"I had new life rules to not take on anything new ..."

I had new life rules to not take on anything new, to not cook, and to pick up 10 minutes per day. Any guess on how this is going? If you aren’t laughing now you should be. Oh silly me, just when I think this will work, multiple new curve balls appear.

My NO woman status lasted all of three days after finishing the last blog entry. On a random Wednesday morning my toddler decided that it was time to potty train. So if you stop by my house you’ll probably see a toddler in full naked glory because along with diapers going out of style apparently so did all other clothes ... in Chicago ... in winter. I joined a PTA committee too, like I said I wouldn’t. The event's not until May so I have awhile before it becomes a big time suck (famous last words right?). If I've learned anything so far it's that I’m pretty terrible at saying no to things.

One naked toddler ‘dressed’ as a Super streaking to a neighborhood near you.

The plan to not cook and just microwave all the things was foiled by my nurslings dairy intolerance. It’s pretty hard to find prepared food that’s dairy free and that the kids will eat so I either cook or eat peanut butter sandwiches. This adult person has a maximum number of peanut butter sandwiches I can consume in a week before I start to despise them. That number is 4. And the rumors are not true, vegan cheese doesn’t taste just like regular cheese. It’s disgusting and that’s the nicest thing I can think to say about it.

The daily house pickup is still occurring with excessive whining from the big kids. Zero surprise on the whining, mild surprise that I’ve followed through with the daily pickup. Truthfully I avoid my house to not have to clean up messes which leads to things like library trips. I love the library, the smell of books and the silence ... well, that was until I took a toddler there. Our recently remodeled library includes things like puzzles, toys and train tables. In theory this is spectacular, I can sip coffee while my child entertains themselves.  In reality I’m sweating excessively running after her while she streaks from station to station, tornadoing (is this a word? it totally should be) everything along the way. It’s far from the relaxing activity I envisioned.

Toddler Busy tornadoing the puzzle section of the library

So with the new rules all tossed out where can I go to recharge? Self care!! I was going to practice self care. By self care I don’t mean things like shower and teeth brushing, these are non negotiables in my world, I mean activities that give my brain a break from the daily grind. Before kid #4 I spent Sunday nights after dinner holed up in my bathtub with wine, candles, ebooks, music and bath bombs. So with self-care in mind, I nursed the baby to sleep, drew a bath (it’s so much fancier to say drew a bath) and climbed in with book, music, wine and high expectations. Guesses on how this ended? I’m 0/4 on being in the tub by myself longer than 10 minutes. Baby has some sort of tech built in that I call ‘relaxdar’. The moment I relax her relaxdar kicks in and she starts hyperventilating crying. Currently working on a bug fix for this, no release date in sight.

A newborn interloper in my self care bath time

While this may seem all doom and gloom there’s been some high points the past few weeks. My big kids both had great report cards and parent teacher conferences. Their teachers may not have found the conferences so great with my eau de newborn poop smell…. The toddler is mostly potty trained which means way less diaper changes. Yay! And the baby started smiling on purpose, all previous smiles were related to sleep pooping.

Her purposeful first smile, making everything worth it.

Moving into the next few weeks and holiday bustle I’m looking forward to all the good behavior for the big kids with presents looming in their future. And possibly a bath ... by myself.