Parents of 2

Talk about a challenge, and the challenges haven't even started yet.

The evening I got home from the hospital, Steve picked up DJ from day care, came home, cooked dinner for us while I fed DJ dinner, and of course when it was time for us to eat, it was time for DJ to play. So Steve ate while I watched DJ, we put him to bed, then it was time to feed Elektra, then I got to eat. Or something like that. The point being, the life of being parents of 2 young children is going to take some coordination. And we're going to have to figure this out in a hurry.

For one, we have a full fledged toddler testing his limits. I think he's done the worst of his teething which was messing with his mood, but that's definitely not the reason he's being, well, a toddler.

The food wars: how picky is he eating? Right now, fairly. Boy do I miss the days of when he was just turning a year old and he'd eat anything we'd give him and then some.

The throwing wars: he wants to throw his cup every time he drinks from it. He always wants to throw food that he "doesn't want". Sometimes he's doing it for the attention (which we try to not give him when he throws stuff), and sometimes he's doing it because he really doesn't want it. He's been throwing "throw-able" (i.e. not always balls) toys, not necessarily AT anything or anyone, just in general because he can.

The couch wars: His want to be on the couch is fine, in general. But we get nervous when he's on the couch and the dogs are on it, too. Usually we boot DJ from the couch and let the dogs be in their spot, but occassionally we have to do the opposite. This is more for the dogs' safety than for DJ's.

Toss in the fact that he seems to be moving away from having 2 naps a day to 1, and so we're battling a tired toddler all day, despite a long nap in the afternoon.

When I say "we", I don't mean just Steve and me. I also mean Miss Eleanor. She has the brunt of his antics day to day. Yikes.

Couple aaaaaaall of that with the relative demands of a newborn and ta-da!!! It's quite the zoo here. Generally, Elektra is very low maintenance. Yes, she eats every 3 hours but otherwise, right now, she's sleeping between meals. She's willing to just hang out in the bouncy seat while the world moves around her, and basically give us our hands free to handle DJ. Really, like DJ, she's been wonderful so far. :-)