I have always been a girl’s girl. I grew up loving on baby dolls and playing house and watching every princess movie. I still love sequins and glitter and dressing up. I have a ton of girlfriends. I’m not a super girly girl, but I truly love a lot of the things that make up the category of stereotypical girl stuff. I always hoped that when I eventually grew up and got married I’d get to have a little girl of my own. It was, as Cinderella says, a “wish your heart makes,” a dream I couldn’t completely let myself believe would come true because of how strongly I wanted it. As if by telling myself it probably wouldn’t happen I might be comforted when it didn’t.

I was honestly a little amazed that when Quinn was born in 2014 I was not disappointed. Instead, I was immediately enamored. My son is the love of my life. He’s a lottery win of a human. He’s my best guy and I feel like I have a bond with him that is nothing short of miraculous. He is the biggest joy of my existence.

My daughter though, she is the fruition of that heart-formed wish. She still feels like a dream. I still feel an inkling of the same shock and happy surprise every day I pick her up out of her crib and hear myself saying, “good morning beautiful girl!” When I take her into her brother’s room to wake him up, they reach for each other and snuggle together and I pinch myself. Even when they are hard in the way all children are sometimes, I am knocked breathless with gratitude every single day. I feel impossibly lucky to have them both.

This year has flown. How has it been so many months since I first held my long-awaited baby girl with her wrinkly face and downy hair? I miss it though it’s barely gone. Reese has been in the world for 12 months and still I have trouble believing she’s here, and she’s mine. Today I dressed her in a jumper and tights and tiny gray suede mary-janes and I haven’t been able to stop smiling about it. In fact, I keep having to convince myself to buy the sweet girl clothes I fall in love with (we don’t *need* them) and enjoy it while it lasts.

Reese was carefully named. Like Quinn, her name was both a family name and one we choose based on meaning. Quinn’s name means wisdom and intelligence. Reese means ardor or fiery. They both live up their names quite well; Reese maybe a little more than expected! Second children are a trip. Where Quinn would actually play with toys and happily pull washcloths out of a bin for 30 minutes, Reese is only happy if she’s destroying things, making a mess, or eating something she shouldn’t. We have a house full of a toys and she only wants my phone, the remote, or whatever Quinn happens to be holding at any given moment. Sometimes I just open the fridge and let her take out all the juice boxes and rip the leaves off the celery because I need a second.

Reese wants so much to be big. She has already entered the crazy toddler stage where she wants what she wants when she wants it and will let you know you’re wrong. Before we left the house today she had already cried hot tantrum-y tears because I: 1) put her down for a minute, 2) picked her up, 3) put her in her high chair, 4) gave her yogurt drops 5) took too long to deliver more yogurt drops. It’s all very fun.

We call her Reesey, Reese-a-roo, Wreck-It-Reese, or Reesey-Piecy, depending on her current level of destruction. Quinn calls her “Reese-a-piece” most of the time and “Vicious Baby Monster” when she’s getting into his stuff. He is very actively trying to teach her how to go up the stairs.

Reese has a very small vocabulary thus far. I think she mostly understands that I’m “Mama” and Zach is “Da”. She says “Hi” and “Mo” (more) but absolutely refuses to do any of these on command. She waves and points and is meeting all the milestones. She’s a pretty decent eater, but she’s picky and what she’ll eat is very dependent on the day. Her absolute favorite thing that she will eat at any time is cheese, everything else is sorta touch and go. We feed her bits of whatever is on the menu and sometimes she’ll eat it. She likes toast, peas, corn, ham, sausage, hot dog, macaroni, pizza, broccoli, bread, yogurt, green beans, kidney beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheerios and raisins. She loves her crunchies and yogurt drops too.

Despite all that eating, Reese is still a tiny imp. She’s finally in 9 month clothes and just shy of 20 pounds. She is still rocking 6 teeth and thankfully she has a better hairline than her older brother did at her age. She is still my blonde, blue-eyed, buttercup and we get stopped and told she’s “so beautiful” every time we’re in public. I strongly agree, but I am biased.

She loves music and will dance whenever there’s a few bars of a song in the air. My favorite of her dance moves is her little single ladies wave, it kills me. She likes to read books with me and use me as a climbing apparatus. She loves to be tickled and kissed and thrown around on the couch. She loves her Daddy and searches for him whenever she hears his voice. She routinely falls asleep while they watch car repair videos together and she really likes poking his nose. She loves playing chase-tickle-cuddle with her brother until they inevitably bang their heads together and everyone cries.

