Parenting Two....alone

Greg went back to work yesterday. He had three fabulous weeks home with us and despite all the challenges that we had helping our eldest son adjusting to life with a new baby, Greg and I cherished the time we got to spend together. Greg also got to sympathize with the challenges of parenting all day and got a glimpse of complexities of taking care of a newborn and a 3 year old. I appreciate that he has a better understanding of what happens in the Griffin household between 7 am and 5:30 pm.

Today is day 2. Yesterday was tough. Zachary dearly missed his daddy and it came out in many different ways yesterday. I learned that trying to juggle breastfeeding the newborn and breaking up a struggle between 3 year olds on the top of a playground is challenging and not preferred. Images of starting out my first day of parenting two with a trip to the hospital for a fractured skull flashed in front of me as I ran up the playground. Thank goodness for faster mommy friend who got up to the top before me.

However, things are much better today. I feel calmer. I'm enjoying the return to relative normalcy. Zachary had a good day at preschool, Caleb and I slept till 8 am. The deviation from the norm was my frantic housecleaning with a newborn strapped to me in a sling as I finished prepping the house for the real estate agents who came to take photos of the house. That was not fun, but I finished vacuuming and hid items in dresser drawers and left the house, hoping to leave the stress behind. I bought a new Moby sling at Austin Baby on my way to lunch with Greg. We enjoyed the fabulous weather, an iced coffee, sandwich and people watching together at Jo's. Now it is the afternoon and Caleb sleeps, Zachary practiced a little quiet time in his room and we're chilling with the windows open watching a little PBS while waiting for Daddy to get home. Overall, it has been an enjoyable and totally doable day. Not too bad for a mom with 2 kids. Whew.