Life with 3

It's been awhile since I've blogged so I'm guessing a lot of people are wondering how I'm doing.  I thought I'd write about that because, to be honest, that's a complicated question.  The transition to three has been fairly easy, and considering all we've been through in the past 2 months-- a baby, a thesis defense, a new job, our first home purchase, and a move-- I've handled it fairly well.  But man, things are CRAZY.  It's 9:30 PM, Brandon is in the Florida Keys doing "work" on the beach, and I'm writing this with Siena on my lap while Violet and Charlie play naked in the living room.  And this is pretty normal for us.

For the first couple weeks of Siena's life, Brandon was so busy with his thesis that he was basically non-existent.  I somehow managed to get everything done during the day, and even have a pretty good time while I was at it, but each night my body would remind me that it had just been through a major trauma and I would end up watching a movie in bed with an ice pack to the crotch.  For awhile I felt like I had to prove that I could stay on top of things.  Yes, I'll totally accept a job to design your wedding invitations when my baby is a week old.  We need the cash, right?  Cook dinner for my parents while Brandon is gone so I look like supermom even though I found Charlie fingerpainting the floor 30 minutes ago?  Yes. And definitely tackle home improvement projects on my own.  Every time I did something extra, it made me feel good about myself.  I've totally got this parenting thing down.

Except tonight Violet had a little mishap. There was some vegetable oil sitting out on the counter, which she knocked over and spilled on the floor.  Before I could wipe it up, she came running, slipped on the oil, hit her head on the tile floor, and got her hair and brand new dress soaked with vegetable oil.  She tried to get up but kept slipping, so just imagine a screaming, injured Violet slipping repeatedly on the kitchen floor.  It wasn't as funny as it sounds.  And I realized that that had nothing to do with my negligence as a parent or Violet's bad behavior.  It was just a perfectly normal thing that could happen to any kid that just so happened to my kid and resulted in a complete disaster.  And at that moment I decided that there must not be a single parent in the world that really has everything under control.  If you see a parent that always seems happy and on top of everything, they must be heavily medicated or completely faking it.

So, how am I doing with three? Well, naptimes are routinely missed and we don't get out of our pajamas until 5 PM some days.  Violet has an embarrassing number of My Little Pony episodes memorized and half of our house is still packed up in boxes even though we've been living here for 2 weeks.  I definitely don't have things under control.  But it's actually been pretty fun, because I've realized that sometimes sleeping in and going to the splash pad and helping Violet paint her dresser are more important than keeping a perfectly balanced schedule.  Or maybe it's not about what's important, it's just that I don't feel like being a responsible adult and no one is around to tell me otherwise.