Musings at the start of May (Weather, Twins, Sleep and Eating Too Much Sugar)

The start of April felt like resurfacing from underwater.  The twins were turning a corner in sleep, patter, and general enjoyablilyt. Life was getting easier. Suddenly we could do some things again.  We could cook dinners! The babies were sleeping better! I left the house with the big kids!

And then, it felt more like surfacing from underwater and realising you were still drifting out in the ocean.  We still have four small kids.  Everyone still needs a lot.  Naps are on a pattern but not a schedule.  Getting one baby to nap is hard, getting two babies to nap is... more than twice as hard.

Laundry was relentless.  Food prep had to be done during first nap or it didn't get done.  The house felt like pushing back a rising tide of clutter.  Finished projects brought me joy, but unfinished projects came on faster.  I went for a 8 runs this month and made it to two pilates classes and a few more sessions at home.

Mostly it rained and was surprisingly cold.

I made it outside for a walk on most days (thanks Elisabeth!).  There's even photographic proof of a very wet double baby buggy walk on her blog here.

However, things aren't all bad.  I have consistently been tracking my time, and I discovered that while my bedtime was creeping later (sometimes 10pm!) I was not really *doing* anything with that time.  Of course it's important to have downtime, and nothing time... but I should be able to remember something about what kept me awake between 9 and 10pm, if I'm staying up that late.  And then I should feel good about writing that thing down.  But looking at the log, there was always a blank half hour between 9 and 10.  

May goal: either go to bed at 9 or do something I can write down until 10.  "messing around on the internet" is not something I want to use my time doing, and it's not worth staying awake for. 

I have been very tired.  Although the babies sleep till 4ish (and then onwards till 7) I am still not getting a consistent amount of good sleep.  Last night I was up at 11 when Lilah was sick in her bed (though she was very jolly about it... weird?) and then Audrey was practicing singing at 3:30am (Andy patted her back to sleep) and then babies fed at 5am and I started my day just after.  

Babies are physically tiring, and two of them is twice as tiring.  Two times carrying semi-floppy 16lbs kids up and down stairs multiple times a day.  Bending over two cots to get them out.  Cleaning up two highchairs and two floor messes after food.  Lifting them both into their pram.  It's a lot.

Yesterday I decided to go to the post office with the twins and Lilah.  I went for a new method of carrying everyone - Nora in a carrier, Audrey in a single pram, Lilah walking.  I took a photo.  

Sometimes people make things look easy.  That is not me.  When I saw this photo I realised that while things are hard right now, at least I also make them LOOK hard.  

During this walk (which was 15 minutes) Lilah asked for a nature wee in someone's garden.  Of course I said no, and she yelled she needed a wee RIGHT NOW and IT WAS COMING OUT so we nipped into a local coffee shop to use the toilet.  Of course with a baby strapped to me and another in a pram I can't "nip" anywhere.  I saw someone sitting with two middle age kids (7? 9?) and parked Audrey next to her.  "This is Audrey, can you watch her while I take my daughter to the toilet?" I asked - before running after Lilah.  I helped Lilah in the toilet with Nora strapped to me.  I got her dressed again, collected the baby & pram, went to the post office, came home, and felt like I had run a marathon.

Later, Andy went for a walk back to the coffee shop and bought me a cookie, as a thank you to the shop for their toilet and a thank you to me for the adventure. In February Andy and I said we would get our diet under control and stop eating endless sugar - we thought we were exiting survival mode.  Maybe we were, but I still feel squarely in sugar dependancy mode.

On May 1st I turned on the heat in the morning because it was still 7c/42f outside.  Today, the sun is out for the first time in May.  It is supposed to get up to 62 degrees later this week (this is warm/good).  It's a cliche that British people talk about the weather all the time... but it's also true.  Because the weather starts to control how all British people feel.  Also, the Met Office has a great blog post about how rubbish this April has been (spoiler: it's the 6th wettest April since records began in 1836).  If you want to read dire reports from a small wet island, click here!

Do you live in a place with normal weather? Do you think about the weather all of the time or none of the time? Would you want to live in a place that rains all the time?

Edited To Add: The original post had the line "submerging from underwater" twice.  Sometimes writing like that remind me how far my brain is from 100% function yet.