A routine?

I am lucky to have many devoted friends and family members who faithfully check on me. 

Lately it seems like everyone has been asking, " How are you making it work with two kids?" or "How are you doing it all?" 

I get asked this so much that I suspect the truth is obvious...we are not in fact doing it all :D 

Not even close.

A pile of clean laundry...only a quarter of it folded...story of my life these days.

Our house. It seems it could always be cleaner. The drawers and closets that were neatly organized before Eli was born have been slowly losing the battle against entropy.

Eli, somehow wearing one of his brothers size 5 diaper...oops.

We have days where chaos reigns. I say lots of prayers for patience and wisdom in my parenting.

He picked out this ensemble all by himself :)

For example, Max has figured out that once I settle in to nurse Eli, I can no longer chase him around. He reliably chooses this time to taunt me. He knows he's not allowed to tap dance on top of this chair...but there he is, dancing away. And my response is inconsistent. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I take pictures. Sometimes I say, "No" and give him the stern Mommy look. 

Parenting fail.

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The tides are turning in our household though. I felt like we hit our stride as parents when Max was about 4-months old, and now that Eli has passed that milestone we are settling in to the day-to-day routine as a family of four. 

I highly recommend "Wild Things" to anyone with a high strung boy...lot's of practical advise.

 I just read my first book since giving birth to Eli, a sure sign of emerging free time.  I have a few more parenting books to tackle in the coming days, hopefully one of these addresses the correct response to a boy who tap dances on chairs while you're nursing. 

We finally slayed some of the scary weeds in our yard. 

I brushed the dust off of my 60-day slim down DVD. I am committed to starting up an exercise program that consists of more than running after Max and toting Eli around. 

Yes, the times are surely changing around here. 

We laugh around here... a lot.

 And truly, we are good. 

So very good. 

I actually can't imagine a smoother transition from one child to two, I don't remember how we ever made it without Eli.

 Our hands are certainly full these days, but so are our hearts.

While my daily to-do list is often neglected, there is a simple tally that I keep daily in my head. 

It consists of three goals: 

1. Did my boys feel loved today? 

2. Did my boys have fun today?
3. Did my boys learn/experience something new today? 

And when it comes to these basic measures, I think we are succeeding.  

Boys at play :)

Our boys our loved. 

They have fun. 

Every day their active minds find something new to wonder about. 

We only  have one more week of two under two to go. 

So here's to settling in...and while I look forward to more calm, more organization, and clean baseboards. I wouldn't wish away a single second of the past four months.

Not even the tap dancing :)