There was just so much stress in the earlier months from Sam's surprise arrival (being "ready" for a hypothetical baby is VERY DIFFERENT from being "ready" for a real baby), putative father worries, Matt changing jobs (which came with overtime and crazy days for him), planning and figuring out New York, and some attitude and regression problems from big brother. I knew I was stressed at the time but looking back, now sleeping better with some semblance of a routine, I realize how hard those months were.
It's been a lot different parenting Sam than it was parenting Luke, but also, largely the same. I am constantly amazed that I get to enjoy BOTH the baby stage and the 5 year old stages at the same time, instead of enjoying the 5 year old while also looking back longingly on those days he would fall asleep in my arms and getting his laughs was the greatest thing. It's pretty exciting, and challenging, parenting both together!
I feel more confidence as a parent this time around, knowing we've successfully raised a kid for 5 years. I still often (daily, hourly) feel like I am making things up as I go along but maybe that's mostly with Luke, every stage of his being new territory for all of us. But there is a confidence we didn't have with Luke that I feel with Sam.
When Luke was a baby we had no routine, getting out of the house before 11 was a huge feat. I often slept until he woke up, whenever that was! Now I've spent 4.5 years building a routine and wanting to stick with it. I want to get in book reading every day, workout most days, I post on the blog more consistently (kinda). Luke and I figured out our routine and I am a HUGE fan of it. Really, any routine. Although, getting out of the house before 9 every morning this week has also been an accomplishment. Reallllly worries me for the 8am school start time in a month.
We're cloth diapering again although maybe a little more lenient on using disposables too, always overnight and sometimes when we just have long days away from home. Even though we had used them for over 2 years, I was still COMPLETELY terrified to start cloth again with Sam. But it's been fine. Sometimes I still forget to switch them to the dryer until 11pm but for the most part they're great.
We plan to do baby led weaning again because I am still not interested in spending hours (??) of my day spoon feeding a baby. It's amazing how many of our parenting decisions come out of laziness (also why Luke wears a swim shirt, we don't want to spend more time than necessary applying sunscreen!).
Sam took longer to laugh, longer to roll over, longer to sleep through the night. I don't know if that's just him or if it's just us having less time to work with him on those things. He's usually not in his crib until about 10pm since Luke is rarely asleep before we go to bed and it just doesn't seem like a good idea to have Sam trying to sleep in the same room where Luke is still playing. So Sam stays downstairs with us. I'm hoping this gets better once school starts and Luke is (SHOULD BE) falling asleep before 10:30pm. Nap/quiet time has also been a challenge since, ideally, both boys would do this at the same time. But it's just a few more weeks of it not working well before Luke's in school and his quiet time days are done (he often asks to stay in quiet time LONGER because he likes playing Legos and listening to his story podcasts, but gets kicked out of his room so Sam can take a good nap.)
It's been really fun pulling out Luke's old clothes and having so many memories, of where and when he wore them, associated with much of it. Sam's been "playing" with a lot of the same baby toys and using all the same gear. It's nice that all that is getting used more than once. And so far it's working out pretty well that they are wearing the same clothes in the same seasons, since their birthdays are in the same month. Really hoping that keeps up!
We definitely miss some activities that have become important parts of our summers over the last few years - no family jet ski rides and no bike rides. We had to drive to a downtown baseball game this week which we hadn't done in almost 4 years, we just always rode bikes. Looking forward to getting back to both of those next summer!
Overall, we have more confidence this time around. The boys sharing a room has been a bit of a challenge but it's working (we're still not in any hurry to move because of this), figuring out how to fit Sam's naps into our schedule has taken longer but also, it just has to work! And everything will change once school starts anyways. We're maybe more relaxed this time? It's hard to remember back how it all felt 5 years ago! But we are super delighted we get to do this parenting thing again. It's bringing back so many happy memories of Luke in this same stage and a reminder of how we've grown and changed since then.
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