Hello June!

Hey! It's June!  It's a week into June!

June is starting out... tired.  Nora now has two teeth, Audrey has one tooth.  Audrey is learning how to roll over.  Nora is still sicking on everything in the house, but is very happy about it.  Audrey wakes up at 4am every day for a feed.  Nora sleeps through the night.  Both babies love food, but I don't love the current state of their digestion. I don't sleep through the night and I spend a lot of time cleaning up baby mess [Also, people with kids talk about their kids a lot, but I have now realised that this is just a proxy for talking about ones self.  Because while all of the above is about the twins, it's mostly about why I am so very tired and why my house is arguably somewhat gross.]

Looking forward to in June:

Summer reading.  The great news about having such terrible sleep is that I am reading a lot.  I've already finished two books this month and am 25% of the way through a third.  I'm leaning into summer books now and have picked up 5 Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand.  I read Hotel Nantucket and enjoyed it but didn't immediately grab the next book... but if this isn't some light summer reading then I don't know what is.

Spending time outside.  We have a great garden for the summer.  Last weekend we had our first paddling-pool party, an impromptu gathering of 3 of our friends and their kids (our friends all. brought 1 or 2 kids, so by the end we had 4 families and 8 children in total... which is a much better ratio than 1 family and 4 children total).  I recently got some mats for the babies to hang out on the patio, and a "outdoor rug" because the kids wanted something to sit on as well.  I'm hoping June brings more outdoor meals too, and more sitting on our garden bench.  Lets cross fingers for less rain.

Rachel Mondays: Andy is off work on Mondays so I have booked one Rachel thing every Monday in June.  Next week is a massage - the last of a pack of 6 I bought while pregnant.   I'm also getting my first ever facial at the end of the month.  

Sports: I'm so happy to be back with my gym buddy on Thursdays.  Last week we did walking lunges, 4 sets, across the gym, and my legs hurt for 5 days.  The great thing about having low levels of fitness is that everything has that high impact muscle fatigue feel.  I'm also hoping to do a 5k this month so I can get my baseline (will it be 50 minutes?  45? The worse I start the more I can improve).  There is a 5k every Saturday at the park behind our house and I might end up taking the babies in their pram and pushing them while I run, which will definitely help me achieve a personal worst (and make room for lots of improvement, such as not pushing twins in a pram)

Other thoughts on the start of June: 

I need to spend slightly less time with the babies.  My time log is basically "baby baby baby baby" which makes sense because of maternity leave but I know I am walking straight into some serious separation anxiety.  Also, it's not good for me to spend all my time around babies.  I know this. And yet, I am becoming super adept at moderating my daily energy levels to suit the babies... which means I don't often have enough energy to transition back and forth from big kids to babies.  Big kids (ie the 3 and 5 year old, who are not actually that big) energy is big energy and rest.  Baby energy is a constant 18-20 hours a day low level input. 

Although babies are arguably good sleepers, the combination of two pretty good 7 month old sleepers is probably equal to one normal/bad 7 month old sleeper.  I need to remember I am still in the baby year and that going to be at 8pm (with 30-60 minutes of reading) is what needs to be done right now.  

I love reading content from people with lots of kids, but I forget sometimes that I am often reading from people who have 4-5 kids spread across 8-12 years, and often their youngest is a few years older than zero years old.  There aren't that many people trying to live my life with four kids spread across 5 years.  For us, this is a time of being at home, of playing in the garden, of not going out for big adventures.  Maybe scheduling a trip to the park is too much right now.  Maybe planning 7 nights of dinners is too many nights of dinners.  Maybe we need to take a step back and include sandwiches in the meal plan and realise it's fine to have cereal multiple mornings. (although my main issues with cereal is I don't eat it myself and I don't like making two breakfasts... so even on cereal mornings I still have to figure out my own breakfast.  Also cereal mornings mean we go through our milk faster and then we have to buy more milk at the store.  Sometimes easy solutions aren't always... that easy.  Also, have you seen a baby eat cereal? It is messy)

(Not cereal, but carbonara is also messy.  This is a before photo)

I can see why parents with many kids can feel like they are failing all the time.  The babies are having hard days.  Isaac and Lilah need more attention than they currently get.  I need more sleep.  But on the flip side - usually at least one kids is happy.  Often more than one!  If one kids is losing the plot I generally have three kids who *aren't* losing the plot.  

I hope your June is shaping up well and that you are getting summer vibes and (if wanted) big adventures.  What are you looking forward to in June?