no more babies in this house

The pace of life seems to be picking up in February after what felt like a post holiday break. Primo is getting ready for Kindergarden in the fall so we are looking at our options and filling out applications for a couple of charter schools in the area. There are parent meetings at the pre-school, informational meetings at the public schools, and a growing list of dinner plans that have each night this week accounted for. Yesterday the boys and I brought Beautiful to work and it felt like I was moving non stop until we picked her up at five. It was a good busy though, we weren’t rushed or running out of patience, rather we were energized and felt the power of each check mark on the dense to do list.

Segundo is three and potty trained and sleeping with out his plug and communicating more effectively and I was struck by the realization that this pace is going to continue to pick up for the boys and I. There isn’t a baby or toddler in the house any more. Instead I have two little boys signing up for T-Ball and art classes and learning to ride balance bikes without falling down. It’s easier to savor the moment when things move slowly and weeks are spent around the house building forts and playing cars but as the pace picks up I want to be sure I am still savoring. I want to be able to make the narrative links between developments in the boys life instead of looking up and realizing they are older and asking when that happened.

There are priorities in every day. Our highest priorities are usually to get the kids ready and off to school and pick them up after. After this, everything else gets a tier 2 priority. My wife and I try to start some days with exercise in the morning, staggering the days so we can get the kids moving. For me, this is dependent on getting my arse out of bed and motivated. My wife is pretty consistent and does a cross fit class at 5:30 three times per week. She’s usually back home by 6:45, as the kids are getting up. I try to do a number of things in the morning, bike, swim, weight lifting, etc. Which one depends on how much time I have.

The mornings are must exercise times for us. The nights are too busy with dinner, homework and simply a lack of motivation to exercise at night; and I don’t have the ability these days to exercise at lunch. Back in the day, I had the flexibility to exercise for 90 minutes over lunch. Since this was before marriage and kids, the late nights in the office and working at home more than made up for it. As a business owner, my work days are way too busy to commit to that much time. So, if it doesn’t happen in the morning, it doesn’t happen that day.

Our schedules were a bit off today, and we both wanted to exercise. My wife did her class this morning and since I didn’t have a lot of time after making lunches for the kids and making their breakfast, I exercised in the basement. We have an old Spin bike in the basement that I bought off of eBay a few years ago that is usually the ‘goto’ for quick exercise.

My wife makes a suggestion to the girls this morning that we have a pizza and movie night. Now I need pizza ingredients which means a stop at the store. I went in the basement to ride the bike after lunches and breakfast. After this, I had to get ready for work. Knowing that I had a full day (everybody has 15 minutes to update their blog) and a lunch time meeting, I wouldn’t be able to grocery shop at lunch so I had to run to the store before leaving for work. Get a bunch of groceries, go back home to put it all away then off to work.

My wife just calls me and tells me that there’s a caution light on in her car that won’t go off (sorry, tangent, but another thing added to the day). After work I have to pick up some things for my daughter’s birthday party this weekend, and then home to put on the pizza chef hat (that part I’m excited about).

As I sit down tonight with a great pizza made on the grill and have a couple of Dead Guy Ales, I’ll probably whisper to myself, quit bitchin’ dad, it wasn’t that bad.  And, Ramona and Beezus is only 103 minutes long.

Yes I am as tired as I look

Since coming back from the trip to Iowa without the boys Beautiful has worked everyday. While it was nice to get away and have that break it seems like I am right back where I was the days leading up to the trip. I love my boys and enjoy spending time with them but there is almost never a moment when I am not responsible for their safety and well being. What happens as I get worn down is I spend less time doing activities with the boys and they start to fight more and more. That compounds the frustration as I try to wade into the conflict of MINE! Segundo wants to play with Primo and Primo wants to make Segundo scream. They both end up driving me crazy and the timeouts come fast and furious. I know the schedule is not changing anytime soon so there needs to be changes made in the small ways. Changes like getting out of the house more (sometimes difficult when it is cold and raining and Beautiful has the car), planning activities like art projects and building forts, and me getting more exercise so that I have more energy for the boys. The little changes are going to have to be what gets me through this time so that I don’t get burnt out. I know that the schedule is even tougher on Beautiful and that no small change is going to get her through this time. It is getting to the point where a big change is called needed, we just don’t know what that is yet.

However no matter how busy my day has been. I do all I can to make sure I home in time to spend some time with my baby girl Ava.

I also have one of my teens meet me at the office after they have finished school, to search for the best Hot Chocolate, trying out a different cafe each time. It is also a great opportunity to catch-up and talk about anything.

The below video is something I can relate too

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