She loves bath time. She hates getting her diaper changed. She now puts up with me changing her clothes pretty well, and absolutely loves to have her hair brushed, which melts me into goo. Most nights she falls asleep before 8pm and sleeps until 5ish. She still likes to nurse before bed and when she wakes up, but drinks formula at school and is very good at drinking out of a straw cup.

This weekend we had a small party for her, with friends and cake and donuts and a Sweet Swan theme. She slept through most of it, but she enjoyed her first cupcake and I enjoyed washing pink frosting out of her wispy hair.

It was the perfect celebration to end what has been the most joyful year of my life.
Reesey girl, you are my dream come true.
Happy birthday to you, sweet girl, I can’t wait to watch you grow.

Quinn is five.
He starts kindergarten after Labor Day and I have already teared up whilst buying school supplies because I am a sap and he is my baby.

I’m going to be honest, this past year of Quinn was a damn joy. I’m not just saying that because he’s my kid and I think he’s made of rainbows; I think we really turned a corner shortly after he turned four. He’s a delight. He’s funny and sweet and mostly rational. He is an easy going little dude who has left a lot of his preschooler challenges behind this year. We rarely deal with tantrums and he’s becoming less and less of a picky eater.

He’s dealt with a lot of change this year and he’s taken them all splendidly. A new house and a new sibling are no joke, but he just eased right through. He is the best big brother to Reese. He loves her so much and I rarely see even a tinge of jealousy. He is constantly making me laugh or swoon, and I love being around this silly, sweet kid.

Quinn at 5 loves tv (I feel some guilt about this, but it is what it is), swimming in the pool, treasure hunting and all things pirate/treasure-related, playing good guys/bad guys and variations on that theme which all seem to require really intricate instructions for me, white cheddar shells, surprises, PEZ candy (gross, but whatev), trucks and nerf guns and magnatiles, playdates with friends, playing board games, the song “Havana” which he calls “bana-oh-na-na,” and making his sister laugh.

I am struggling with this kindergarten thing. Quinn has been at the same daycare since he was 10 months old and we’ve been lucky as to not have had many issues with other kids or teachers. In September he’s going to start kindergarten in a big new school. I feel like I’m sending him into the open ocean with a rowboat. I know he’ll be fine and I’m probably worrying for no reason (hello, this is my core nature), but ugh. It is taking every ounce of my strength to not allow myself to turn into a bulldozer parent.

I think the biggest thing I worry about right now as a mom of a little boy is the possibility of other kids snuffing the light out of my child. There’s a knot in my stomach when I think about the general populous and the toxic masculinity that I know exists outside the little orbit I have kept my kid safely inside of since 2014. I can only do so much. Other kids are going to flavor his existence and I know he’s going to run up against some old & tired boys-are-strong-and-silent-and-tough tropes. He’s such a happy guy and I want him to stay that way as long as possible. I want him to dance and tell me lady bugs are “so cute!” and draw me rainbow hearts until he’s 25.

Five years man, it goes so fast.

Thus, I’m trying to ring out every bit of life out of our current baby days. At least every few days I walk Reese around the house in my arms and whisper to her about how happy I am she is in the world, how much I wanted her– this beautiful blue-eyed daughter of mine, and how she surpasses my every dream. Every day I spend a quiet minute or two being grateful for the honor bestowed upon me—being the mom to the two greatest kids in the galaxy. I truly don’t know how I got so lucky.

Even though I go to bed exhausted most nights, having given so much of myself to these tiny people who need me so strongly, I know I will miss it all when it’s gone.

Time marches forward much to my annoyance.

Reese is six months old and is still my little baby. She is spoiled, maybe even more so than Quinn was, with three doting people tending to her whims. Someone is always either holding her or playing with her. She has Zach trained to stare at her in the swing until she falls asleep, demanding to be the center of attention even when she’s unconscious. Quinn makes her laugh like crazy, which makes me about 200% more of a sap than usual. I know there will be a day when they annoy each other and I am cherishing their present mutual admiration.

Reese at six months is a champion sitter, and only really topples over when she’s tired. She likes the bouncer and the walker and has virtually no interest in food yet. She’s not quite as big as she should be, which honestly shocks me since she’s chubbier than Quinn was, but under doctor’s orders we’re working on fattening her up. We’ve tried a few purees and she has only minimally enjoyed green beans. She doesn’t quite have her pincher grasp yet, so finger foods aren’t really working out for her either.

