Saturday, September 29, 2012

shortcuts

You people are so nice.  You take time out of your life and actually read this blog, and it amazes me.  When I first started blogging, I was fairly certain my audience would never be wider than my mom and Andrew (though even he didn't always read).  But now friends and strangers follow along on our journey with our twins.  And I love it.

But sometimes I worry that I am giving a false impression.  Many women, especially other moms, have read my blog and proceeded to compliment my parenting.  I love compliments, and I think I'm doing a decent job raising B&F, but one of my primary goals is honesty.  And I am not supermom.  Not even close.  So to ensure that this blog doesn't put too glossy of a coat on our lives--to guarantee that no mom ever feels worse about her own parenting because of something I've written--below are my confessions.  Some shortcuts I take.  Just a few of the things I do that would definitely not qualify me for mother of the year.

  • Bath time for two tiny babies can seem like a real hassle.  Before B&F were crawling, we simply avoided baths as much as possible.  We literally bathed our children twice a week.  Twice.  Even now that they are walking and eating and sampling dogfood each day, we still try to get away with only doing baths every other night.
  • I love Sprout.  For those of you better moms that don't ever turn on the TV, Sprout is a 24 hour kids channel from PBS.  At least once a day, Sprout comes on in our house.  I'm sure that at some point before the birth, I made a comment about "no TV until at least age 2."  Yea.  Sure.
  • And speaking of TV, we bought a DVD player for the car.  And it's awesome.  We try our best to only use it on long trips, but...
  • We don't buy them organic produce.  I wish I could say I had some special scientific reason for this, but I don't.  We buy them regular, plain fruit.  And most of their veggies are actually frozen veggies--gasp!  It's easier, faster, and doesn't require me to use a knife.  Sign me up.
  • I do not "dress" my kids every day.  Some days, many days, B&F are in their pajamas until it's time to change into new pajamas for bedtime.  Classy.
  • Sometimes I know one of the twins has a dirty diaper, yet they are playing so happily.  So I just ignore it for a couple of minutes to enjoy a few more moments of bliss before the diaper battle begins.
  • I've implemented Verizon time in our house.  Not familiar with that?  Well, it means that on nights and weekends, Andrew changes all dirty diapers.  I highly recommend it.
Do you have any mommy shortcuts that you've always wanted to confess?

5 comments:

  1. I love all of these and did absolutely everything you did when my kids were that age. :) We love Sprout and our DVD player in the car and I believe anything in moderation is fine...especially with multiples. :)

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  2. Thanks for sharing, it makes me feel better on my mommy guilt days (pretty much most days).

    My situation is so different, since I only have 1 and I work, but I know I would do all of the above mentioned if I did stay at home, even with only 1.

    I am really lucky and Avery does not get diaper rash unless she is teething, so I try to minimize her diaper changes when it is pee, because they are such a battle.

    The other one, is that I used to love bath time with Avery, but now she is freaking out about water getting in her eyes. And I try to minimize those as well.

    You are doing such a great job, I cannot imagine being at home with twins, and being in a all new place.

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  3. I love this! I have lots ot "shortcuts", some I would not admit to! Kids are hard to raise, I say do what you can to stay sane. They will turn out fine :)

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  4. Couldn't remember today how long it had been since Caroline got a bath, so I washed her before her doctor's appointment (making us 5 minutes late). Oh well. Baby #3 doesn't need baths.

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  5. I'm playing blog catchup.. I'm with you on every other night baths and if she's happy a diaper can wait a few minutes. My addition to that is in an effort to avoid an extra bath night, we've not gone out for walks some evenings simply so that I can avoid slathering sun block on Addie. It's a battle to get it on & requires an extra bath.. No need for either of those! Think we will just stay inside. ;-)

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