Our New Normal

We are about 2.5 months into life with 3 kids and almost a month into Kindergarten, and I think Kindergarten has been a harder adjustment on all of us than adding a new baby to our family! Whew, Kindergarten is kicking our behinds! Both girls were still napping all summer, and then in the blink of an eye naps were gone & replaced by long school days. For the past six years, our family's life has been dictated by naptimes & it's so weird to not have that cadence to our day anymore. We're still trying to settle into our new rhythm.

The girls typically wake up in good moods in the mornings, and thankfully they've been waking up on their own in plenty of time for us to get ready for our busy school days..which I'm especially thankful for b/c it's just not right to have wake up sleeping kids!!!! So our mornings go pretty smoothly (as smooth as they can when you're getting two kids + a newborn out the door by 7:40am every day!), and I even feel like I have the hang of getting two kids dropped off/picked up at two different schools with a baby in tow down pat already...but the afternoons are a totally different story. Everyone is just so tired and hungry after we get home from picking up Shelby, it's hard. I've been trying to feed the girls a snack when we get home from school in the afternoons. Shelby usually doesn't want to eat b/c she's so exhausted, but I know she's hungry so I have to make her eat something to hold her over until dinnertime. So we eat a little snack, and then we have "quiet time." Usually I have the girls do quiet time in their rooms just to have a little down time to decompress from the long day, but sometimes I have them stay downstairs to read or color. Then around 4:30, we start our bath/shower routine. If I'm being totally honest, the two hours between when we get home from school at 2:30 & until we start bath/shower is the hardest part of my day. Those two hours feel like an eternity some days. I want so badly for us to go out and do something or find a fun activity to do together, but nobody has the energy or patience to do so. It's so hard mentally. I am constantly watching the clock willing the time to move faster.

So we start our bath/shower routine at 4:30. {Side note: Shelby took her first independent shower the night before the first day of Kindergarten & hasn't looked back. It's so bittersweet to not have the girls bathing together anymore.} It seems crazy to start getting the girls ready for bed so early, but this is what works for us right now. Derek gets home from work around 5:15-5:30, and by the time we're done with dinner there's just not enough time to for bath/bedtime stories after dinner like we've always done in the past. Moving bath/shower before dinner has dramatically changed the atmosphere in our house!!!!! Now after Derek gets home and we eat dinner, the girls have a few minutes to play or go outside to help Derek water the garden. And the biggest thing is WE DON'T HAVE TO RUSH THROUGH BEDTIME! There's nothing I hate more than rushing the girls through their bedtime routine. They want stories to be read and songs to be sung, and I want us to be able to do that and actually enjoy it instead of rushing through it. We try to have lights out between 6:45-7pm. The girls fall asleep almost as soon as their heads hit their pillows every night!!

Ready to walk to school!

Playtime while Big Sister is at school :)



Playing in the back "yard" while Shelby was at school....the girls love the rocks!!!

Hadley playing with HER baby ;)  She covered up Brtady in her old blankie (that she actually gave to Brady on her own accord!!!) and was brushing his hair ;)

Quiet time downstairs after school

This is how Brady does quiet time in the afternoons ;)  I usually feed him and then pop him in the carrier around 1:30-2 before walking over to school for pickup. He will usually stay asleep in the carrier until 4:30ish!!!!

If I let the girls do quiet time in their rooms, this tends to happen ;)

 

These long days are HARD!!!!!

I'm hoping we'll get our afternoon routine ironed out soon, I know it will do wonders for my sanity!! But for now, I'm ready for the weekend with my people!! Happy Friday, Everyone!!!