averaging 7.2 hours of sleep.  I have had a few late night nights this week, including working on Wednesday evening, and of course Peloton assembly night (it was hard work drinking two beers while Andy built the Peloton).  Also it was the time change this week, and for whatever reason both Audrey and Isaac woke up EARLIER than normal today. I am hopeful (as always) for more sleep next week.

Food Plan
Mon: Pea burgers & Sweet Potato Fries (A)
Tue: Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup (R)
Wed: Falafel & Hummus & Salad (R)
Thur: Mac & Cheese (A)
Fri: Fish Pie (A)

October is almost over! I really do intend to blog more soon.  Life is busy.  But it is also fun.  I am super thankful for having such an awesome group of friends to hang out with.  Seeing people is great.  Happy pumpkining!


October 26, 2024

Saturday Random: Breakfasts and Groceries

Breakfast

We stopped eating cereal a few months ago. We used to have Shreddies, bran flakes, or Weetabix.  While these all seem like fine cereals, bran flakes are 15% sugar.  Shreddies are 13% sugar.  Weetabix are 4% sugar, but they are also gross (my opinion) and messy.  

I don't even know if Weetabix is a thing in the US.  It looks like this:


When you add milk it turns into a sort of paste, like an ultra processed porridge with not flavour at all.

Anyways, I digress.  We still need breakfast.  Our current rotation is as follows:

  • Crumpets (with peanut butter and/or cream cheese) (The kids like peanut butter & cream cheese and that seems so gross to me)
  • Toast (with peanut butter and/or jam.  Or Avocado)
  • Eggs (with toast or crumpets or wrapped in tortilla)
  • Porridge 
  • Baked Oatmeal (this is great!)
  • French Toast Casserole (chunks of bread soaked overnight in egg and milk mixture then baked in the oven.  Probably the same as bread pudding)
  • Waffles
    • Andy usually makes normal waffles but I am excited for pumpkin waffles!
  • Pancakes (This recipe is my current fav)
Most of these aren't too much harder than cereal, but whenever I make pancakes I have to prep (ie measure) all the ingredients the night before.  No way am I competent enough to combine both baking soda and baking powder and salt in a morning.  Also, buttermilk recipes call for room temperature buttermilk, which I cannot magically do at 6am.  

It takes me less than 10 minutes to put this pancake prep together, but it means we can actually eat pancakes in the morning:

(That background pumpkin is not long for this world)

We also always have apple or banana or pear with our breakfast.  Sometimes melon, if I'm feeling fancy, and if I've chopped it the night before.

Grocery Delivery

We are figuring our the best day and time for grocery delivery.  We were doing our meal planning on Friday night with a delivery saturday morning, but this had the logistical challenge of needing to get the order in by 9pm.  We also needed to be home to collect, and I am not paying £2 more for a 1 hour delivery but it meant the groceries showed up sometime between 8am and 12, which could be fine or could be chaos.  

This week we tried a friday delivery, again between 8 and 12.  Unfortunately the timing was pretty much the worst - both babies woke up at 10, the delivery came at 10:20, and as he arrived I was halfway downstairs with two babies (we are still working on stairs) when lilah came to the bottom of the stairs holding a beeded necklace (ie massive baby choking hazard) which she proceeded to break and drop all over the bottom of the stairs.  Then she started crying, which caused nora to start crying, and I could neither get down the stairs (because the two babies) or up the stairs (because the two babies).  Thankfully Andy was not in a meeting so he came and helped unpack the groceries.  


This week is half term (week off school).  While the kids only have two days of school lunches a week, I definitely feel we need more food in the house during half term.  More snacks? 

What are your go-to breakfasts? Are you a breakfast person? Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day.  I would love to eat/make hash browns and home fries more if the kids ate them.  I used to make Shakshuka sometimes but I know the kids will give it "a million thumbs down" so it's not worth the effort now either. 

October 20, 2024

Sunday Update: Reading, Sports, Sleep, meal plan.

Our nanny was on holiday this week which meant I took annual leave from work to do what our nanny does for a job.  It actually was nice to spend a few days with the twins - on Wednesday we went to baby sign language and on Thursday we went to a friend's house for a play date.  I do have a bit of the Sunday Scaries at the moment as I have a very busy week in work next week - my handover/mat leave return period is over and it's time for me to do the running I intended to hit the ground with (weird sentence structure but it's staying).

While I enjoyed my twin days, I was honestly pretty burnt out on parenting by the weekend (I'm allowed to say this right?) and was definitely not on my best parental behaviour this weekend.  TGIS - Thank God It's Sunday - and I can get some me time (ie work) next week.  

We still packed a lot into the weekend - on Saturday I did a 5k run, we did a split parent and 1 kid 1 baby trip to the park (1 baby and 1 6 year old is so easy!), and I got my hair dyed.  On Sunday I took the kids to a Sukkot party at the Synagogue, then took Isaac to a scouts meetup, and managed to make a chicken and mushroom pie and chips for dinner.  Basically the weekend was busy, we did a lot, and I was mostly grumpy.

