I want to announce to everyone that my good friend, MommyEm, had her baby on July 4th! Welcome to the world, little baby girl! I am certain that you will be well loved by your mom, dad and big sister (and two cats)! I can't wait to meet you!
While last weekend was a busy weekend for my friend, I actually had a pretty easy, low-key July 4th weekend.
Londo took the Pumpkin down to visit his family for the weekend. They have a big July 4th BBQ party, and he thought they'd have fun. Although I considered going to the fun party and lovely inlaws, I was in greater need of a break from at least half of my parenting responsibilities. Plus, Londo and I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to give the kids some devoted one-on-one time. So I stayed home with the Pookie.
Londo and the Pumpkin left on Friday morning, arriving at the inlaws in the afternoon--in time to pick berries and help garden in my MIL's fantastic, organic garden. Meanwhile, I dropped the Pookie off at daycare and went to work.
The Pookie and I had an easy evening, with his normal (early) dinner time and an early bedtime. He is very exhausted from being at daycare, where they have only one nap a day. So he went to sleep quickly and easily, giving a whole evening BY MYSELF! It was like a piece of heaven.
On Saturday, the Pookie and I went to the pool between his naps, stopping by the neighborhood 4th of July party and eating lunch at the pool. I struck up a conversation with a woman who lives a few houses away and has two kids, ages 2 and 3. I'm really making an effort to make friends with my neighbors, especially those with kids around my kids' ages. And this new friend and her husband invited me over for a BBQ on Sunday! I stopped by for a little while, until it was the Pookie's bedtime. I hope to do more with them soon.
What else did I do on Saturday--or heck, the rest of the weekend? I'm not even sure! Oh, I know I took a nap that afternoon while the Pookie took his second nap. In fact, I napped every day while the Pookie took one of his naps. During his other nap, I was fixing up our front room, into which we've moved the shelves and books to be the library, and the guest room, which has my desk and is going to be my slash-office! This was all set up the previous weekend, with help from Londo, his dad and my dad.
The Pookie apparently needed to catch up on his sleep all weekend. Not only was he taking two naps a day each of the three days we were home together, but the morning naps were 2 - 2.5 hours! He also went to bed early-ish each night. Even though he woke up for 1.5 hours in the middle of one of those nights (let's hear it for the 55 week fussy period/sleep regression!), he still slept a lot overall.
That gave me so much time to clean and organize the house, as well as relax and enjoy time to myself.
But more importantly, I got to spend so much quality, one-on-one time with my baby boy. Being the second child, he really doesn't get much one-on-one time from us parents. Usually, the only time I have alone with him is putting him down for a nap or for bed. That doesn't give me a chance to sit with him and see how he is developing and playing, or let me focus my attention on him while we are out doing things.
For the last two weeks (before he started at daycare, but even more since), he has been especially clingy to me. As he gets better and better at walking away from me, he comes back to me and clings tighter and tighter. That's hard to deal with while juggling a 3 year old who needs large amounts of attention in different ways. By the end of our weekend together, he really wasn't clingy much at all. Until he went back to daycare. Sigh...
It was also such a great weekend for father-daughter bonding down at my inlaws. Londo and the Pumpkin had so much fun down there and in the car trips to and from. (Anyone remember how miserable my daughter used to be in the car? It's a whole new world now, baby!) They had a lot of quality time together. Not all of it was perfect, and the Pumpkin woke up sick on Monday before heading home (and she also got sick in the car on the way home), but we don't look for perfect in the caramama family (or else I'd be in trouble!).
For those of you with two or more kids, I highly recommend splitting them up for a weekend if possible and when they are old enough. It's great to have that one-on-one time, plus it's really fun to be reunited! And after I completely wean the baby, I plan to take the Pumpkin on a trip somewhere with just me, leaving Londo and the Pookie at home.
And someday, Londo and I hope to take a weekend or even a night away together, without the kids! Can you imagine?
5 comments:
Split up the kids for some 1-on-1 time? My thoughts exactly! ;) Glad you got some time for yourself.
We split the kids up sometimes too. We've never done it for longer than a few hours, but that's a great idea to do it for a weekend!
It sounds like a great weekend!
You know I LOVE the occasional nights away (from both kids) that Hubby and I get. I recommend that highly.
We split up a lot on the weekends to give the kids some one-on-one time- even if it is just the difference between one of us being outside with Pumpkin while the other is inside with Petunia. The idea of splitting up for a whole weekend is interesting...
First of all, congratulations to MommyEm on the birth of her baby girl. July 4th what a cool birthday to have!
Caramama, sounds like you had a much needed break. And, it really does sound like heaven with all that sleeping that was going on! How nice for the kids to have that extra special one-on-one time you and Londo.
Thank you, Caramama! We are home and enjoying "Glenda", the latest addition to our Lollipop Gang.
As for splitting up time, my hubby is home for a month and has taken over all the house and Dorothy duties so I can recup. Dorothy is loving the daddy time and I am loving a break from my regular job. I think that by the time he goes back to work I just might be ready to take on two kids. Maybe. ;-)
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