First Week Back

Casey turns 1 month old today as I wrap up my first week back at work. Things at work are relatively the exact same as when I left, the only difference is I'm "out of the loop" on most things. It's nice in a way, less stressful for the time being. I'm sure eventually when REAL work actually needs to get done, I'll find myself right back in the thick of it.

On the home front, things appear to be going okay. I say appear, only because honestly Andrea and I haven't had a lot of time to talk about how things are going. As I suspected, most of my time once I get home is spent helping out with "survival mode" things (see previous post). We have a few things planned for this weekend that should help, including a 2 hour alone time on Saturday afternoon.

Last night I actually had the honor of putting BOTH kids to bed. That was the first time I had done that. It wasn't exactly perfect, but I got the job done. I.e. at the end of the night everyone was sleeping. Although the new routine for Megan is very important, I was just happy everyone got to sleep.

On the running front, I've managed to do early morning runs (5:45am) that include running and showering at work. So far so good, although I did forget my belt on Wed. That was sorta funny, no one really noticed. But I had to walk around all day holding my pants up basically. Running early is actually better considering how hot it has been this week, so I can't really complain.

Finally, here are a few pictures from Father's Day that I had wanted to get up. Andrea, Megan, and Casey made me this wonderful Father's Day T-shirt. (not to mention multiple cards I received!) I think Father's Day was better than my birthday. Somehow, I have a feeling that is a trend that might continue through the years.

Family Fun

Just when you think "Oh noes, Casey is cranky from 7-10pm each night" you are reminded that almost no day is the same with a new baby. What did Casey do tonight from 7-10pm? Eat once and sleep the rest of the time. Don't know what the rest of the night will bring, but so far, no fussy period tonight.

For our last Goonie weekend together, spur of the moment, I took Megan to the AV Aquatic Center. We had an absolute blast, it was supposed to be bad weather/raining today, but the sun and warm weather held out so we went and had a great time. They added a few new tube rides that we can't do because Megan is not 48 inches tall yet, but we did the new lazy river once and the one water slide we can do together a bunch of times. It was a great way to top of the last few weeks of fun before I head back to that crazy thing called reality.

Despite all the "activities" we've been doing together, sometimes the best family times are simply goofing around at home. I captured one such event and it turned out great. You just can't help but dance to that song, it's so dang catchy.



Watch around the 30 second mark, Megan does this thing with her bracelet where she snaps it on. She calls it her "magic trick". Good times had by all!

Reality Calls

My time off work is nearing the end, and my thoughts start moving towards the routine to follow. There are the basic immediate concerns. How will the first week back go? What can I do help Andrea stay rested? Do we have enough help built into our next few weeks via preschool and other programs? What will the over nights be like? How will my runs fit into the whole picture?

The list might go on from there... I just want to make sure that the long list of immediate day-to-day "survival mode" things don't detract from the long term picture. And when I say long term picture, I'm not talking about just the kids. But Andrea and I as well. One thing you can lose sight of EASY when becoming parents, is to remember - you're not JUST parents. Although we might love our roles as Mom and Dad (despite the hard work right now), we are still Shawn and Andrea. And yes, for some odd reason, we are still madly in love. So what do we want for each other in the next 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? I can rattle off hundreds of answers to those questions for Megan and Casey, but what about us too?

It may be premature to be thinking about those things now. Tonight I had to care for both Casey and Megan for a measly 2 hours, and it nearly broke me. Luckily, I called my Mom over who did an AWESOME job with Megan. She totally saved my ass, because Casey embraces the "witching hour" and was quite grumpy/fussy/hungry tonight. Honestly, I've been so focused on Megan's new bedtime routine, that I haven't realized how rough Casey is from 7-10pm.

Hopefully it stays that way, and is only bad like that from the 7-10pm time frame. I should be home for that time period to help out, and if things work out as planned, Andrea and I can take turns during that period, with the other parent doing the bedtime routine (or game, as we call it) with Megan. Ahhh surviving the first 3 months, how the memories come flooding back.

The number on Rolling Rock beer labels

That's how old I am now. I always like to get a post up on or around my birthday, just wasn't able to find the time yesterday on my actual birthday. Andrea would argue that I "forgot" my birthday, based on the following interaction:

Me: Wakes up, heads down to the computer
Me: Sits down, checks google maps for possible runs
Andrea: Sitting next to me, looks over and says "Happy Birthday!"
Me: "Oh crap, that's right."

I didn't actually "forget" my birthday, it just wasn't the first thing on my mind that morning. I had to get Megan ready to goto summer camp and was trying to figure out where I could run that wasn't pure hills. Hills are not nice to shins and/or muscles in general, and I wanted to try and do a longer run.

