5 weeks, 5 days postpartum: Too Discombobulated to Think of a Title

Hi, everyone!

This is the quickest of notes to let everyone know that yes, again, I'm still alive - just with no time to blog!! Seriously, my computer time has scaled off to almost zero. I'm either doing round-the-clock baby and child care, or they're napping and I can't use the computer because it often wakes up my preschooler. That, and I'm still tied to the breast pump every 2-3 hours during the day - something that I hope to quit soon, but only time will tell. We have an appointment on Tuesday to see about possibly getting baby's tongue-tie corrected, and after that baby may be able to get back on board with breastfeeding. However, if he has (as I suspect) gotten extremely lazy with his bottle-habit, we may have more work to do before we can kick that habit.

But otherwise, he is growing quite plump and is very healthy - hurray!!

My blogs and my correspondence are definitely suffering, though - I haven't been blogging, I haven't had time to read the blogs I subscribe to, and I have gotten months behind in answering email. If you've emailed me and not heard back, rest assured that everyone is getting the same treatment!

I've been really doing serious thinking about family dynamics and how I want to form our family. Having two children is really a cosmic shift for me, being that I was raised as an only child in a family of only-children. What do we want to do with our family? Do we want to have the boys share a room, or have rooms of their own? What philosophical methods do we want to use for training and discipline? Do we want to homeschool, private school, or charter school? What should our routines be? I'm trying to read, think, and research to get some direction. We've ordered "Shepherding a Child's Heart" to read, and I'm thinking about looking into the PEGS system and Doorposts Ministries (thanks, BreAnna!). There's a lot to determine, especially as parenting does not and never has come naturally to me (unlike most of my friends, who seem to take to it like ducks to water... *sigh*).

I've also made a few resolutions to improve my role as a mother. The first, and by FAR the most difficult, is to (aack! hyperventilating!) do my best to avoid stressing about a house that is less than perfect - in order to spend more time with my children (deep breathing....). I can never be comfortable with a messy house - I find it deeply, fundamentally disturbing. But the truth remains that I simply cannot have a house that is clean to my satisfaction while I have two young children. I just can't - it's not possible. So I'm trying to focus on essential routines (dishes, laundry, meals, pick-up) and allow myself no more than 20 minutes of other cleaning per day (and honestly, that only happens 2-3 times a week max).

Secondly, I'm going to do my best this year to create holiday traditions. I'm pretty hopeless with holidays. I never decorate, we rarely attend holiday events, and I generally forget about the holidays themselves until the night before. For our kidlets' sake, I want to do better with that (within the bounds of sanity) - I have very fond memories of the holidays, and I want our kids to have the same. So this year, I'm going to do my best to make sure we have at least some basic activities going for the holidays.

Well, while I've been writing about improving my family, I've been neglecting my family! So back to work. I'll do my best to check in occasionally... but life is quite hectic right now, so it won't be often. Love to all!!