She will sleep in her crib for a few hours at night but still wakes at least once to eat. She prefers to sleep cuddled next to my ribcage. She likes her bath/lotion/story routine at bedtime and will sometimes take a pacifier for me. She’s very chatty and likes to yell at you if you dare stop looking at her. She’s started giving me “kisses.” I love the eat-moms-face stage, it’s the best.
This month Reese started at the same daycare as Quinn. She’s had a bit of a rough transition. She was previously under the care of a lovely lady who has a daughter around two, and thus she had a lot of hands-on care. Reese is not taking kindly to being one of 10 kiddos instead of one of 2. She’s still adjusting. She does not like to nap at school, so she’s a very sleepy girl in the evenings.

Her first week of daycare coincided with her very first cold, as expected. The next year will probably include quite a few viruses, if I remember correctly. Immune system, ahoy.

What boggles my mind these days is how very herself Reese has already become. Quinn and I were watching videos of him from around the same time in his life and the differences between him and his sister are so astounding to me. Reese seems much more certain in herself. I feel like she came out fully formed with opinions about the world and a decisiveness I cannot begin to understand. Quinn has always been happy to follow my lead, hang out and watch things before giving them a try. Reese either wants to dive in head first or absolutely nothing to do with it.

I can’t wait to see how she grows more into herself next.

Now before someone pops up with the “everyone is getting side hustles because: student debt/wage stagnation/health care costs, etc.” I’m not disagreeing. I don’t think the hustle is the problem. I admire the hustle. Charge what you’re worth and get that money, y’all. It took you years to learn how to do what you do and make it look easy. People should pay you for the time it took you to master your skills, not the minutes it takes you execute.  What I’m noticing is that women tend to monetize their leisure whereas men tend to pick up more work, leaving their leisure activities alone.
Look at the rise of MLM’s, a world that is overwhelmingly women-centered. There’s a network marketing scheme promising a return on just about any leisure-related activity women tend to enjoy. Women interested in fashion? Lularoe. Interested in make-up? Younique. Jewelry, arts and crafts, skincare, spa products, nail polish, essential oils, candles, wine, children’s books, kid’s clothes, cooking utensils, foodstuffs, purses, and on and on and on. If a woman could be interested in it, there’s an MLM for that.

You know why I think this is the case?
I think women, whether they realize it or not, do not feel like they should engage in leisure that they cannot label as productive. I think women feel guilty embracing leisure, at least the women my age. Maybe it’s a millennial thing, yet another aspect of ourselves we can condemn because we grew up aspiring to cram a ton of things into a college application and being told if we just try hard enough we can make our passion our career. That could be the case, but I think it’s farther reaching than that.

I am not a scholar, but I do know that before women were joining the workforce in droves a great majority of women did something on the side to supplement the family income. Our great-grandmothers took in sewing or laundry, provided childcare, typed manuscripts, sold pies, embroidered handkerchiefs, etc. Now the majority of women spend their week earning a paycheck, as well as still handling the majority of the second shift and emotional labor. Then, when they show off a hat they crocheted for themselves on Facebook, they’re met with a chorus of “how beautiful! you should sell those!” Work hard, and turn your play into more work, it seems.

It even seeps into self-care. We love to tell women about self-care. Take care of yourselves so you can take care of others (which, wow thanks for completely jumping over the fact that I should take care of myself because I am a person who deserves care, but whatever). Self-care yourself with this $8 bath bomb! Did you know you could buy a bunch of these bath bombs and then sell them to other women who need self-care and make money off your self-care? Now you can take care of yourself guilt-free! This logic works on a lot of women because I promise you, a great many women feel guilty about spending time and/or money on themselves.

Quick aside–Friends, number one- you cannot buy your way to self-care. Number two-you do not need to justify it. Personally, I find that true self-care usually involves things that are hard, but free. Like making myself drink more water or take a walk or finally make that phone call I’ve been dreading. For me, it’s reading instead of scrolling facebook or sitting outside in the sun, even when it’s cold.  It’s easy to stroll through Target and fill a cart with bubble bath and candles and wine and put a check mark through #selfcare on your agenda. It’s harder to actually take care of yourself by going to therapy or eating a full meal instead of mainlining coffee and nibbling the crumbs your kid leaves behind. Most of the time you do not need to buy shit to practice self-care. You do need to make yourself a priority though, and that’s something that I feel like a lot of us struggle with immensely.

