Tonight I was feeling the call to write a good old fashioned, throwback style motherhood blog post – the kind that used to pop up on this space all of the time but has since moved over and made way for room designs, out of state moves and house flips. Because I’m a little rusty on the motherhood topic, I sent out a call to my Instagram community, asking for those burning questions desperately needing answers from yours truly. As it turned out, there were a ton of questions and I responded to each one, basically writing dozens of mini blog posts. I thought I would post some of the most common questions and my answers in a roundup here on the blog and one or two of the conversations will be turned into their own blog posts in the coming weeks. If you have any questions that I didn’t answer, leave them in the comments and I’ll do another roundup!
Q: Any tips on potty training?
A: Um, well, I used the Three Day Method – downloaded the book on my phone and moved us into the playroom (that had play mat flooring and a baby gate so pee wouldn’t end up all over the house) and ended up stumbling on the “right” method for my kid. It clicked with him fairly easily at home, less so at Mother’s Day Out/school, but he got there. I’m sure my cosmic payback will be sending my second child off to college in pull ups.
Q: How do you get friggin’ veggies into you kid?
A: He eats chips and salsa Lunchables pretty much three meals a day, so he eats tomatoes. Mission accomplished.
Q: What are your eat/sleep schedules?
A: Gray has started waking up at some ungodly hour (before the sun rises, so early) and getting into bed with us so I will say that our sleep schedule is “non-existent” and would classify the amount of time we spend sleeping as “not enough”. We did Mom’s on Call with Gray religiously and with success but Georgia basically lit her schedule on fire and threw it at me, so she does what she wants. Our OK To Wake Clock is currently on it’s way to us via Amazon Prime and if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to bribe our eldest to stay out of our bed until sunrise.
Food is currently a battle with Gray as he eats like two total things but Georgia eats all of the things, all of the time. If we go to a restaurant, she eats her full kids’s portion and then her brothers as well. I would love to say that we have a great meal time routine but honestly, I’m just hanging on for dear life.
Q: How do you make mom friends since you move so much?
A: My friends live in my phone! Blogging has brought me my very best and closest friends and they live all over the country, so I have them with me all of the time, if not in person. In all seriousness, I’m an introvert and so I don’t really seek out too much in the way of in-person friendships. I will say that once my kids were in school/mother’s morning out, I found an amazing community of mom friends in Greenville (and I miss them dearly). Here in Charlotte, I actually already knew quite a few people since I lived here as a young twenty something – so I had friends from college, a bridesmaid and blogging friends to call as soon as we moved in. But prior to Gray starting school around 16 months, I didn’t have a single mom friend who lived near me, and that wasn’t ideal. I wrote a post once on the types of mom friends that every mom should have (and where to find them) and they were inspired by my Greenville crew.
Q: How do you balance “you time” and date nights with two young kids?
A: I’m not sure that we/I do! We definitely did not make time for date nights or for ourselves for the first 6-7 months of Georgia’s life so I think we’re starting to get back into a grove now that she’s feeling better and this move has settled down. I think with the second child comes a bit of peace of mind about certain things that doesn’t exactly come naturally with the first child, so we are able to leave them with a sitter with less anxiety. We have learned to schedule our plans around the kid’s bedtime to make things easier on everyone so a date night usually looks like Justin and I doing the kid’s regular dinner routine, putting Georgia to bed at her normal bedtime (6pm) and doing Gray’s bath time and getting him into pj’s. Our sitter will pop in at 7, giving her just an hour to chill with Gray until his bedtime. Georgia never wakes so our sitter only has Gray to worry about and he loves the one on one time with her, so it works out nicely.
Q: How did you know you were ready to have a second baby?
A: We weren’t! I got pregnant on accident with a baby that we lost – after that, I desperately wanted a baby to fill that void. We had planned to wait until Gray was three to start trying for a second but our babes are exactly three years apart instead.
Q: Will you have more babies?
A: Hard pass. That’s a no for us. We are very much done: every single time I change a diaper I count how many months I think I might have left of diapers….I threw away all of the bottles the day Georgia turned one…..we are starting to travel to Zika ridden countries again…..and everyone finally sleeps through the night. Our baby days are done!
Thanks for owning up to not being a perfect Mom! It's so refreshing to hear from someone else who's experiencing both successes and normal parenting stuff (i.e., no veggies).