From #2under2 to #1and2

A year ago, I was super pregnant and terrified of taking on a newborn in addition to my one year old. Two under two. Two kids under the age of two. It has a nice hashtag and ring to brag about how much of a supermom I was.

You would never guess they actually enjoyed this trip to the zoo.

Then I sort of breezed through it. At least that's how I remember it. Not because of my stellar parenting skills, but I just lucked out and got the world's easiest newborn. Sure, newborns can be a lot of hands on labor, constant diaper changes and round the clock feeding and all that, but one awesome thing about Royce, and all newborns is THEY STAY WHERE YOU PUT THEM.

Now (and for the past few months)...not so much.

This guy goes to wherever the food is. 

I'm not quite there yet but...my best educated guess is that having a one year and a two year old is going to be more challenging than having two under two. The other day I ran into Royce's room to get a diaper and left the boys in the kitchen (and it's on the same floor so I was legit gone for seconds) and I came out to Dalton balancing on the baby bouncer (we had it out when our friend visited with her tiny baby!) to successfully reach a pair of scissors, and Royce had went into the bathroom, dumped the trash can, and was happily working on eating the contents. These boys are nuts! And they aren't even joining forces to cause mischief yet!

Royce isn't walking yet, and parents usually say there's no rush for that, but I am excited for it! He crawls and cruises wherever he wants to go, so he's already got more than enough mobility to cause all sorts of trouble and get into everything. Poor guy now does this crazy bear crawl all over the playground and I'm always worried about his little knees or hands getting scraped up and he's always just standing and bouncing and looking longingly at something and I just want him to be able to walk to it! He has now taken a single step a few times but still drops and crawls if there's nothing to cruise on.

Got up and down from here solo.

One extremely obvious thing that JUST occurred to me is that the two of them are going to have a whole relationship that I'm not a part of, probably sooner rather than later. It's a DUH moment but at this point, I'm always there facilitating things between them so it blew my mind a bit one day when Dalton started talking to Royce in the car instead of to me. Another time I went to grab something in another room, Royce started fussing and I heard Dalton saying "it's ok, mommy will be right back". BE STILL MY HEART.

I think I can kind of handle life if I continue with my plan of prioritizing my kids and not getting fired and letting everything else go to hell in a handbasket. Cleaning, gift giving, following through on commitments, generally being a productive member of society - those are all out. I can't deal with those.

Two kids still feels decently manageable since we both have the same schedule and can usually divide and "conquer". I was feeling really guilty about not devoting enough time to Royce recently. I think going forward, I'm going to attempt to be more deliberate about making sure I spend one on one time with each kid, at least occasionally. 

Over spring break, I got to take Royce to the baby room at Storyville (our local library's children's museum). There are so many cool places designed specifically for babies around here, but toddlers around allowed because they wreck shit, so Royce never gets to experience them!

Loved it!

Even though Dalton loves having his brother involved in everything and always asks for him "Royce see it too? Can Royce eat this? Royce come too?", it's still nice to have some time with just the two of us, even just doing something simple like baking cookies together while Royce naps. 

He insisted on carrying them to the car. Look at that focus!

Royce is still nursing before bed and when he wakes up. This makes me really happy because Dalton quit on his own by this point (about a week and a half before his first birthday). Royce is still into it and spits out his paci and enthusiastically leans in when we get in position first thing in the morning. I'm usually in the habit of scrolling through social media while he nurses but lately I've been just sitting quietly and enjoying the rare snuggles with my little daredevil, since he's usually too busy to sit quietly on my lap.

THOSE LIPS THOUGH

My parents came to visit to celebrate Royce's birthday a little early this past weekend. Of course that was wonderful, but the most important part was that Eric and I got to go on a date night! This is kind of a big deal, since the last time we did such a thing, it was for our good friends Lily and Jeff's wedding. They just celebrated their first anniversary. Their wedding was a ton of fun, but one thing that always makes things even a little more fun is when you aren't pregnant and can just leave your baby at home and get your body all to yourself, if you catch  my drift. 

Even better, it was a friend date night, at a Bull and Oyster Roast (a popular fundraiser around here). 

It's really, really rare I get to hang out with these gorgeous ladies without hearing "mommy!" all the time. And as much as that is music to my ears (truth, that's a non sarcastic statement), I think we can all agree that occasionally getting to finish a sentence, much less a conversation, without it is nice, to say the least.

I had a ton of anxiety the first time we ever went on a date night when Dalton was a baby. This time - I was good to go. I've come a long way!

Pure beauty.

In closing, Royce's big day is Saturday! As always, things will be understated with no theme and minimal preparation. All I know is I can't wait to see that little face covered in frosting!