I am typing this from my office, while a lovely babysitter watches the twins downstairs. She is here for 3 hours. Today is her first day.
In honour of her first day here, and because it's my first time having help, the twins have been on a reverse schedule chaos day today.
Audrey took her first nap early, Nora took her first nap late. They fed sometimes and didn't feed other times. I went for a walk where Audrey slept and Nora didn't... when I got home Nora slept and Audrey didn't.
Half an hour after the sitter arrived Nora started wailing, which she did for 20 minutes until I realised she was hungry.
Babies love a schedule. I don't know why I tried to "play it cool" with twins today and let Audrey start her morning nap earlier than Nora.
I am currently 83 minutes into my childcare. I have tidied my office. But the main question is - what to do with this time??
I am stuck with possibility.
I have wanted to write a blog for a while, so decided this was as good of an endeavour as any.
I'm avoiding downstairs so I can't work on dinner, although dinner should be fine anyways.
I could work on the piles of laundry... but I can also do these tomorrow or later tonight
I could do an exercise video but my exercise mojo has been so low recently. Babies sleep has been pretty bad and I've had to go back to prioritising sleep... which has meant no morning exercise. I'm in bed by 8pm and asleep by 8:30. usually up a few times (hopefully for a very short time) and then babies feed between 4am and 4:30am. Then I try to get some more sleep before kids are up at 6:30. 4am feels like too early to start my day right now, although if I can sleep through from 8:30 to 4am that is 7.5 hours of sleep which is arguably almost enough?
The other day I fell asleep at 8:30 and when I woke up it was just getting light and I thought "OMG I have slept through the night! YAY!" and then I looked at the clock and it was 9:45pm.
Anyways, this is just a phase. It feels like a very long phase.
It seems a waste to pay for help for babies when my accomplishment is basically the same as a normal day (food, laundry). But hopefully this day will feel better than a normal day? Also, being able to hand one baby off to the sitter while I feed and put down the other baby is pretty useful. So even if I'm not using this time in the traditional babysitting sense, maybe just having a day that is slightly easier than super hard is benefit enough.
This hits SO close to home. I struggled with this a lot in the past (and still do sometimes). What to do with the hours. When you're home and there is always work that can/should be done, it's hard to ever feel off. How do we carve our leisure time? How can we use the times of respite to actually feel refreshed. I often felt so panicked to spend the time well, I ended up squandering it! (This is easier as the kids get older; in fact, now my eldest can stay home and babysit her younger brother.) When I had a babysitter come each week for a few hours, I also found I was constantly interrupted because the kids would need to ask me something.
ReplyDeleteLovely to see you pop up in my blog reader today, and I hope you ended up having a nice energy and mental boost from the extra set of hands. Maybe you can view this little windows of time where the only goal is to not have to interact with anyone but yourself?!
That 9:45 pm wakeup. Ugh! The worst!! I've had this happen before and it is soooo disappointing (because then I don't tend to sleep well all night).
Wishing you restful naps, long stretches at night, and moments of deep refreshment <3
Thank you for your lovely comment as always! I realized when I was picking my son up from holiday club that with his holiday club and my daughters nursery today's child care bill was... big. Like a night of holiday big. But also it was such a hard day that I'm glad I had help. I don't feel ruined and sad. I feel a normal amount of tired. I also realized the twins have been with me ALL THE TIME and they are getting to seperation anxiety stage and they need to learn to be with other people. I hope the babysitter didn't find it too hard and I'll look forward to her coming back in two weeks.
DeleteI think just having someone her to help was a success... and I finished my photo albums for May. And it was nice to not be "on" or waiting for babies to wake up.
I'm off to bed now but crossing fingers we can get these babies back to a more reasonable 5am wake up soon....
Hooray for your new babysitter!!! You deserve help and sleep and free time. <3 ‐rachel
ReplyDeleteI love that you got help, and think that WHATEVER you use this time for, it is money well spent. Kids are exhausting, and you are in a VERY busy time of life right now.
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