The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

Parenting has been a trial and error situation; we had a pretty good idea of the type of parents we wanted to be and what we wanted this child-raising thing to look like but really, you don't know shit until you are in the thick of it and trying to make it all work in real life. Am I an expert? Hell no. Do I make mistakes? Absolutely (all parents do!). But as I approach baby number two, I think there are a few things that I have learned along the way that have really worked for our family and hopefully they can help out at least one of my many friends who are expecting their first bundles of joy. Consider this one in what might be a few of the big things we have done that have been wins (I promise to share the fails too, because we have definitely had our share of those!). If anything, this is something I can come back to when I am having a day of fails to remind myself that we are (usually) nailing this parenting thing. We don't have a coffee table. Our living room floor ...

Is it really Monday already? I feel like this weekend just flew by. The good news is that we made it through our first weekend with Matty back in classes, but nap time was not a successful endeavor either day and is something that we really need to work on if I am going to make it through this semester. Maddie is still doing two to three hours on the weekdays and I really, really want to keep that up as long as possible, including on the weekends because a two year old with no nap is about the scariest thing I have even seen. and it makes the evenings not so fun. I think I need to make sure that I am getting her to the indoor play space or the park (weather permitting) Saturday mornings so she can run around and tire herself out. I am also going to try and get up really early before Matty has to leave and get on a spin bike at the Y so that I can be nice and stress free when it comes time to make nap time happen. Saturday was full of errands and checking off to-do lists and Matty ...