How cute is this weekend morning reading?

Reading

I am slowly reading The Stand In by Lily Chu.  It's cute.

I am sort of giving up on You Only Die Once because I am not in a headspace for a person with no kids to tell me how to be awesome or how to avoid wasting my life.  Watching four kids this young feels like both a total waste of my own intellect/goals/ambitions and fundamentally important to my own intellect/goals/ambitions and I just can't connect with her premise right now.  However I think it's a good book and I bet I'll enjoy reading it in a few years.

Kendra's book "The Plan" is just as lovely as her podcast, but much like Cal Newport's work I feel like I have listened to the buildup so much that I don't really need to read the book now (which was the same for Slow Productivity).  I am, however, really enjoying her pep talks.

Sports
It was a great week for sports! I managed to get exercise back into my life while on my baby-watching days.  I am also sort of obsessed with getting a Peloton.  The main hindrance at this time is whether we can get a Peloton up two flights of stairs, including skinny loft stairs with a switch back.  There's even someone 3 streets over who I sort of know who is selling a Peloton.  

Monday: 20 Minute Full Body Strength, 10 Minute Postnatal Core, 10 Minute Focus Flow: Back, 10 Minute relaxation (all Peloton)

Wednesday: 15 minute Hip Hop Barre, 10 minute postnatal core, 10 minute full body stretch (all Peloton)

Thursday: 30 minute run/walk.  20 minutes Arms and Shoulders with Callie (my first live class), 5 minute upper body stretch, 5 minutes post run stretch. (all Peloton)


Friday: Gym with gym buddy! Legs.  Fun. Hard.

Saturday: Parkrun 5k (also another 1.5 miles there and back). 10 minute full body stretch (Peloton)

The 5k is somewhere in the middle here.

Sleep
This section probably isn't very interesting anymore, but I've been averaging 7.42 hours of sleep this week.  Twice I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't fall back asleep, which is extra annoying considering how much exercise I've been doing.   The babies are waking up between 5:30 and 6:30am which is causing middling anxiety about whether that means they will be waking up between 4:30 and 5:30am after the clocks go back next week.  I hate hate HATE clock changes.  Also, they are sometimes waking up grumpy and I think getting new teeth and/or learning new skills and/or just being babies which is a whole thing.  I feel very tired, more tired than perhaps 7.42 hours of sleep should indicate.

Food
Monday: Slow Cooker Veggie Spag Bol.
Tuesday: Scrambled Egg Wraps
Wednesday: Nanny makes dinner
Thursday: Slow Cooker Black Bean Soup (& tomato soup for the kids)
Friday: Pizza (maybe.  Or maybe leftovers.  I failed to make Jacket Potatoes last friday because it was too ambitious for a friday so Pizza may be way too ambitious)

Do you like it when the clock changes? Do you get an extra hour of sleep on this one?  Or do you spend a week feeling confused or have small children that negate any joy in time changes?

October 16, 2024

On Relatability, Twins, Planning and Doing Stuff

Today I went to a baby class with the twins.

In case you are curious, this is the first baby class I have attended with them.  I have been to three play groups with them, and I have taken them to soft play twice.  

For comparison, Isaac had two baby classes a week.  

The babies loved the class.  I was the only parent of twins there.  At the end of the class one of the mums asked me how the twins sleep.

"great" I said.  "because they have to"

Sleep is the number one twin question I get.  A colleague recently told me that he is so exhausted because his 18 month old and 3 year old get up multiple times a night each, and that they both need parents in their room to fall asleep.

I would be exhausted too.

I think, often, when people ask me "how do you do it" they are extrapolating from their situation.  "how do you get up 3 times a night for twins?" is a legit question. The answer is that I don't get up three times a night for twins.

Today a mom asked me how I got them to sleep well and I said "because I had so many kids, I couldn't always always attend to the twins, and sometimes there was crying, and sometimes there was longer crying than I would have liked, and now everyone sleeps really well.  I know that sort of sleep training went out of fashion in the early 2000's but without sleep I wouldn't be able to function"

Anyways, the conversation didn't go on much from there. Because how could it.

I started thinking that one thing which bothers me sometimes is that my current life is so unrelatable.  I have so many small children.  I have a decently big job, and I'm trying to move up quite quickly at the time when most people I know are taking it easy.  I am trying to keep my fitness up and enjoy my job and enjoy my kids.

We self catered a birthday party for 26 four year olds when the twins were 9 months old.

We went to the pumpkin patch with 4 kids.

We cook all our meals at home.

We recently redecorated and moved 4 of the 5 bedrooms in our house around.

We have a 5 bedroom house

Everything on this list isn't rocket science.  I am not a rocket scientist.  But I am also more and more aware that this is not how many people live, and especially not in my suburban enclave of South Wales.  I've found a small community of awesome blogging and podcasting people doing awesome blogging things which make me feel like it's OK to continue trying to be awesome.  But the more I do, the more I realize how disjointed I am from the local people I spend time with on a daily basis.

