Quiet Time

When we talk to our single-child friends, Chad and I always say, "The transition from one child to two was way easier than going from no children to one."  Then we add the caveat, "But the work with two children doesn't double, it's exponential." 

Fortunately, when we first brought Elizabeth home, she slept.  A lot. This allowed us an opportunity to get used to the extra work.  Now, a year later, we have a groove.  We know that dinner needs to be on the table at 6:00.  We know that I dish up the plates while Chad gets drinks and gets the baby in her chair.  We know that our actual dinner is a scene out of The Marx Brothers with food being shifted from plate to plate while Maggie hovers under the table waiting for the inevitable Vegetable Pass.

Side note:  Joseph acts so surprised when I tell him to stop feeding Maggie his vegetables.  I am Mom.  I know all.  Plus, he has yet to learn about subtlety.

Dinner ends at 6:20 - a fact that is more frustrating that I can even express.  An hour of cooking reduced to rubble in 20 minutes.  Chad puts Elizabeth in the bath while I water the garden.  Then, I nurse Elizabeth while Chad starts Joseph on a shower.  I leave Elizabeth's room and join Joseph for his bedtime story.  If Elizabeth is still fussing, Chad goes to her room while I finish putting Joseph to bed.  At 8:15, after two requests for water and one reassurance that there are no monsters in the house, we reconvene in the living room where we collapse on the couch.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, it's a bit more hectic because Chad doesn't get off work until 7:00 which means he jumps right into giving Elizabeth her bath and ends up eating dinner alone while I read to Joseph.

And this is just the evenings.  This isn't even the morning dash or the after-work pick ups.  This is just dinner, bath and bed.

Joseph being gone this weekend threw a wrench into our well-oiled machine.  I kept moving from place to place and then...stopping because I wasn't sure what to do next.  We didn't have our normal nap time routine of bribing Joseph with Scooby Doo videos while I get Elizabeth to sleep and then fixing Joseph lunch, putting him down for his nap, taking a deep breath and going into Elizabeth's room where she's screaming for me to get her. I walked out of Elizabeth's room to an empty, quiet house.

I didn't quite know what to do with myself.

I thought of all the things I have on my to-do lists and then, read books.  Piles and piles of books.  I made applesauce.  I surfed the internet.  I sat in my yard and soaked up some sun.

If I had that much time with only one child, what the heck did I used to do before I had kids?