I would venture to guess that a lot of us internalize some variation of the idea that if we’re spending our time doing something that isn’t profitable, it should at least benefit the household. I know I’m not alone in sitting on my couch at the end of the night running through the never-ending list of things I *should* be doing. There is always something that needs to be cleaned or organized or planned or made better in some way. Even though I know the idea of household zero–where everything looks perfect and all the evidence of living is in its respective home–only exists in staged houses where people don’t actually live, I can’t always talk myself out of wanting it. Because I know that my home will forever be a reflection of me, more so than my husband or kids. No one walks into a house where a couple resides and thinks “oh man, he really has a clutter problem, he needs to Konmari this place.”  It isn’t fair, it’s just how it goes.

Then you add kids into the mix and a whole different never-ending should-do list evolves, but you know what? When it comes to some leisure activities, kids are a great excuse. It feels more acceptable to enjoy creating elaborate scrapbooks, lunches, photo shoots, and party themes if you do it for your kids.  Recently I complained on Instagram about a mom who gave each kid in the preschool class a personalized mailbox full of candy for Valentine’s Day. I bemoaned her effort because it made my $1.99-a-box PJ Mask valentines look pretty lame in comparison. Now I think she probably wanted an excuse to use her Cricut and it’s easier to sell yourself on doing something extra for your kid than it is to sell yourself on doing something just because you think it’d be fun. I’m sure she stood in the Target dollar spot piling her cart full of candy-colored mailboxes thinking, “I mean, I needed to get valentines anyway, so it’s not like I’m just doing this because I want to. I’m not that extravagant. It’s for the children.”  Just ask any mom how much money she’s spent clothing her child this year versus how much she’s spent on herself. We can always justify doing the thing we’d like to do if we tell ourselves it’s for the kids.
We spend more time working than generations past and it’s hard for us to justify “wasting time” on leisure activities. It’s easier to imbibe in things we like doing if we can legitimize it by either tagging it as something we’re doing for someone else (like a kid, or a spouse) or getting paid for it. I must admit I am guilty of this very thing. I have, in part, monetized my hobby.  I teach two different poetry classes at my local writer’s center (shameless plug, come write with me) after years of taking classes and writing many, many poems. It’s fun and I enjoy having the extra pocket change.  However, I’ve realized that while I have zero problem signing myself up to teach, every semester I struggle with allowing myself to sign up to take courses as a student.

I don’t have any answers. I don’t have a call to action. It’s just something I’ve noticed and I’m going to guess is true writ large, but seems to have gone unsaid in the think pieces I’ve read. Women and work and leisure and self-care, it’s all connected in a big, twisty knot. Maybe if we look at it enough we can start to untangle it.

Reese will be five months old in four days. She’s now squarely a “baby” instead of a newborn and I already miss the first version of her. She’s all rolls and squish and giggles now. Miss Reese wants to be big. As is usual for a child with a big sibling, she is happiest when she’s in view of her brother. She has started sitting up for a few minutes at a time before she topples over and we have a nice rotation of floor play/walker/and bouncer happening during her waking hours.

She’s started the distracted eating phase, which makes trying to feed her an uncomfortable struggle until she’s ravenous or exhausted. She has no teeth, but drools like a St. Bernard and spends a lot of time trying to put everything in her mouth. I tried to tempt her with both oatmeal and pears this month, but she’s not quite interested in food. She’s moved up to 3-6 month clothes and will probably need the next size up in diapers soon. Speaking of clothes, everything spring/summer for baby girls is ridiculously cute and I could easily drop hundreds of dollars on clothes she does not need. She has a dresser full of hand me downs, but I will probably buy a few things because how many times in my life do I get to dress my tiny daughter?

She loves baths and I am eager to see how she takes to the pool this summer. Her current favorite toys are a little squeaky duck she can chomp on, a crinkly book, her snow white doll, and wobble duck.

Sleeping is a bit of a struggle. I was very spoiled by Quinn, my unicorn baby, and Miss Reese has not followed in her brother’s footsteps. She still wakes a few times a night. If I could get the pacifier to stay in her mouth while she sleeps I think she’d be fine, but she spits that sucker out every night. I’m trying to get her to use a lovey but nothing has stuck so far. Every night she starts out in her crib and sleeps a good 4 hour stretch there before she ends up in bed with me for the rest of night.

