Erin Akin Carroll

1. You know what would be so much fun? If I could wear anything in my closet besides maternity pants. Don’t you think that would be fun? The weight loss process is coming along, but it’s so hard not to get discouraged when I look in the mirror. But for a few more weeks I’m going to wear maternity pants until I break down and buy some pants that fit. Shopping is fun, but I’d rather everything in my closet fit than have to go shopping for new stuff.

Rant over. I promise.

2. I took both boys to the doctor yesterday. It went a lot better than I expected. Hudson was really well-behaved and Hayes only cried when the car stopped! Hudson had his two year well visit and Hayes was just along for the ride. Hudson is right on track and doing great!

3. I’m slowly but surely reading The House on First Street by Julia Reed. I love it so much, but I only can squeeze in about twenty minutes of reading time at night before I shut my eyes. The book is fun for me because I recognize so many of the locations, restaurants, and streets in Julia’s story and it really is a great story about New Orleans that truly captures the culture. My summer reading is starting to pick up as I find more and more free time in my day.

4. Hudson’s birthday party is this weekend. It’s going to be MUCH more low key than last year’s party. I have gotten a few fun Sesame Street items for him to make it fun, but it’s not going to be a huge party. He’s excited to see his friends and play with them for a little while. And I’ll get to use a little bit of my creativity.

5. I lied… Rant wasn’t over… Summer is so much more fun when you’re skinny.

Okay. Rant over. For real.

6. I let my dogs outside today when I was making a bottle and talking on the phone. I’m not sure how much time passed, but all of a sudden I heard a little bark and it sounded like Fiona. And then I realized I hadn’t seen Boudreaux or Fiona in a while. Where could they be? Oh yeah! I let them outside when I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. And I forgot to let them back in. Fortunately, only about 20 minutes went by.

Mommy brain is a real thing. And it’s worse than pregnancy brain.

7. I feel like every morning I need to make a written schedule for myself or else I will certainly forget something, get sidetracked, and get completely disorganized. When I have a plan for the day, I am so much more productive and “together.”

8. The Meredith Viera farewell show on Today this morning was really sweet. Meredith isn’t my favorite, but I think she’s real. I just love Matt, though, and love how he can have such a great time at work. I wish he was my coworker.

What’s going on with all of you this week?

One of the questions a couple of people asked is if I’m doing Baby Wise this time with Hayes and how it’s going. Someone also wanted to know if we are using Toddlerwise for Hudson.

We used a combination of Baby Wise, The Baby Whisperer, and Happiest Baby on the Block DVD for Hudson for all different things. Happiest Baby… was great for soothing techniques. The Baby Whisperer was great for knowing your baby’s cues and understanding his cries. We also found that it helped a lot for knowing when our baby was ready for different things like more food, more sleep between meals, and crying it out. (Yes- we are okay with crying it out.) The Baby Whisperer and Baby Wise are similar in their principles about eat first, play second, and sleep next. We did this with Hudson and we’re doing it with Hayes.

So far, Hayes is on a great 3 hour schedule during the day and we’ve just gotten him to a 4 hour schedule for the middle of the night. We are hoping he will extend one of those 4 hour stretches more and more until he is sleeping through the night. He is almost four weeks old and I have to remind myself not to expect too much of him at this point, no matter how tired I am. My friends Callie and Jennifer (both are bloggers) have been great for me to bounce ideas off of and try to figure out if we’re on the right track. It’s always nice to have another mommy to talk to.

Just like we did with Hudson, we started Hayes in his crib from the day we came home from the hospital. He takes all of his naps in his crib and sleeps every night in his crib. This just works well for us and helps us get more sleep when he is sleeping.

Toddlerwise…

I haven’t really used Toddlerwise. But if I have a specific parenting question for parenting a toddler I would definitely consider consulting Toddlerwise. When we were doing the crib to big boy bed transition, I did look at Chronicles of a Baby Wise Mom blog for tips and comments from other moms who have done the transition. It gave me some great ideas.

A book I absolutely love is Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp. I got it for Christmas last year and really believe what it says.

Another question I got was how I’m managing so far with my mom gone and how I find time to do things during the day with two kids.

I’m just being honest, but there’s not a whole lot of time for anything other than parenting. Since we’re working on getting Hayes on a schedule, I’m trying to stick to that schedule. That means we aren’t really leaving the house much, and if we do, we have one outing every day.

I know that this isn’t for everyone and most people (including me) like to be on the go and out and about. It has been four weeks so far and I haven’t felt much like getting both boys out all that much. It’s also my personal philosophy that I’m sacrificing a little bit of fun right now so I can gain many many hours of sleep in the long run!

There is only one time during the day that both boys are asleep. Hudson takes a great 3-4 hour nap every day and Hayes sleeps for about 1.5 hours of that nap.

I have been using that time to either nap, write thank you notes, clean, cook, return emails or  calls, or blog. Today, I’m choosing to blog! And while I blog, I’ve got both video monitors in front of me so I can keep tabs on both boys.

We have the Summer Baby Touch Monitor for Hayes (on the left) and an 2009 Summer video monitor for Hudson. They probably don’t make that one anymore.

The great news is that in a couple of weeks, Hayes will be awake more and going out will get easier and easier as he’s awake.

As far as Hudson goes, he has really been a dream. He is interested in the baby, but doesn’t get in my face or demand to hold the baby. He plays really well in his room and is very easily entertained by books, games, and puzzles. But this is just his personality. He has always been independent and likes to play alone most of the time. I still play with him all day, but when I’m feeding Hayes, it’s great that Hudson is able to play alone for a little while.

He definitely has his share of temper tantrums, jealous moments, and meltdowns, but those are the exception rather than the rule. I think their age difference has a lot to do with how cooperative he has been.

Thanks for all the questions. I’ll be answering questions about c-section recovery, baby registries, toddler toys, and questions about our house!