MIA

It's been a bit, I know. With everything else going on here, and whoo boy it's been full up around here, it's just so hard to find motivation (and time) to blog. It only gets worse the longer I stay away...

The kiddos are doing great. We are at a wonderful phase with Mason in which he spends all day just being a sweetheart. He is such a mellow and patient baby (KNOCKING ON WOOD). He is making lots of coos and aroos now, and is always ready with a smile to answer yours. I don't dare claim to have figured out the ins and outs of Skyler's moods, but things have been better. I am pretty certain that 99.9% of the tantrums we see out of him now are completely the fault of his age. Even then we haven't been having nearly the same level of occurrence as what we did about a month ago. Overall they are quite the pair of awesome little boys.

We have been busy with guests and travelling. Andy had a friend in town first, then I had some college roommates come into town just before we all headed out for an out of town wedding. It was my/our first time away from Mason and things went really well. My mom took over the littlest guy in our absence while Skye spent time with Andy's family. It felt strange initially, leaving Mason for so long so soon, but friends and wine helped ease the separation. The only downside to the whole thing was all the milk I bothered to pump while we were gone had to be tossed due to it's untimely defrosting on our return trip. Which reminds me, I have a breastfeeder now! About a month ago the tide changed and Mason suddenly became amenable to taking his milk straight from the tap. This was/is a huge relief as pumping to provide for feedings was really wearing me down. I was literally counting down the days until he would be less reliant on my milk, just wishing the time away so I could not be attached to the damn pump. I did because I had to, well I felt I had to, but I most certainly hated it. So very glad the little monkey changed his mind.

The biggest and latest news in my world is that I got laid off. My former employer had to reduce their staff by about fifty percent, I was part of the deleted chunk. I actually received this news while I was en route to the wedding mentioned above. Granted I did work for my in-law's company and the news was delivered by my husband, but still it was a bit of a shock. Really it's not a bad thing though, we were going to be paying an arm and a leg to have both kids in day care and not really looking forward to putting Mason into someone else's care at such a young age. We have a bit of money tucked away to help us for at least the next year, so now I have a new job title: stay at home mom. It's something I've wanted, so obviously this isn't the end of the world. I have some feelings of guilt knowing that I will be home with the boys when Andy is in an office, but we both agree that at least one of us has this opportunity. I have some thoughts on how to perhaps make a little side income too, so we will see how that goes.
I'd like to say that I will be better about blogging, and commenting, but really I am lucky to get to my computer once a week. I will try though:).

We survived

We managed to survive, and (I will concede) even managed to enjoy our week of just us three. It was certainly hard, it was definitely tiring, and I am sooooo very glad to have Andy back BUT we did manage just fine during the week that he was away. Not surprisingly I feel much more comfortable and in control of the whole parent-of-two thing having gone through this past week. Perhaps I really needed this trial by fire? I wouldn't go so far to admit that, but being on this side of the week I can at least see that it was a validating experience.

Since our family's expansion I have always been a little anxious when left with the two boys alone. I didn't really dread it, but I definitely avoided it when I could. There was no avoiding this situation with Andy gone. We are lucky enough to live very close to both of our parents, so I did have relief throughout the week here and there. The majority was all me though, and as silly as it might seem I am pretty proud of having managed this last week all by my lonesome. It's given me greater confidence regarding my ability to parent these two (especially when they are together and I am alone).