Quinn is still enamored with her. Recently I told him that one day he’ll probably find himself mad at her and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “why would I ever be mad at Reesey?” I don’t think he fully grasps that she’ll be big enough to mess with his stuff. Then after dinner one night this week I asked him what he wanted for dessert. He nuzzled Reese’s cheek and said, “maybe I’ll just eat this baby.” Sometimes I worry about my little dude not getting quite as much of me as he used to, but then he’ll say something like that and I know he’s doing more than ok.

As much as I worry about Quinn not getting as much of me as he used too, I also worry about Reese not getting as much of me as Quinn did. I know I hold Reese far less than I held Quinn, just from pure necessity. I know I spent most of maternity leave with Quinn with him in my arms, and for the first year of his life he sat on my lap most of my non-working hours. Reese spends a lot more of her time moving between baby containment spaces. The silver lining is it makes the time I do spend just holding her that much sweeter. Once a while she’ll snuggle into my chest, putting her head beneath my chin, and I want to stop time for an hour and just revel in her. I am obsessed with her. I tell her all the time how lucky I am and how loved she is and there are so many moments when I feel so excruciatingly happy I can’t breathe.

I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Every day after school Quinn asks me, “Mommy, what should we do today? What can we do that’s fun?”

Every day I have no good answers. I end up listing off the things that we have to do–the daily chores, dinner making/kid feeding, bath taking, etc.

“That’s not fun, Mommy” he sighs.

He’s right. There’s not a lot of actual fun in our evenings, at least for me. He has a playroom full of a toys and a mom who does not mind watching a few episodes of Blaze and the Monster Machines. Last night we played with playdough for an hour before dinner. He has fun, even if he claims otherwise.

Me though, not so much.

Most of my “fun” lately is relegated to fancier versions of things I’d have to do anyway, like taking a slightly longer shower with the *good* shampoo, or over-indulging in passive hobbies like staying up an hour later to watch the last episode of something we’re binge watching.

Just typing that out makes me cringe at how boring I have become. Sure, I have other hobbies that ebb and flow due to the season of life I’m in—things like writing and novel reading and baking and working out, but even those things serve other purposes besides fun. They’re either stress relief or things I *need* to do to be a functional person who other people like to be around. (Once a college professor asked me if I was forced to either never read or never write again which one would I pick. There are few things I love more than reading, but I replied instantly that if I couldn’t write I would explode. So, it’s not like I have much of a choice with that “hobby”).

Of course, hanging out with my kids brings me a lot of joy, but it’s not always fun. There’s a difference. Walking alongside your four-year-old while he rides his tricycle up and down the street a dozen times might make you feel alive with the joy of watching this tiny person do this spectacularly human-child rite of passage thing, but it’s not actually fun. I’m not the one with the wind in my hair. I’m the one with back pain from lugging around a sack of sleeping baby in the not-actually-that-ergonomic Ergo.
I think in an adult existence such as mine, one with a job and children and a mortgage and other responsibilities, there is a general lack of fun.

It’s kind of been going this way for a while. It starts when you’re a teen, I think. First we let go of a lot of the stuff we love as kids when we get to middle school, sacrificing those childish things at the altar of “being cool.” Then we start binning our interests into clubs and sports and activities– line items on a college application. Then we morph them into things that can help our career, keep us healthy/young/thin, fulfill a social contract, or help us turn a profit. Now I feel like a lot of us settle for a few glasses of wine and a cheese plate, or a brewery and something deep fried. Y’all, that’s delicious and please invite me, but let’s not define it as what we do for fun. The last time I can remember most of my free time being spent doing things just for the fun of them is when I was ten.

My mother will tell you ten-year-old me watched a lot of tv, which is true, but I also did a lot of other things. I loved reading novels, I played with Barbies (which usually consisted of picking out wardrobes and creating intricate backstories for the dolls but not actually doing a lot of playing with them—which is probably why my attempts at fiction are always very character centric but lack any sort of plot). I started baking from scratch. I did a lot of crafts. I made up gymnastics routines on the trampoline. I loved any kind of playing pretend. I spent hours cutting out words and images from magazines and modge podging them onto notebooks. I had various collections that served no purpose other than the fact that they brought me joy. I went roller skating whenever I could and played tag for hours even though I claimed to hate running. I made jewelry and taught myself how to do various braids. Outside of school and chores, most of what I did was just for fun.

