Things I've Learned

After a 5 week hiatus, I'm finally getting a chance to sit on the patio and catch up on email (sort of) and the blog. I've loved having this past month away from the digital world to enjoy my family, but I've missed it too. Although I've had plenty of sleepless nights, exhausted days, dirty diapers to change and bottles to clean, I can't say that I've been sitting around the house all day in sweatpants, un-showered and Googling like mad every time the baby cries - which is exactly what I did when Riker was born and what I thought life would be like the second time around. Having a baby for the second time has been an absolutely joyous experience, full of all the wonder and excitement of the first time but devoid of all the anxiety and confusion. Such a great and unexpected surprise!

I've learned a couple of things over the last five weeks as a second time parent:

1. It's so much easier to relax when you know that every cry doesn't warrant panic and it's okay to actually leave the house with a young infant.

You just have to be willing to feed the baby with your chin while eating dinner, be prepared to scurry out of wherever you are if she starts wailing, and plan for road trips to take about double the time they would normally take. It's all good.

2. Having a second child doesn't change life all that much. While it certainly is a lot more time consuming, I don't feel like things are as crazy as I thought they would be. I think that's because when you have your first child, your whole world changes - you have to get used to an entirely new life and new routine. Since we've already adapted to life as parents, adding a fourth member to our family has just been really fun and not very stressful.

3. It really is possible to love another child as much as your first. I realize that might sound awful, but I really did have small fears that I could never love another child as much as I love Riker. Little did I know that my heart could grow even bigger than it was before. It's hard to put into words how much I love them both. They are my everything.

4. Having a baby in the summer is awe-some. Not only is there more to do during the summer (I had Riker in the winter, and baby and I were stuck inside for the bulk of three months), but extended daylight and warm weather seems to make me feel less tired even after being awake most of the night. We also have the added bonus that Matt is a teacher and has the summer off with me. He's coaching soccer all summer since their pre-season starts in June, so he's been working a few hours 4 days a week, but we've still been squeezing in lots of fun summer activities and making the most of our time off together. We're determined to make this the best summer yet, exhaustion and all. Not to mention, having a second parent at home is making it infinitely easier for both of us to adjust to the extra work of a second child.

So far the last five weeks has included:

- Lots of family and friend BBQs and pool days

- Blueberry picking 

- Taking Riker to his very first movie - an adventure, to say the least. Thankfully it was a free movie as part of our local movie theater's "Summer Movie Series", so the theater was packed with other small children and mine wasn't the only one who was constantly up & down and talking loudly. :/ My friend Heather and I ended up leaving before the movie ended, me with a crying baby in one arm and a kicking toddler in the other, but hey - it was fun while it lasted. Ha!

- A vacation home in Vermont to visit my family and take Riker to a farm museum, the lake I swam in as a child, and for an overnight stay at Jay Peak Resort to splash around in their indoor water park.

I have to say, this water park was awesome, and so was the food and gorgeous hotel.

My favorite meal there was a "locavore buffet" where all the foods were sourced from local farms. I didn't snap any pics of that since I was too busy taste testing nearly everything they had to offer.

We had such a blast on our little vacation, and part of the reason we had so much fun is that we had no expectations and just let the kids' schedules dictate what we could and could not do. We fully planned on the drive to take 10+ hours since we have to feed the baby every 2-3 hours, but we incorporated fun activities along the way so that it wasn't stressful - we stopped at several playgrounds to feed Carson so Riker could run around, took a break to watch the World Cup in Albany, ate at one of our favorite restaurants in New Paltz, and made a pit stop at Lake George so Riker could swim.

- Getting a babysitter a few times here and there so we could enjoy some time with friends during the USA finals and over 4th of July weekend.

- Spending time on the beach, of course. Don't worry, Carson has her very own tent and umbrella to keep her shaded. ;)

We even had a kite-flying beach picnic last night with some of our good friends. I always feel so grateful to live where we live when we're up at the ocean.

All in all, it's been a really great couple of weeks and I'm thankful for every minute I have home with my babies right now.

On to #5...

5. Eating "one pot" meals are the easiest way to make sure we eat healthy meals balanced with protein, healthy carbs and veggies when we don't have time to cook a big meal. It's way too easy to skip making a vegetable when we just throw stuff on the grill or make a simple pasta meal, so I've been making a lot of big salads and "bowl meals" to make sure we're still eating our greens. Some favorites include:

Taco Salad - always a pleaser.

Cauliflower "rice" (recipe found on Pinterest) with shrimp, onions & peppers, lime and cilantro.

Hawaiian quinoa bowl with zucchini, carrots, coconut flakes, cranberries, pineapple and macadamia nuts (chicken on top for Matt and Riker). Red wine occasionally on the side too...

