keys to sanity

- Netflix streaming with all of the Dora, Wonderpets, and Backyardigans you can imagine. I no longer feel guilty about TV. I beat myself up about the amount of TV Daniel watched when I was home all winter nursing Patrick. Guess what, he's fine. Big shocker there. Seriously, what else was he supposed to do all winter stuck in a crappy apartment in Columbus, Ohio?

- The crock pot, Little Caesars $5 pizza, and my mommy bringing me food.

- Coffee.

- Preschool. When Daniel was a tiny baby, I insisted that I would wait until he was 4 to send him to preschool. After all, the time at home is so short and precious, I didn't want to send him any sooner than absolutely necessary. Nearly 4 years later, he has been in school since September, and I find my self thinking, "man, I wish he could go every day." God bless those teachers, I don't know how they do it with 16 of them!

- Quiet hours. I am quite proud of how quickly I have convinced Patrick that naptime is at 12:30 (not just whenever he feels like it) and that Leah has so willingly followed suit. I've got the two youngest sleeping from approximately 12:30-3:00ish, and Daniel is well trained that he has to do something QUIET without me during those hours. Mostly to make things easier on the babysitter when the time comes. But partly for my own sanity.

- The baby holding hours. From around 3:00 - dinner time I sit and hold my sweet Leah. One of the things I hate about her being the third baby is that there is so little time just to sit and enjoy her being a newborn. The rest of the day is jam-packed with keeping my 2 and almost 4 year old entertained, wiping hands, wiping noses, wiping counters, wiping up spilled milk, etc etc etc. So, I make the time. Yep, the boys watch TV while I do this. Or they tear up the house. And all of the house work I started but didn't finish during the Quiet Hours doesn't get done. But in 4.5 weeks I go back to work. And Leah will grow up. So I do nothing but hold her and look at her tiny hands for at least 2 hours daily. AND I plan to continue this when I do go back to work. It's no accident that baby holding hours coincide with my return home time from work.