How do I bring some of that 10-year-old fun into my 32-year-old life? Obviously I still watch a lot of tv (The Good Place is a recent new-to-me favorite), and I’m actively working on reading more novels. I am working on getting back to a fitness routine, but I do think my days of tag and roller-skating are mostly behind me. I think what I need to do is pick up some more craft hobbies. That kind of artsy-crafty aspect of myself has been pretty diminished and I miss it. I am not good at it, but I miss doing it.

I want to do fun things. I want my kids to see me doing things I love, especially things I can’t do in front of a screen. I’ve been trying to do more of this. I purposefully borrow/buy physical books to read because I’m positive that seeing my parents read novels influenced my love of books. I let Quinn help me cook and bake because I did the same when I was young. I want my kids to see me as a fully developed human with interests and things I like to do that don’t revolve around them. I want to be a fun mom, and a mom who has fun. Maybe I’ll hit up the craft store on my way home.

What did ten year old you do for fun?

How can you do more of it today?

As I usually do, I’m easing back into working out by following the same workout plan I’ve been using for years, the Jamie Eason Live Fit program. It’s a twelve week program that starts with weight training and then adds in cardio and I’ve done the first few weeks enough times that I have the days and exercises memorized. It used to be free on bodybuilding.com, but now it appears to be behind a paywall. You can still find it available for free if you have some spare time to google and click around pinterest. There’s also an eating plan, but even though I know weight loss is 90% what you eat, I’m not about to make myself miserable by spending brain cells worrying about eating exactly according to plan, plus I’m nursing and I want to keep my supply. Instead I’m just going to work on incorporating more vegetables into my diet and cut down on my booze and sugar intake and hope for the best.

So, here we go again.
I’m no stranger to starting over. I’ve done it a handful of times over the years. It used to bother me to know how far I’ve traveled from peak fitness. I’ve completed a half marathon. I’ve run 8:30 miles. I could pump out three sets of pushups without much of a struggle.

Now, I don’t think I could run a mile without dying and yesterday I completed some really pathetic pushups on my knees.
It’s humbling to find yourself back at the start line and honestly, it can be frustrating and demotivating.

For me, a lot of the physical accomplishments I’ve made have been in an effort to prove to myself that I can. Once I’ve checked off the block, it’s no longer interesting. For instance, I have zero desire to run another half marathon. I did it. It was hard and it sucked and I definitely did not enjoy it for any other reason than proving it to myself. I did it once, and thus I know I could do it again, so why bother?
I would like to run again. I would even like to do a few shorter races, because those things are fun. I actually enjoyed them. Running 13.1? Nope.

I intend to start working back towards some running goals when the cardio aspect of the program picks up in a few weeks, but I’ll be going very slowly, since I have to baby my pelvic floor for a while yet.

Anyway, I started back with the livefit program this week. I picked light weights and still struggled. I was sore before I even left the gym, which is both great and depressing (I am so out of shape, you guys). But it feels good. It feels like progress.

Three months.
The baby is three months old and I have to keep buying her bigger pants. Girlfriend is not following in her brother’s peanut-sized footsteps. She’s such a squishy chunk and I love it. I want to eat her delicious thigh rolls and her incredibly pinchable elbow dimples. She’s solidly in 3-6 month pants now, and though I can still squeeze her into 0-3 onesies, I had to pack away the last of the larger newborn things. I no longer have a newborn, cue tears.

Not only is she growing like a weed, but Reese desperately wants to be big. She’s killing me. Every morning she looks bigger. She always wants to be sitting up and her head control is fantastic. You can tell she’s getting tired of this baby thing and wants to be a big girl. She jibber jabbers enthusiastically whenever she’s put down, as if to plead her case. She’s just starting to bat at toys and grab things and, as long as I’m not trying to capture evidence of it, she giggles when I tickle her.

This month she finally started taking a pacifier, and thus her over-eating and spitting up has greatly reduced. After weeks of trying unsuccessfully to get her to take any binkie, I popped one in her mouth to show Zach how much she hated them and she happily sucked away as if she had always been a fan. I swear I heard her thinking “I’ll show you, mom! Watch this.” Jokes on you, girlie, I’m very happy to be proven wrong in this instance.

