With Two Children, I Am Always Late For Meetups and Less Giving With My Time

   My children are now almost three and 7 months old.  They are fun, cute, and oh so tiring. Most days start for me when one of them wakes me up before I am ready to get up and end after both are bathed, tucked in and I am able to get about an hour and half of unwind time after they are in bed. I am currently writing this blog post as the Baby Nugget is rolling around on the floor after having woken up at 6am.  I thought to myself, he doesn’t seem to be going back to sleep, why not blog right now?

Now that I have two children to watch over, there are somethings in my life that I do differently than I did this time last year, when I only had one child. For starters, I know that I schedule fewer play dates than I did last year.  Partially, this has to do with the fact, the the soon-to-be three year old, Mr. Man goes to school two mornings a week now.  Some of it is about me.  I have my own circus to run now, it is hard to latch on to other people’s circuses.  

I also find that I can’t work around other family’s schedules quite so easily.  I have always tried to be a flexible person when scheduling plans, in that I would shift Mr. Man’s nap time or even forgo it sometimes if it meant that it would make it easier to make plans with a friend.  However, with two children though, it is harder to do.  I find myself being less giving.  Everyone has their own needs.   
Many friends need their toddler to be down for their naps by 1 pm.  I am more flexible with Mr. Man, in that he can skip a nap now and again.
Baby Nugget needs a morning nap and and afternoon nap. While I try to be flexible with the morning nap, in that he  sometimes takes it in his carseat so we can have some freedom to leave our house, I feel like he should take at least one of his naps in his bed.

Additionally, it takes us forever to leave our house in the morning.  I have trouble leaving the house before 10 am on any given day.  I told this to a friend with who also has a son about Mr. Man’s age (but no baby) and she said, “Do you guys just sleep in or something?”  Actually, no, not really.  We don’t really sleep in.  I usually wake up around 7:30 am with one or both of my children babbling or telling me to wake up.  It just takes a long time to get two diapers changed, two children and one adult dressed and fed and ready to start the day.

While Baby Nugget isn’t quite as needy as he was when he was a newborn, still has a lot of morning needs. He eats solid food now and it takes a while to feed him and clean him up after he eats his food.  Also I think that on the average morning I end up changing his diaper two-three times before 10 am.  Since Baby Nugget eats baby cereal during at one meal a day, I usually pump in the morning so I have extra milk to mix with his cereal.

Mr. Man is more self sufficient than he used to be, in that he can dress himself but I have to be in the room to change his diaper and help him if if can’t figure out which way to put on his pants.  He will put on his shoes if I get them down from the shelf and ask him to put on his shoes, but sometimes he puts them on the wrong feet.  He also likes to pack a bag anytime we go anywhere. It is usually a tote bag or his Daniel Tiger Backpack, filled with toys.  It is cute but he seems to want to do this the most when we are already running late.

If we are not late for the plans in question, I am usually just running around with the fear of being late in my head.  I tell my husband that I over-plan, that I am over-scheduled, but when I think about it, we don’t really have all that many plans.  I probably just need to take a deep breath.

Do you run around like a chicken with your head cut off? If so, tell me about it in the comment section.

8 Replies to “With Two Children, I Am Always Late For Meetups and Less Giving With My Time”

  1. I’ve been running around like a headless chicken for years/ it’s my personality. I obsess about what I forgot, or if I did enough or have enough- or even something about things happening tomorrow or next week or next year. I obsess, it’s my normal

  2. I run in circles all the time and I have no children and two cats! Multi-tasking is what creates this problem! Do one task at a time and you will still run around like a chicken without a head or at least, I run around looking for my glasses!

  3. Yes, always. I have really tried to cut back on how long it takes to make breakfast. I am sure to only make pancakes one time a week now because it just takes too long. I am more likely to make just about toast now or something similar to that especially on days we have somewhere to go.

    1. I haven’t made pancakes in like 6 months because of what you said. I only make eggs once a week now. Toast, ceral, yogurt any of those things are easy

  4. Yes! In fact, once i had my third I noticed i would completely forget about myself altogether. Between brushing everyone’s teeth, the fights to get dressed, the fights about what to wear, looking for missing shoes that the toddler threw out, doing a cute hairstyle and doing it right, finding the right earrings for the 5 year olds outfit (her demand not mine) and doesn’t the toddler always need to do a poopy as soon as we are all ready? Lol. I now tell myself to leave the house 30 minutes before we have to be somewhere and if we are going at a decent pace (rarely) them i have some extra time to hang out..

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