Like Riding a Bike

Aaron's Mom left early Wednesday morning on August 1st. I teared up as she walked outside and down the stairs. I shut the door behind me and with a quick turn of the lock my reality suddenly shifted. Two kids, one apartment, one adult keeping things together. I was nervous. In all honestly I expected the worst. Meltdowns at every corner, both kids crying simultaneously, meals not being prepared, the apartment in shambles, you name it, I was expecting it to happen. So we all stayed home, in our jammies, and had nothing on the agenda but: survive.

And survive we did. Actually we did better than that, we enjoyed ourselves.

Lunchtime, naptime, dinnertime, and bedtime were all about 3 hours off. But we worked it out and I mentally high fived myself because I didn't even come close to crying (which considering how easy it was for me to cry, was a pretty awesome feat). We made it, completely unscathed and a little exhausted but I could see that being a Mom of two was in fact a very possible undertaking.

 The first official day being without "The Moms" a friend invited Grace over for a playdate. I prepared the night before and had all outfits and materials ready for a quick dash out the door. Both kids were clean, dressed, and ready to roll by 10am.

I even had the chance to a few errands with just my little man in tow.

 We spent the rest of the afternoon at home, and I finally got it out of my head that I couldn't do this alone. Two days in and we were rockin' it. We even did tummy time, or as Christian does it "Lay on the floor and kick your feet time."

 And then after that it was like riding a bicycle. It was a bicycle I had never been on before, but the pedals operated the same way and I pushed forward just as I normally would have. We still played.

And made dinner (sneaking cheese as we went).

 We still went for walks at the mall (I'm slightly obsessed with the newborn doubles setting of my stroller.)

 I still got pedicures- okay maybe they were just pretend Crayola pedicures by Grace, but it was a pedicure nonetheless.

 We still did the laundry and cleaned the apartment. Grace was "doing the dishes" when I caught her like this scrubbing the sink. I gave her a gold star and told her to keep up the good work ;).

 Things were just a little bit different since we had this awesomeness in the house.

The added babe slowed down the pace for how quick and efficient we were, but the "to do" list could always be pushed aside for moments to snuggle and love.

Soon we were flying around on our new bicycle and wiping out when things got ridiculously overwhelming. Yes, I cried and yelled, and there were time-outs and frustrations and trips to Taco Bell when I couldn't get my stuff in order to make dinner. But we got back up and kept going and everyday seemed to be better than the next. And most importantly, we were happy.

Very happy.

And I wouldn't trade it for all of the ease and comfort in the world.