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| His hair is uncombed but he found a perfect dandelion! |
At his 2.5 year well check, we asked our pediatrician how to best help our toddler adjust once we welcomed home our new baby. He gave us some candid advice. "Give yourself 100 days. Mark it on the calendar. You're not going to parent the way you'd like for those first 100 days and that's OK. If after that date, you're still not parenting the way you would like to, let's talk some more." I kind of stored this tidbit on the back burner, and just as we round the corner of 2 weeks postpartum, I can tell you it is some of the best advice I've received to date.
How would I describe our household right now? Beauty through imperfection. We did a
lot to prepare and plan and as with any birth, there is much you cannot prepare and plan for. Recovering from major surgery was not part of the postpartum plan I had envisioned and one of the most challenging aspects of that is not being as independent in these first several weeks as I would like to. I can't drive yet. I can't pick up my toddler yet. I feel better and better each day, thank G-d, and seem to have a case of postpartum nesting--so a lot of organizing and cleaning are happening here! I may be looking for things I
can do to compensate for those I must wait to do. A few days into being home, I started to call my darling husband "The Prison Warden." We have found ways to laugh and trudge through the challenges of him playing many roles--father, husband, nurse, breadwinner to name just a few. We are simultaneously juggling the transition of becoming a family of 4, preparing for Pesach, and some major career changes for my husband. Sometimes, we feel rushed and harried and we're not sure whether we're coming or going, and then Shabbat comes or a couple of hours when both kids are asleep or we take a walk together around the block and we remember: it's not about
finding time, it's about
making moments.
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| Decorating a Big Brother poster that now hangs at his level outside our bathroom door. He was so thrilled to spend a short time together, just the two of us, doodling, drawing, dotting and peeling stickers! |
When we were engaged, my husband and I were both encouraged to read
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. In my early teacher days, I read the children's version of the book as well,
The Five Love Languages of Children co-authored by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell. I am most certainly a person whose primary "love language" is quality time. I do not need to spend all day with the ones I love, but give me five minutes of your undivided attention, and my cup is full! Although the authors suggest that parents cannot identify their child's primary love language before the age of 5, I am fairly confident my older son shares a strong response as well to quality time, whether or not that is his "primary love language." The dynamic in our house right now has surely changed and the phrase "embrace the chaos" might be appropriate at times to describe it. We have had plenty of less than perfect parenting moments when fatigue, recovery and hormones (for me) and juggling a whole lot has taken the front seat to our usually more mindful and attentive style. One pro is seeing how independent my toddler can be and he is proud of this as well. One con is that we sometimes (many times) miss those little signals that his emotional tank is beginning to deplete and before we know it he (and sometimes we, too) are all in meltdown mode. One thing that has really helped is shifting the focus from
finding time to
making moments.
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| Baking a cake for Shabbos together in the kitchen, which led to... |
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| ...baking a cake in his own kitchen! |
It's so easy when you are busy preparing for a holiday or a family event to want to just plow through the tasks at hand and tend to less immediate needs later. I can recall a friend of mine telling me she makes a point when she's preparing for Shabbos to take her kids to the playground before she begins. She explained that she knows she has a lot to do, but if she invests that time before she begins, her kids are satisfied throughout the afternoon rush so she can accomplish the chores and cooking. I began to do this as well, not just before Shabbos, but in general when I had a lot of household tasks to tend to. I invested some time in an activity with my toddler without distractions or interruptions (as much as possible) and then moved on to my to-do list. Almost 100% of the time, this allowed me to get through the list with minimal kvetching and clinging from the little one! It's a brilliant investment plan and one that is carrying us through our current chaos with a lot of success.
It is unrealistic to plan for the same structure of homeschooling and play activities that we were doing even a month ago. That said, it is not unrealistic to plan for one small activity that allows my toddler and I undivided and uninterrupted time together each day. One of the things I had "planned" for prior to giving birth was that I would take my toddler out on a special mommy and me date the week we got home and leave the baby with my husband. What's happened instead is that we have gladly and graciously utilized the help of a great babysitter to take him on special outings and my husband and I have taken turns shifting things around at home so that we have time as a whole family, time with each one of the children and occasionally even time with each other. Big Brother definitely feels a sense of quality time when we do "school tivities [activities]" together, so sometimes our quality time is doing a quick project to learn about Pesach, an art project, or reading books. Sometimes he will pick an old project (like his 12 Pesukim book) to work on together and sometimes I reach into my personal stash of go-to favorites--like blowing bubbles, a short walk in the neighborhood, making bird treats or baking dessert for Shabbos. Having
one activity planned for each day helps me to feel that we are still maintaining some semblance of routine and structure and also fills my son's emotional tank with the quality time he needs.
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| Continuing in some of the routines we incorporated daily before helps us all feel more grounded. Here are both brothers singing our morning davening together. Big Brother LOVES teaching his baby brother! |
Some activities on the repertoire for this week include:
- "Cleaning" his room for Pesach (he loves NOTHING more than sweeping, mopping and washing things!)
- Sorting chametz and kosher l'Pesach foods in his toy kitchen and washing toys we will keep out in his toy kitchen for Pesach
- Decorating Big Brother and Little Brother t-shirts
- Making and decorating an aron kodesh (holy ark) from a recycled cardboard box to hold our play Torahs
Making moments is about creating quality time even when there is no time. It's also about finding the moments of beauty in the imperfection. In my most challenging times of teaching in a classroom, I would shift my mindset to see a moment of the day that went particularly well rather than struggling to see the success in a day full of significant struggles. The same tactic works well in our home. It would be easy to get hung up on the moment I lost my temper with my toddler or snapped at my husband or to get frustrated by the things I cannot do right now. Rather, I must shift my perspective to embrace the gift of
having to slow down (even when I don't want to) and trust that as with all transitions, we will reach a new normal. Until then, we will embrace the chaos, make moments for each other and continue happily playing!
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| Playing about Pesach |
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