This Week in Mommyhood

The past few weeks have been busy. Other than Cati starting her swimming lessons and Elina fighting off her first cold, nothing new has happened. Even still, I feel as if I am constantly having to relearn how to let go and not feel the need to do it all. At least I can say that I am truly enjoying my girls and I am loving all the extra time we are all getting with Alex. I am also loving that Alex and I are working out together (one week of Insanity done!) and keeping each other motivated.

Here are Elina's development from the last two weeks:

Discovery of Feet. Elina has discovered her feet! I love seeing how she contorts her little body to get a hold of those yummy feet of hers.

Diapering. I'm trying to be a little greener and efficient with our money and, as a result, we are exploring cloth diapers. I don't know if we'll be able to do it full-time, but my goal is to at least use both and spread out how often we buy disposable diapers. I have some bumgenius diapers and some gdiapers.  I especially like the gdiapers because they are a hybrid between disposable and reusable.

 

Here are Cati's development from the last two weeks:

Feeling Guilty. Pumping is still going strong and the only thing that makes it hard is Cati. When I'm pumping Cati likes to put her chair next to mine and play with the pump's tubing. One day she did this and tried to touch my nipples after I finished pumping and I lost it. I yelled and instantly felt horrible but then I felt even more horrible because she kept asking Alex, "Que hizo Cati?" ("what did Cati do?"). I felt so guilty about yelling and having her know that she did something to upset me that I couldn't even bring myself to talk to her. I know it's all part of life, but I wish I could control my reactions better so that she never has to worry about me being mad at her. I just want her to know love and I need to stop underestimating how well she's able to understand emotion and the roll she plays in causing certain emotional reactions.


Shopping. Cati understands more and more about our lives every day. If you ask her where I shop she'll tell you Publix and if you ask her where Alex shops she'll tell you Home Depot. She knows we get deli meats at Publix and eggs at Walgreens. What really amazes us is that she knows this simply by seeing who goes where. These are just little tidbits of our everyday lives that she's picked up on and sorted in her head.

Little Driver. I don't like driving. I only do it because I need to drive. Most of the time I get annoyed with people on the road and end up saying, "Come on people!" It never occurred to me that Cati was paying attention until one day when we were parked in front of our house and Alex put Cati in his lap (he was driving). Cati immediately went for the steering wheel and said, "Come on people! Beep beep!" We couldn't stop laughing. She's a mini me in training!

Here's to more surviving. By the way, have I mentioned how much I hate the terrible twos!?