Waiting for Mike to hide eggs for their egg hunt.
1. I always hear that men don’t stress about life-work balance as much as women do, but I’m not sure that’s always true with this generation of dads. When Mike got his job offer, he asked them specifically about his schedule because he wants to be able to see his kids more. Some marriages thrive with split responsibilities – one person takes more responsibility for the kids and the house and the other person makes the money, but we definitely don’t thrive under that model. Mike gets burnt out and misses his kids when he’s gone all day and I get burnt out and impatient when I’m home with the kids for an entire day. We prefer to share time in the home and out of the home so no one goes too crazy (including our children. Seeing both us is better for them than just seeing me alone for 40 hours a week). We’re both so looking forward to more balance this summer.
2. Gabe is super addicted to technology. If it has a screen, he’s like a moth to a flame and starts trying to use it. It drives me absolutely crazy (not because technology is bad, but because he’s addicted and that’s annoying). I made him go TV-free for most of Lent and it was good for all of us (again, not because TV is bad! But because post-turning-off-Netflix Gabe is a bear). He still finds the iPad/iPhone/iWhatever irresistible, but no longer expects to get to watch TV as soon as I sit down to work. The other day, he even played with Legos for an hour! (And right now he’s with Theo entertaining him after he woke up from a nap. Three cheers for big brothers!)
3. Easter was great. Last Easter I was incredibly ill with an awful stomach flu (at 30 weeks pregnant, right after I had finally stopped getting sick from pregnancy! Ah, fetus Theo was quite a joy.), so I was happy to be out of bed and doing Easter egg hunts (3) and making my children wear matching outfits and other such fun.
4. I’ve taken it upon myself to start teaching Gabe how to prepare food. He learned how to cut an apple with a knife on Monday, make boxed macaroni and cheese on Tuesday, and today he made himself a peanut butter and jelly. What’s next? Scrambled eggs or tofu? French toast? If all goes according to plan, he’ll be making all of our dinners by 2020.
5. Work is super right now. Super awesome, super busy, super everything. I started doing this work because it is portable, so whenever Mike got a job in another city (as we expected with a PhD), I could keep working without job hunting. And now the time is here and whoa, life. It’s like it just keeps happening and stuff that seemed years away is here and I’m 30 and my kid is going to be 5 this year and suddenly I’m curled into a ball singing “Stop this Train” to myself.
This was pretty deja vu-ish :) Last Easter (or right before it, I guess) *I* was sick with a terrible flu while pregnant! I’m 30 and don’t feel like that’s possible! MY kid is five!
Don’t stop the train! Your train is awesome :)
GABE IS GOING TO BE 5?! WHAT. Gabe = celebrity baby in my mind and I just can’t believe he will be the same age as my students in 2015.
So glad you had a better Easter than last year.
I seriously could not agree more about work/life balance. In my ideal world, both Eric and I would work part time jobs so that we could spend pretty much equal time making the money and taking care of Max. I would love to spend more time with Max, but I don’t think I could do all day every day by myself. Eric was really bummed that he didn’t get any time off when Max was born- he ended up asking my doctor to write a note for him so he could get 3 weeks off. It ended up being good because I had a tough recovery, but even if I didn’t, I truly feel only giving women maternity leave just sets up the imbalance that so many people deal with in child raising. During that time, I set up my ways of doing things for Max and it just became easier for me to do that stuff even when Eric was around… and this can just spiral out of control if you aren’t careful. Eventually, we balanced things out but it was hard for awhile and I can imagine that it would stay hard if both people aren’t as invested in getting the dad’s involved as we were. We discussed many times during the discussions about how long he’d take off that the generation above us doesn’t really get that dad’s day want to stay home at first. They just feel like “I was back after a few days, so why can’t you be?” I’m so glad that mindset is changing. I would’ve been the worst 50s housewife/mother.
“I would have been the worst 50s housewife/mother”.
ME TOO! Spending every waking hour with my kids causes me to want to hide under the table. ;)
Topher is obsessed with screens too. I made the mistake of introducing him to the games on Nickjr.com and now he begs to use the computer as soon as he wakes up. He already knows how to use the entire website: Where to go to watch a show, where to go to watch a game, how to print off pictures or activities to work on. It’s crazy! He played on it a LOT over spring break but now that we’re back to a regular schedule he’s back to having more strict limits on screen time :) We’re planning to cancel cable this summer so I figure I better start preparing him now!
My two year old had a full-on screaming meltdown for 15 minutes yesterday, after I turned the ipad off. It was ugly. The best remedy is usually a screen break for a week or so. (Myself included- my iphone checking has gotten way out of hand!)
Karissa is 5 and cooking up a storm. Check out “Pretend Soup.” We checked it out from the Library. It’s a cookbook with mostly picture instructions and she’s OBSESSED (read: she’s cooked 6 things in the last 2 days and we’re out of flour and sugar). She’s got me drawing her new recipes and yesterday I worked on my bible study for 1.5 hours while she made sugar cookies from a recipe it took me 10 minutes to translate into pictures. Yes….the floor was covered in sugar, but hey AN HOUR AND A HALF!!!!
FIVE? Already? This mean it has been over five years since I saw you last!? Dislike. I have no remedy for that, just throwing out the idea that a reunion would be awesome.
The screen thing. My goodness. My bonus babes are ADDICTED to all screens. We limit TV time in a big, big way when they are with us because I’m pretty sure a hurricane could happen and if they had a screen of any kind they would have no clue it was going on around them. Knight and I make sure we have music on more than the tv, and we limit our exposure to screens around them (part of the whole let’s be present when they are with us thing. Easier said than done sometimes given work requirements and etc., but we do our best). The upside to having music (usually the oldies because I worry about all the vulgarity in modern pop music, and yes, I act like a 90 year old mother sometimes) on? Impromptu dance parties!
I LOVE that you and Mike have a balance that works for you; that’s what I hope to have if/when me and Knight start a family of our own and have kids full-time. Aaannnd this is a long comment. sorry bout that. :)
It is good to get the kids learn how to cook. And, especially important with boys (because of the whole stereotype of cooking is a woman’s job, which is changing slowly). With our 18 month old, he is always so eager to help mom and dad cook. For now, we just give him a mortar n pestle and some rice crispies and he keeps pounding them up. heh!
In our household, with both of us working full time, we have to share kid/house/cooking responsibilities. Plus, it helps that my husband loves to spend time with our boy, rather than go to office..so he does the house/kid responsibilities happily and “not because he has to”. I do know though it would drive me insane if I was home the whole day. Both me and my husband wish both of us had part time jobs because we do feel we do not get to spend enough time with our baby.
Oooh I need to start teaching LG how to prepare food. She always “helps” me cook, but I rarely have her do much in the way of preparing her own food. She should definitely be making her own PBJs.