And also, my goal is not to make other people feel bad about their lives.  Having kids is hard! Having two kids is hard! Having a job is hard! Having a less flexible job than mine is hard! Trying to do sport is hard.  Working from home is hard.  Working in an office is hard.

And then there are things we don't do.  We live by our routines.  We don't stay out late. We don't go out in the evenings.  We don't do kids activities in the evenings.  We don't travel.

Even these decisions can be unrelatable.  Everyone in the UK travels.  This is a tiny rainy island and people were not meant to stay here 365 days of the year.  There's no reason we would have 5 weeks of holiday if it wasn't intended for us to leave this small rainy island.

I don't really have a great answer to this.  My life is ridiculous now.  The amount of planning it takes to function well is... a lot.  I also don't think there's an option for us to do less or take it easier.  We can either plan every meal... or we can not eat? There isn't any moderate parenting with so many young kids.  There is only 100% attention, 100% of the time.  I can see why even people with four kids often don't have them in five years.  

I don't have some grand point to end this, except that I guess it's okay to not be relatable, and I probably shouldn't worry about it.  And maybe I should try and figure out a better way to answer people when I'm asked about baby sleep habits.

October 13, 2024

Sunday Update: That Was a Weekend (also Reading, Sports, Sleep & Meal Plan)

Today we went to the pumpkin patch: 
I am so happy to not be so pregnant like I was last year:
Immediately on entering the pumpkin patch the kids started crying and fighting over a wheelbarrow.  Both kids were tired.  I didn't want to buy pumpkins here (they are so expensive!) so we said each kid could pick out the best small pumpkin (£2 each).  Even that was tricky.  There were meltdowns and chaos.  I wondered if it was even worth it.

But then this evening I already forgot the meltdowns and remember this:

Perfect Pumpkin Hunting
Pumpkin Catapult.  £2 for 3 pumpkins

We made it to the corn maze for the first time ever!

This weekend was mostly about Isaac's turning SIX:

On Saturday morning (Isaac's birthday!) both kids had swim lessons.  When they got home our friends came over for tea and cupcakes and a short play date.  They left at 12 as more friends came over for lunch, and then those friends and other friends went to the climbing wall with Isaac for a birthday climbing adventure.

I stayed at home with babies and a friend who also had a baby.  When climbing was over some other friends came back to our house for more tea, and eventually Isaac had one friend who stayed for a sleepover while Lilah went over to Grandma's.  Luckily the parent of the friend that stayed for a sleepover is a great friend of our as well, so we hung out until late in the evening chatting.  The boys even stayed up until 8:30pm.  Unfortunately on Sunday they woke up at 5am... which means we woke up at 5am... which means we are tired.

But there is no time for tired on an adventure weekend!  At 10am we said goodbye to friends and drove to the pumpkin patch.  Fun fact, pumpkin patch pricing is £9 per car.  This is a bargain when we bring 7 people.  We did a quick circuit and were home by 1pm.  Everyone was tired so we did film Sunday and watched Tangled.  
In the mid afternoon the other grandparents came over for more tea and cake (are you sensing a theme??) and then when they went home it was dinner and bed.  And now blog.  And soon adult bed (not in a *wink wink* way.  In a OMG that was exhausting way).

Reading
I finished Ghosts by Dolly Alderton.  Now I'm reading The Plan by Kendra Adachi and You Only Die Once which I am reading super slowly.  I also have a kindle copy of The Stand In by Lily Chu which I haven't started.  I'm trying to get a little more high brow than women fiction... but also I like women's fiction.

Sports
Sports are getting better.
Monday: 35 minutes swimming (swimming is awesome and I slept so well after)
Tuesday: Gym with gym buddy
Wednesday: 15 Minute Peloton Yoga

I haven't yet figured out how to incorporate exercise into my kid days (Fri/Sat/Sun) but I am sure it will come.  Next week I might try to do a gym session during the kids saturday swim lessons, which would give me 25 minutes of exercise on a Saturday.

Also, I signed up for the Cardiff half Marathon next year.  It sold out in 24 hours.  It's in October. I am excited.

Sleep
I slept through the night every night last week, so even with my 6 hour Saturday sleep my average is still 7.42 hours.  Yay.  I know that literally every aspect of my life only functions because I get sleep.

Meal Plan:
Monday: Risotto
Tuesday: Salmon Burgers / Fish Fingers & rice & veg
Wednesday: Chicken Gyros (the ones I meant to make last week but didn't)
Thursday: Toad in the hole (sausages in yorkshire pudding)
Friday: Jacket Potatoes & Tuna or beans or freezer chili.
Saturday: Chicken Pot Pie (the one I meant to make last week bu didn't
Sunday: Slow Cooker lentil spag bol.

How was your weekend?  Have you eaten anything pumpkin-y yet this year?  I made a sweet potato and bean stew last week.  It was very autumnal.