This Week in Mommyhood

Every day over the past two weeks I have had to give myself a pep talk.  "You can do this." "Feeling overwhelmed is normal and temporary." "You will sleep in again...eventually." "One day, sooner than you think, you are going to miss the things you complain about." Having two kids isn't necessarily harder, it just requires more balance, patience, and feeling ok with letting go. It also requires coming to terms with never eating or using the bathroom alone again.

Here are Elina's fun developments over the last two weeks:

Crawling & Sitting. Elina is getting better and better at crawling each day. Now she can go from a crawling position to a sitting position and vice versa. I'm still blown away by the fact that we have two mobile children in the house.

Baby-Led Feeding. It's official. Elina does not like purees. I've tried offering her different kinds of purees over several days and she does not like them. Put small pieces of food in front of her and she is a happy eater. It's hard for me to remember what she's tried exactly because she goes after almost everything that's on my plate, but she definitely is a big fan of whole wheat pancakes, banana, and beans.

Here are Cati's fun developments over the last two weeks:

School. The biggest thing going on with Cati is that she started school. Considering how much she liked school last year and how much she talked about school over the summer, I thought she would have a smooth adjustment to school. The truth is that Cati has had a hard time adjusting and it has left me wondering on a daily basis whether school is the right thing. Granted, things have gotten a lot better and we're at the point where she's happy when I pick her up, but every morning is a battle with her. I never want to push her to do something she doesn't want to do but school is good for all of us: I get some time to do schoolwork, Elina gets one-on-one time with me, and Cati gets to play with other kids her age. She's only going a couple of hours a day but I still feel incredibly guilty. I don't know what I'm going to do when both girls needs to be in school so I can do my internships.

Every night I pray that the girls sleep through the night and wake up the next morning in good moods. Each morning I pray for patience to make it through the day and for the ability to stop and simply enjoy being with the girls. Motherhood right now for me is all about survival. Almost seven (!!) months into this mom-of-twoness and I'm still trying to figure it out. Each weeks brings me a little closer and I can't wait for the day I find myself saying, "Wow. I feel so good, comfortable, and confident about being a mom of two!"