Ready for a New Year

Eva looks as if she already knows how the game will end

I’m not going to lie to you. Despite the entertainment value of having a 3-year-old hold his funnel-shaped flute up to his chest and say he is “pumping milk” or insist that the coffee he is making for you is from “fresh beans from Florida” or ask you whether “the gum store can deliver like the pizza store does” or tell you that “beans are yummy but they make you toot” (thanks, Grandma), the end of 2010 was not exactly easy around our house.

Some New Year's Eve Painting

I’ve been told that living with a 3-year-old is in itself challenging…the sudden independence and refusal to do anything they’re asked to coupled with the incessant whining about what they want or need. (“Mommy I need popcorn for breakfast. With cheese. I need it, Mommy. Mommy, I NEED it. Mommy can I have it? Mommy? Mommy, please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). And I know from experience that the first 3 months with a newborn is challenging (I had forgotten that they need 10 diapers a day). And going back to work after a few months of maternity leave isn’t necessarily an easy adjustment either (Oh how I miss those afternoon naps.). Mix all that together and toss in a few routine-altering holidays, and you have a month of challenging transition. We’re all adjusting here…. Sam to sharing his mommy with another little one, Eva to being outside the womb, and me to being pulled in two directions at once as well as living with another post-pregnancy body and the hormones and lack of sleep that go along with it.

Magneatos

Sam helps roll out of the carpet pad for the new basement playroom

We didn’t ring in the New Year. My children’s New Year’s gift to me was that we were all sleeping at 8:30pm on Friday night, and we were all still asleep when the bells rang at midnight. We woke to another Saturday morning of toddler chaos and newborn sleep-deprivation and Mommy backaches, but I fed the baby and played magneatos with Sam and washed 600 mg of ibuprofen down with 3 cups of coffee, and we started the year with hope that the Badgers would win the Rose Bowl and our new playroom would help to contain the chaos and we’d survive another weekend before the kids went back to daycare. We enter 2011 hopeful that things can only get better from here. With moments like what you see in the video below, how can they not? If you watch no other videos here this year, this one is worth 20 seconds of your time.