You're Doing a Great Job, Mommy.

Genevieve doesn't realize it, but she's a natural mother. She's been doing such a great job being a Mommy to our two children, I don't know how she finds the strength to do it. I'm very proud of her, and I honestly don't know if I possess the inner strength to do what she does on a daily basis. She has a way with both of our babies that only mothers possess. She can get them to stop crying instantly. I'm very impressed (and envious) of this. She has so much patience with them. I wish I was that patient. The day to day grind is at home pretty tough. When I'm home, we usually go to bed really late, (2am or later,) because by the time Evan and Eliana are finally settled in for the night, it's usually 11pm, and we both want a little bit of time for ourselves. So in those precious few hours, we try to get things done, and more often than not, we try to use that time to relax. We get a couple of hours of (not enough) sleep, then in the morning, we start the whole process over again. 

On a good night, Evan sleeps through the night, but most of the time, he wakes up because of what seems to be nightmares or night terrors. This happens several times a night, almost every night. We hear him crying on the baby monitor, and one of us, (usually Genevieve,) has to run up there and try and comfort him and get him to go back to sleep. Evan usually gets up around 9am, and that usually wakes up Eliana. We all go downstairs, make Evan a 'milkshake,' (Doctor recommended Organic DHA Milk & Organic Yogurt,) and he watches TV, (not Doctor recommended,) while we take the dogs out to do their business, and change and feed Eliana. Eliana likes to be held, so Genevieve spends a good part of the day holding her. The rest of the time she is either napping or feeding. Lately, she's been doing a lot of smiling and cooing, which is great. Some mornings, Evan will go outside with his Nana or Poppop and help them in the garden while we try to get breakfast ready or talk about what to do for lunch. Every day things like laundry, bills, and cleaning up bedrooms are difficult, if not impossible to get to because of the immediate needs of the kids. We'll try to get them both to take a nap during the afternoon, which gives Genevieve a chance to 'catch up' on sleep, and me a chance to, well, disappear. It sounds terrible, but sometimes the stress of not having work and our living and financial situation is to much for me, and I need to get out of the house for a bit to think about things, make work calls, and try and come up with some sort of plan. I'm probably guilty of dilly-dallying a bit when I'm out, but I don't know how else to handle the stress of not being able to provide the way I'd like to. By the time I get back home, it's close to dinner time, and soon after dinner, it's time to start getting Evan ready for bed. 

We never expected parenting to be easy, and it's not.

But what makes it all worthwhile are those little moments. Eliana's smile, and the way she kicks and flails her arms because she's so excited and happy to see you. When Evan comes up and hugs you and kisses you for no reason. There's too many of these moments to count, and all of them, even the smallest moments make it all worthwhile.