I didn’t think that I’d be the type of mom that dresses my girls in similar out fits. Turns out I’m wrong. I am that mom. It’s a little bit embarrassing, but I think they’re so dang cute in their ‘twin jammies’ and at this point Maggie, the only one of the two that can voice her opinion, absolutely loves matching her sister. I’m not inclined to make this a habit, but you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be doing this again. Not having a sister to be matchy-matchy with, I can’t totally wrap my brain around the complaints that I might field down the road. So it goes, this whole parenting gig is one twist after another.
We’ve had a few recent playdates with some of my A-Town girls and their kiddos. Thomas and Maggie are both in the stage of loving to make little animals and figurines talk, and thankfully they’ll do it together. Hearing them have conversations with their little toys is very entertaining. Barry and I try to play ‘Dollies’ as much as we can, but it can get really repetitive. The other evening I went for a walk and when I left Barry and Mags were playing a very involved game of Dollies and by the time I got back from my walk, which seemed like a long time, they were still playing, except Barry was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed holding his dolly up on the coffee table half-heartidly. So, when Thomas comes over and is just as excited to play Dollies (although he might call it something else), Maggie is very into it.
Both Thomas and Maggie also aren’t too interested in the babies when they’ve got each other to play with. Every so often they’ll come check to see what the two little ones are up to, but for the most part Thomas and Mags are happy as little clams to play together. It doesn’t seem all that long ago that we’d meet up for a playdate and they wouldn’t even ‘play’ together. Now they play so much and so hard that by the time it’s time to go, there is often tears and sadness.
Maggie gave up naps long ago and that means that we often have an early bed time around here and try to keep our afternoons fairly relaxed and stress free. Very rarely does she take a nap, but yesterday she was yawning so much mid-morning that I took an opportunity, once Audrey was asleep, to read some books in bed. Maggie will jump at a chance to read a book and she wasn’t convinced the bed was the place to do it, but eventually bought into the idea. After reading a few chapters out of her Nancy Clancy book, we turned the light off and snuggled. I was informed, many times, that she did not want to ‘lax. Miracle of all miracles she fell asleep.
And I had exactly three minutes of a quiet house all to myself before Audrey decided to wake up.
It was a restful three minutes. I stared at the wall and wondered what I should do with my free arms and free time. Audrey answered for me. Thanks, Chica.
We still have quiet time in the afternoons, but I need to be more intentional about it. I feel like so much of my day is telling Maggie to wait…wait for me to finish feeding, changing, bouncing, dressing her baby sister, or feeding and changing myself. By the time Audrey is asleep and I have a few minutes, I work hard to try to fully engage with Maggie. We often have a ‘project’ going on that we like to work on together. Last week we made a month-by-month mini scrapbook for Audrey and Maggie was my Sticker Girl and Cutter. Yesterday we made a St. Patrick’s Day sign from some of her old paintings and glitter. Mags loves projects and to be able to tap into that creative side with her is really fulfilling. It also makes me feel a bit better when I’m asking her to wait yet again. If we’ve got a special project set up, we an talk about the next steps that we’ll do on it while she waits for me to finish.
And when she can’t wait any longer, she’ll start in on her own project. Sometimes this is good….sometimes it isn’t. Either way, having a few projects to work on keeps the grumps away. If you’ve ever experienced a grumpy almost 3 year old on any given day…..you’d move heaven and earth to have a project as a distraction.