I ended up doing 15.8 miles, which is the longest distance for this year. Today I feel good, minor tightness in a few areas. I'm thinking I might push the long distances this summer and go for a new distance record this year. Depends on if my legs can really hold up to that kind of mileage.

The rest of my birthday was just an average day. We killed a bunch of time over at my Mom's house watching movies. My Mom is out of town, so we had 2 TVs at our disposal. Megan watched Bolt and took a nap downstairs while we watched The Spirit (sorta sucked) and Wanted. It was a nice break in parenting to be completely honest, to just relax for a few hours.

We are still trying to get this whole 2-parent 2-child thing worked out. Andrea wants more time with Megan, and definitely needs some solo time with Megan to stay connected with her. But it's hard when Casey demands so much. Right now they are running to Target together to buy a few grocery items. Not exactly the best 1-1 time. Hopefully there will be a couple more chances this weekend and next week.

Oddly, I've used this paternity leave to become much closer to Megan. I feel like she is honestly listening to me now, and we are having MUCH fewer conflicts. I even bought a few parenting books for some ideas (a first for me!). Mostly they ended up being mirrors of my own "gut instincts" with maybe a little extra advice. The important thing is that even in this short 3 week span, I feel like there is a big change in our interactions. Some times things still get into "crisis" mode, but there is much less of it. Hitting is WAY down, and Megan is very proud of that fact. Throwing things is happening less, or when it does happen, she is usually quick to pick it back up and hand it. Next thing I'm working on is staying by Mom/Dad when we are out places.

If I could summarize these last 3 weeks it would be this: I think I've become a better parent in the last 3 weeks than in the last year. I've been able to identify my problem areas and my weaknesses in my interactions with Megan and turn them around into positive things.

Crazy what happens when you actually have a decent chunk of time to evaluate, work on, and think about a problem. I wasn't exactly ignoring it before, I just didn't interact with Megan enough to realize how bad I really was at interacting with her. I think this shift in focus was exactly what I needed for my birthday.

Time Flies and Crawls

The last week has been both fast and slow at the same time. I thought I'd have more time to blog, but the combination of everything has kept me pretty dang busy. Megan and I try do some activities every day - it's definitely harder when it's raining out! Megan is also going to a summer camp this week and next, 9am-12noon Mon/Wed/Fri. Really it's just a fancy name for daycare, and I'm using the time to get some runs in which is great. I had a minor injury on Monday, but it was healed up by today and I was out again.

Casey is doing great... Again, I have to stress how nice things seem this time around. I feel like I'm doing so little - spending most of my time with Megan (or with myself on my runs). Meantime, Andrea is handling 90% of the care for Casey. The breastfeeding is going way better this time around. Well, better from the stand point, that Casey breastfeeds very well, but it's also a little tougher for Andrea because she is having to feed every 2-3 hours, or every hour during "cluster" feedings.

I think Andrea is a little jealous of all my Megan time / events, and hopefully we can find some way to schedule a date night for just the two of us before I head back to work. In the meantime, I'm going to just enjoy this time I have with Megan and try to do as much for Andrea as I can so she doesn't feel overwhelmed either. Tomorrow, Megan and I are going to head to Edinborough Park, which Megan has not visited since over a year ago. She is much bigger now and I will probably let her climb around totally on her own this year and see how she does.

Oh, and for total randomness, I've uploaded the following video from a recent Andrea and Megan duet. Wait for the ending... and watch the expression on Megan's face.

Eerie Resemblance

Going through photos of Casey quickly had me looking back at baby pictures of Megan. I had done a few glances back already to note that Megan also had the dark head of hair initially that turned into her dark blonde color. Looking back again I started to see even more similarities. So I had to put together a couple side by sides:





Fun and scary at the same time! They definitely have a lot of similar features. It will be interesting to do another comparison at 6 months and a year. I have this feeling that Megan and Casey will be the kind of siblings that you meet and go, "Oh they must be sisters." But who knows? Maybe Megan will dye her hair Pinkalicious.

So what else have we learned in our first week of being new parents again? I think the easiest way to describe it would be this: although the basics come easy, there are a host of NEW challenges we find ourselves facing. Megan was a challenge in and of herself some days. Andrea tells me I'm getting a skewed perspective, but be that as it may, it is the reality now. Megan has to "adjust" to her new sibling. It's clear that Casey causes all sorts of new emotions for her, from loving, caring, to jealousy too. She has no way to "communicate" those feelings and so they come out in the only ways a 3 and half year old knows how. (most not very positive) Our trick as parents are to remain calm, connected to her needs, and make sure she knows we both love her the same as before. Not an easy task, but I think we are up to it!