Summer is so... disjointed. Weeks are busy and also have too much empty space. Summer itself is flying by, and each day is lasting 100 years. It is... weird.
On Tuesday when I dropped Isaac off at summer holiday club the teacher asked if it was his last day. "no" I said "he's in next week". There was a pause. "we are closed next week" said the teacher. Oops. I had forgotten that holiday club was only 3 weeks long. Oops Oops Oops.
I looked at the calendar and realized that Lilah was meant to finish nursery on the 22nd, to give her a "week off" before school. What is a "week off" when I have babies and Isaac at home? I called Nursery and her last day is now on the 29th. Childcare for the win. However I feel this is a sign of how disjointed my planning is at the moment... how come I didn't realize I had 4 kids and no childcare for a week? Why am I able to plan pizza on friday but not what my kids are doing on a day to day basis?
On Tuesday I had a Keeping in Touch day at work, where I met with my boss and checked my computer still worked and started my return to work mentoring programme (yay!!). It went GREAT. And it was also shockingly similar to this Cup Of Joe comic. Luckily I got to practice a few different replies to the question "how are you? How was maternity leave? "how are the kids?"
Answers that didn't go well:
"I wipe 3 butts every day that aren't my own"
"We talk about informed consent for maternity care but I did not consent to having twins"
"I can put a finger through the 1cm gap in my stomach muscles and feel my own intestines, but otherwise it's great"
I'll have to think of some better answers before I go back. Or maybe the answer is "it's great"
Also, "I'm really good at time management now" is a pretty decent answer.
Anyways, onward to Reading, Sports and Sleep!
Reading
Really enjoying The Wedding People. About 30% through.
Monday: 20 minute Peloton Barre. 10 minute Peloton Core. 90 minute hike up and down local hill.
Tuesday: 90 minutes bouldering with gym buddy (yay, bouldering!)
Wednesday: 1 hour hike with baby in backpack (andy had the other baby)
Thursday: 1 hour gym with workout buddy (Push session - fun!)
I feel like my general disjointedness of my days is reflecting in the general disjointedness of my exercise. Without childcare for all the kids I really don't have much Rachel time. I also have had quite a few play dates recently which are great, but take up time that could otherwise be used for sport.
also...
Sleep
I was going to write "Sleep has been awful" but really what happened is one night I had trouble sleeping at 2am and then the babies woke up at 4:30am and it was all terrible. They've been waking around 5:30 and we've sort of pretended they sleep till 6... but we can't pretend when they're crying at 4:45. And we can't let them wake up the big kids either.
For the first time in my parenthood life I did the "drive around at 5am to get these babies to sleep" trick. 100% do not recommend. I did go to a Starbucks drive through at 5:20am and the window barista said "I hope your night gets better" which made me laugh because in my view anything after 4am is morning. 5:20 is definitely not night.
Overall I've averaged 7 hours of sleep. I noted before that I need north of 7 hours. I can now say officially that I need greater than 7 hours average, and not 7 or greater average [/SleepMath]. I need to be better about being in bed around 8:30pm and asleep by 9:30, rather than in bed by 9:30 and asleep by 10. I need to remember that I'm a human adult with the ability to go to sleep earlier. The babies are human babies who are still learning how to sleep later. The current situation isn't ideal but I think it's up to me to compromise for now. We can revisit baby sleep in a few weeks.
Hi Rachel, I m so behind on commenting but I'm here now. I think you gave a perfect description of how time functions in summer: too short yet too long.
ReplyDeleteR is in a free camp next week, all week, and L has nowhere to go so she will be here. I'll be taking her to my school to set up and it would be good- she loves bulletin boards and such. Plus, my school is a venue to go to and it's always exciting for the kids.
September will be sort of a doozy for us: two back-to-school, and T will be traveling for three weeks. Yep. So, essentially for me: back to work, kids navigating school, drop offs, keeping house, AND trying to stay calm.
Well, honesty is a virtue, right, so I think your answers were all spot-on :)
ReplyDeleteI am super-impressed how you keep everything straight - most of the time - with so many "heads" to think about... so don't beat yourself up for confusing some dates. I also am a big advocate for more sleep, always, but I can imagine that you also sometimes get drawn into "adult things" when the kids are all asleep so I can see how getting to bed at 8:30 pm is a struggle.
Yay on the workout front! I am glad you're enjoying the Peloton classes!
I keep looking at second hand pelotons over here... I just have the space right now but it's definitely in my future!
DeleteSometimes driving around is the least bad option. We had a stretch one winter where our 16 month old was waking up SCREAMING every morning at 4-4:30...SO and I definitely took turns driving around in the cold dark and hitting up the early AM coffee drive throughs until we could return at 6am when the day began for everyone else. I don't actually recall the baby going back to sleep; there was just no way anyone was going to sleep unless we got her completely out of the house. The longest month of my life...
ReplyDeleteOh goodness, the days with young children...the years are short, the days are long. Hang in there. I barely kept up with my daughter's schedule, and I only had one kid. You're doing great. I hope re-entry to work is smooth.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'd never heard of The Wedding People, and now I've seen it on 3 blogs. I put it on hold at my library. Thank you!
DeleteI think Lisa really enjoyed the Wedding People too, so I put it on hold a couple of weeks ago, and am glad to have a second recommendation from you to seal the deal!
ReplyDeleteSorry you are not getting much sleep! Hopefully it's just a short phase, and it will be over soon! I actually slept through my alarm this morning, which I never do, so I don't know what is wrong with me, but I must have been really tired today!
I would 100% do the accidental week of no childcare while thinking I had childcare. Sometimes the brain is wonderfully capable of denial/delusion.
ReplyDeleteYour answers at work sound real, and I can imagine how exhausting it is to answer a billion of the same question. It kills me that so many people see maternity leave as some sort of vacation. UGH. Probably another good answer is "The babies are so cute!" and then showing off some photos, if that's a thing you can do. Honest; sidesteps the hard truths that people may not be ready for.