Reese-a-roo still remains a good baby, though a little more opinionated and harder to please than her brother. Where Quinn was rarely without a smile, Reese makes you work for them. She is still understandably unsure about this whole living in this world thing. Mommy’s cool, but she could take or leave everything else. She’s starting to fall into a routine and continues to sleep well in her bassinet. She spent two nights in her crib, and I should probably move her back in there, but I like having her next to me and I’m reluctant to give it up just yet. Our old house was small enough that a bassinet wouldn’t fit in our bedroom, nor was it necessary. The nursery in our new home feels incredibly far away, even though it’s the very next room to our master.

She loves her brother, sleeping on her Daddy, eating, bath time, being a baby in a bag (sleep sack), playing with her toys and diaper changes. She hates red lights, getting her pajamas on after a bath (Quinn hated this too, it’s really weird,) pooping, and not being the center of attention. That last one makes me laugh. When she’s awake she’s happy to hang out wherever, in the swing, on the couch, in a lap, etc., as long as you’re looking at her. Try to give your attention to something else, or god forbid, walk away from her, and she loudly protests.

Quinn remains enamored with her. Every day when we pick him up from school he greets me, then says “where’s my baby?” then when he sees her he cups her chin and holds her face in his hands and coos, “hi Reesey, did you miss your brother?” I’m so impressed with him. He hasn’t gotten annoyed with her yet, though she has interrupted our sacred bedtime book reading routine more than a few times. Last night as she squawked through “It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny” (Quinn calls it “It’s Hard Being A Rabbit.” I love him.) Quinn just sighed and said, “when is Daddy getting home?”
As you can tell, our Reesey-piecey is a little bit of heaven and we’re all still big fans of our blue-eyed, blonde beauty. I think it’s fair to say she’s our family valentine. The last three months we’ve spent with her have been the sweetest.

I was in the bathroom when I heard it. The scream. The “I’m in pain” scream. The one my infant has only made once before, when the nurse plunged needles in her thighs at her two month check-up. Before I even made it out of the bathroom I heard another cry.

“Mommy!” Quinn hiccupped in tears, “I was unbuckling the baby and then I tried to re-buckle her and her fingers got in the way and I pinched them and I hurt her!”

“Oh sweetie,” I said ruffling his hair before I booked it to Reese, “it’ll be ok, let’s go check her out.”

Reese was fine, of course. As soon as I touched her she calmed down, I couldn’t even tell which finger was pinched. Quinn, however, was a mess.

“I hurt her and she cried and I feel so bad!” he sobbed, burying his face in my shoulder. I pulled him into my lap and held him for a minute or two, wiping away tears from the cheeks of my sweet, empathetic boy.

“You know what Quinny,” I said. “I’m glad you feel bad about hurting your sister. The fact that you feel sad means you love her and it you didn’t want to hurt her. It was an accident. But this is probably why you shouldn’t try to re-buckle her. She’s wiggly and she’ll get her fingers in the way. I know you don’t want to hurt her, so next time just unbuckle her and leave her to me, ok?”

I think this is the most important part of parenting little people– remembering they are people. They make mistakes and do silly things and the worst thing we can do is invalidate their feelings or shame them for their mistakes. I’ve seen other parents in the wild. It’s not hard to imagine that some other version of this story would end with yelling and chastising and “no more unbuckling the baby!” I can see how that tracks with some; it’s a linear progression. Thankfully it’s not the line I’m on.

I’m not a yeller. I’m not quick to anger and I try to live my life by assuming positive intent about everyone I meet. I want both my kids to be empathetic. I want them to care about the feelings of other people and they can’t do that if I don’t model it to them and validate their feelings.

I especially want my son to keep this thought top of mind. The worst thing I can do to my little boy is give him a reason to disengage from his emotions or make him feel like he doesn’t have to/shouldn’t be involved in caretaking or any of the daily responsibilities of our domestic life.

That’s not to say I don’t get frustrated. There are times I have to physically remove myself from the situation so I can refocus my perspective. I have watched macaroni be dumped everywhere but the pot. I have re-mopped the floors when a little too much solution is used by my happy helper. I have alerted the school that yes, he does have a coat and more than one pair of shoes. I have had to repeat “be gentle, she’s still little” more times than I can count.

This, like everything Quinn “helps” with, would be easier and less nerve-wracking if I just did it myself or hovered over him while he did it. But then how would he ever learn? How do you learn to dust yourself off and stand back up if you never fall down? Any positive learning environment leaves room for failure without additional punishment.

I’m sure I screw up this parenting gig in other ways, but as long as I can raise kind, caring, competent people I think I will have succeeded.