Thursday, July 10, 2014

Coping mechanisms

We're settling in to a groove over here (me writing this is going to ruin everything, I know). Geneva wakes up some time around 2 and then again between 5:30 and 6:30 and thinks it's daytime for anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours. I spend that time popping her soother back in her mouth and sleeping for the three minutes until she spits it out again, and threatening to swaddle her.


Eleanor wakes up between 6 and 7, but I don't go get her until 7. We have breakfast, the Wren joins us or she doesn't. Whatever time she wakes up, she's always ready to go back down before we're ready to leave the house, so I put her in her car seat and knock her out and stash her in the office until we're walking out the door.


She sleeps until we get to where we're going, at which point she continues to sleep. Mayyyyyyybe she wakes up before we have to leave, but if not, she sleeps all the way home.


Afternoons involve Eleanor taking long, heavy naps, and me trying talk Geneva into sleeping again (she always does eventually, but sometimes it's an ARGUMENT), and then sitting down with a coffee. Evenings are a complete and utter crapshoot.


Today we went to the splash park, and Geneva Wren woke up and ate just before we left, and then she and I had chats while we walked, and then she slept. The walk home is 45 min to an hour, especially if we make pit stops for pelicans, so the real trick is making sure Eleanor doesn't fall asleep. If I give her two of anything - two flowers, two pinecones, two very long pieces of grass - she will make them have conversations with each other all the way home. I will never get a video of this, because she stops doing it as soon as the stroller stops moving.


The first dozen times we all went to a park together, I would take Geneva out and haul her around and sweat like a hog and not be able to play with Eleanor or enable her newfound danger-zoning. Then we were at the splash park one time and I was chatting with this mom while her two boys zoomed around us and suddenly she looks over to where the blankets and strollers are and goes, Oh, I think my baby is awake. And I was like, You can do that? So now I just park the stroller and if Geneva is still sleeping (she is), I leave her in it and check on her every two minutes.


Josie lent us her Buggy Bubble (hereafter known as the Space Pod), which is a huge improvement on the Draped Blanket Held Up By Task Clips, BOTH because it can't drape itself onto her face and smother her, and air gets in at the mesh sides. Another friend is going to lend us their infant sling (it's like a hammock that goes in your bike trailer) so we can start biking again soon. I bought a mesh wrap online because that is a thing that exists, and now I can wear Geneva in the pool if I have to.


We are finding our way. The weather is certainly helping.

2 comments:

blackbird said...

I never had two littles at a time.
FOR REASONS.
You are amazing me.

Amy C said...

I'm a regular reader of your blog Books I Done Read and saw this from your link. Just wanted to say you're really sending me down memory lane talking about your two little girls (as in memory lane from not that long ago but still). I have two girls too, and they were born only 21 months apart so I VERY much remember those crazy days of having a newborn and a toddler at the same time. On bad days I used to hate when people would tell me "enjoy it because it goes so fast etc etc" ... But now my girls are ages 8 and 6 years old and I have turned into one of those people because oh wow it goes fast! Anyway thanks for reminding me how cute they were at that age! :)