Yogurt bowls with assorted fruits (whatever's in my Door to Door Organics box that week), dried cranberries or raisins, and almond / walnuts (mainly for breakfast, but yogurt bowls & smoothies have made their way to the dinner table too).

Mediterranean Couscous Salad - which I actually made for a family BBQ.

6. Even when life seems crazy and you're tired beyond belief when the baby starts to cry at 3 am after you just finished feeding and putting her back to bed...be thankful for everything. All of it. In the weeks since Carson was born and we had that terrible scare, I've heard too many horrible stories of parents losing their newborns at birth. I can't even imagine having to experience the loss of a child, and am thankful every day for our two little miracles that sleep safely in their beds each night. It's really easy to get tired and overwhelmed with the day-to-day of parenting two children, but whenever that feeling inches up, I just look at their tiny faces and am reminded of how blessed we are. 

They are only this little for a short time, so I'm cherishing every second we have before they grow up on us.

<3

Home Sweet Home

Well Thanksgiving is over and it's officially the Christmas season. I'm so excited! This is easily my most favorite time of the year. We arrived home from Vermont yesterday around 5:30 and immediately unloaded the car so we could go pick out our tree. We were too tired to decorate last night, but it's our annual tradition to get our tree the Sunday after Thanksgiving and we weren't about to change that.

This was the first year Riker actually got involved with picking the tree, which made it even more fun.

Vermont Weekend

We arrived at my parents' last Wednesday, and my sister Amanda and her boyfriend Justyn came the next morning. My parents are planning to move south within the next year, so a few weeks ago they sold their house - my childhood home - and moved into an apartment downtown until they are ready to leave New England. I was a little sad and worried that the new place wouldn't feel like home, but my mom made the apartment all cozy with a mix of new decor and things from our old house; with all the family there, it really still felt like home.

Our three days consisted of a lot of family time, relaxation, cooking and eating (of course), movies, games and bundling up like marshmallows every time we went outside. It was only 1 degree on Saturday morning! Our weekend looked a little like this:

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Sunday started with a breakfast casserole and berry pancakes made by my grandma and mom, and we were on the road by 9:00 am. I ate pretty much whatever I wanted this weekend, so needless to say it was a smoothie and salad kind of Monday here.

It felt good to gobble up a bunch of veggies.

Time to wind down now and settle in for the night, I am off to the city for work tomorrow. Gotta get back into the old routine.

How was your holiday weekend?

Back from the Grave

Happy Thanksgiving from beautiful snowy Vermont!

We arrived here yesterday evening, and after chatting with my parents and getting Riker settled, Matt and I headed out for a little birthday dinner with my good friend Julie, her sister and her brother-in-law. We went to a little Italian place in Montpelier, Sarducci's, where we had a table on the water with the snow falling outside and twinkling white lights all around. So picturesque. It's good to be home!

***

It's been a whole week since I've had a chance to post, so we'll do a quick catch-up on the happenings since last weekend. I've been dealing with a slow burning flu/cold for about the last 5 weeks, which has been annoying to say the least, but on Sunday the thing turned mutant and I felt like I was on my death bed. Riker also caught croup, so our whole house has sounded like a giant infirmary. Needless to say the blog got back burnered since I was crawling into bed every night right after work, but thankfully I got into the doctor this week and he gave me some meds to clear things up - I even got an inhaler since my lungs were wheezing so badly - and I'm finally feeling normal again. Phew!

So that said, here's a peek at what's been going on before and post-death bed.

Saturday was a pretty normal day, but that evening we had plans with a bunch of our good friends (12 to be exact) - the same ones we went to Labrador Lounge in September - for a dinner to catch up.

We went to Ryan Michael's Riverfront Grille in Brick and it was quite good, but the company was even better. ;)

We all shared appetizers, and then I ordered Asian salmon and crispy spinach for my entree.

With the most amazing mashed potatoes I've ever eaten on the side. I also had a few bites of Heather's fish tacos.

Pretty much everyone ordered dessert, which almost never happens, but when I heard "warm chocolate chip cookie sundae" I was sold. Talk about a monster dessert!

The rest of the weekend was pretty ordinary. Oatmeal, reading, tea (um, sugar cookie tea?!), laundry, laying on the couch watching football praying for cough relief, and a little baking for my office Thanksgiving potluck party.

And in not-so-ordinary happenings:

Matt and Riker got into a car accident :( Thankfully they were not harmed at all, which is the most important thing. But we just heard from the insurance company yesterday that they're calling it totaled. It's a little sad and feels like the end of an era since Matt's had a 4-Runner for as long as I've known him, and we brought Riker home from the hospital in that car. But it was getting older and starting to need some fixing up, so we had been planning to trade it in soon anyway. If it had to happen, now was the best time. I guess next weekend we'll be looking for a new car. Eek!

Alright, I'm off to spend some time with my family and get my cooking on. Have a wonderful holiday weekend!