Logistics

I am a planner. Always have been, always will be. I need to go into a situation knowing what to expect when I get there and to make sure I am as prepared as possible for any given situation. You should see THE LIST I have for when we go camping. It’s all organized and pretty on a spreadsheet and everything. You should have seen me that one day years ago when Matt sprung a surprise camping trip on me and packed everything himself. I was so unnerved and anxious about “did you remember extra toilet paper” to “do we have all the condiments we’ll need to eat” and “what about the bear spray? You packed the bear spray...right?”

So one question that always comes back and bugs me is “how will I do this [insert activity name here] with Nikolas, where will I put him so I can do [insert task name here]”. Taking him to the swimming pool for the first time when he was only 10 weeks old almost sent me over the edge. Where would I change him? What would I do with him so I could get changed? How do I get everything shoved into a locker while also making sure he’s safe? Luckily, I had a good friend, and mother of two pre-teens with me to help.  And despite the crappy “family” change room at the local pool, we got it all accomplished. (Note to parents who haven’t done this before – just use the bucket car seat for small babies, and strollers for older ones. Some facilities will let you bring your stroller right out onto the pool deck, better pools will even provide strollers and will have playpens by the showers).

Now that I’m back at work, I am still amazed that people go on to have more than one child. HOW do they do it? Literally? HOW???? Right now, I rely on Matt getting Nikolas up and ready to go in the morning while I drag my ass and somehow manage to get out the door.  I am dreading summer (isn’t that shitty?) when Matt will be gone by 5:00 am and home after 9:00 (due to his wonderful job in the golf industry – note the sarcasm) and I will have to do it all by myself. I know I will figure it out, but I right now I just don’t know HOW.
Other questions that commonly bother me:

HOW do you manage to prepare meals for your family when another new born enters the scene? It took me months to be able to put Nikolas down long enough to prep and cook a meal. He was feeding like a beast and I was STARVING.

How do you travel with two kids?

How do you take two kids to the pool?

How do you do anything with more than one child???

How do you keep up with a toddler’s schedule (nursery school, play dates, etc) and still make sure a newborn gets their daily naps in?

Parental Advice

Have you ever found that the best advice about being a parent comes from those who don’t have kids?

I have to admit; before Nikolas came along, I had no idea what parenthood was all about. When you have kids, you suddenly become part of a secret club. People who are in the club can try to explain to outsiders what it is like, but unless you get in, you really don’t know.

So for people who have no kids and no responsibilities beyond themselves to give advice on how to be a parent, well, I guess it would be like a cave man teaching a pilot how to fly a plane. It’s kind of funny.
Matt came home a few days ago and shared with me that his brother (who has no children) told him that having kids is easy, you just have to be organized and plan. When I heard this, I really did laugh out loud. Oh, I can’t wait for this guy to have kids of his own so he can eat his words!

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is to let go of control and just go with the flow. No matter how much planning and organizing I do – and trust me, I’m a planner; I am the queen of lists– things rarely go the way I anticipate. And not that this is a bad thing...unless I let it get to me, which I used to when I was still adjusting to this whole parenthood thing, I’ve just learned to accept the situation and do what I need to do to keep going on my course.

Great example  of this was this morning. I was getting ready for work, Matt had gotten Nikolas up and dressed and given him a bottle, and he was off to play. I was in the kitchen, noticed that Nikolas was playing in the mud room. On a quick glance, I took note that he was not eating the dog food, so I wasn’t too concerned about what he was doing in there. A few minutes later, I go in to get my jacket on, and find Nikolas has been experimenting with stepping into the dog’s water dish in his socks, and his feet were soaked! Really, it was cute. However, I had to rush him upstairs for a quick sock change and get out the door. This isn’t something we could have planned for...it just happened, and we deal with it. But putting socks on a 14 month old takes some good wrestling technique, and a few extra minutes.

This doesn’t make parenting easy or hard. It just annoys me when people who don’t have kids think it’s easy and if only a little planning went into your life, it would be a piece of cake. And when comments are made that we’re late for events, I just smile to myself and think “your time is coming buddy”.