Seeing as how my eldest has now crossed over the two-year mark, I can’t really call this series 2 Under 2 anymore. So for the sake of simplification and finality, because these are what these posts really are, I’m just going to go ahead and just start titling these what they truly are.
So for the past month and change, has been The Best Month Ever, part 2 – a substantial chunk of time in which my mom has been staying with me, to help take care of my children, as well as the opportunity to bond with #2, much as she did with #1 back two years ago. Her being here is a massive security blanket, as she is someone I trust unconditionally with my kids, and I always know my children are in good hands when I’m not physically present. Which has been very critical seeing as how I have now returned to the office partially in my new hybrid work format.
Honestly, I think this visit has gone better than the last one, since aside from being the point person on #2, my mom has gotten to witness the growth and development of my first child, and it will never not make me happy to see just how much #1 loves her halmoni, and the rapid development of where it started with “halmi” at the start of the month, but has already corrected to a very well pronounced “halmoni” now.
We didn’t butt heads as often as we did the last time she was here, and probably by virtue of being in a job that isn’t sucking the soul out of me, my mental state was in a far better place now than it was back then, and I didn’t have my own head stuffed up my ass for the first few weeks of her visit this time.
In spite of how glad I’ve been to have my mom here over the last five weeks, it still has been somewhat of a roller coaster. As mentioned, I returned to the office, which has embarked a whole new world of awkwardness of getting back to commuting and being in a place of business again. I’ve started working out and running again which is a positive thing. Unfortunately, as posted about not long ago, I had to put my dog down while she was here, which sucked massively in spite of knowing it was always looming. And in the middle of this month, I took #1 to Disney World for her birthday, while my mom took a break from kid duty to visit a local friend in Georgia for the weekend, which was pretty good for all of us.
However, what wasn’t good was the fact that my daughter picked up a bug while in Florida, and I can remember the little shitfuck who was coughing all over the shuttle, and being concerned that my daughter wasn’t far enough away perhaps, and now I’ve got two sick kids because it’s impossible to separate #1 from #2 because they love each other. It makes me really reconsider doing anything that puts either of my kids at risk, because Americans still can’t get their shit together, and frankly it’s not worth my kids getting sick for an egregiously expensive excursion in the first place.
Regardless, the point of the post is that the best month ever part 2 is coming to a close this week, and I have to take my mom back to Virginia very soon. I’m eternally grateful for her help, and treasure the bonds she made with my daughters, but at the same time I’m absolutely scared and petrified at what lies ahead in the immediate future, with daily life without any sort of safety net anymore.
With me going back to the office a couple days each week, these are a couple of days in which it’s going to be just my nanny, in charge of both girls by herself. This isn’t say I don’t trust my nanny, it’s just that I feel like I’m the only person in my world who really, really, really tries to avoid any and all scenarios in which my kids outnumber the present adults. I know how hard double duty is, I’m on it way more than I wish I were, but shit happens. My kids are handfuls, where one of them is now a two-nager who has some very strong opinions and wants to get her hands on anything and everything, and the other one is an infant that sucks at sleeping and requires the DaVinci code in order to get to nap for seven minutes.
Prior to this, I’ve always had the luxury of being able to work from home, so that I was always available if things went tits up, but that’s not going to be the case for several days each week. Mythical wife and I agreed that we really only need to hang in there until the end of the school year, but that’s still nearly two and a half months to be going without any sort of safety netting.
As if two kids under-ish two weren’t already hard enough, going back to the office and sending my mom home, is truly going to be putting life into hard mode, and it’ll be a daily touch and feel test to see how things are going, but I have concerns that I may need to put some stress on a job that I’m really beginning to like, due to the realities of parenthood borne during pandemic.
