Kids

Moms Getting Through the Day – Weekend Edition

April 9, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

This is the third post in this series, the first is here and the second is here.

As I write this it’s Monday. I’m already at the office, but I haven’t accomplished much here this morning. We got a slow start this morning because the girls took forever to go to sleep and then slept in this morning.

Why is it that they sleep later on weekdays than they ever do on weekends?!?

Last night I was thinking about what I was going to write. I’ve been sending myself voice notes so I remember what works for me throughout the day. You could even say that’s something that’s helping me get through the day right now. I just say “OK Google, record voice note” and it turns it into writing and sends me an email. It’s an easy way to send yourself a reminder. But what I really wanted to say is that thinking about what’s working for me each day and helping me make it through the day feels almost like a gratitude practice.

I saw Shawn Achor speak in Chicago last September. I hadn’t heard of him before the conference. I was really excited to see Gretchen Rubin speak there, but didn’t really have any expectations of Shawn. He is a researcher devoted to studying happiness. He is also an amazing public speaker. He talked about small practices you can do to increase your happiness, one of which was a gratitude practice. You’re supposed to think about specific things that you’re grateful for and remember the details. When you do this, you remember the good stuff. (That’s not the idea verbatim, but you get the point.) [Read more…] about Moms Getting Through the Day – Weekend Edition

Moms Getting Through the Day – Morning Commute and Humor

April 6, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

This is the second post in this series, the first is here.

Let’s talk about the morning commute. I should have written about this yesterday because I forgot my pump stuff and didn’t realize until I was walking up the stairs to the office. I had to go back home and then drive back to work again, so I basically did 3x my normal commute. But, I thought about it today.

What made the commute tolerable?

Listening to podcasts!

This is a new thing for me. I drive an older car (seriously, it’s a 2007 or 2008, how is that an old car?!?) so it doesn’t have bluetooth. My husband got me a bluetooth speaker for Christmas. I think he got it so I could make hands-free phone calls, but that’s not what I use it for. I use it to listen to podcasts.

I love listening to podcasts on the way to work because they make the drive go by so fast. I’m not worried about traffic or how long it’s taking, I’m just listening to an interesting conversation. I do it on my morning commute but usually not in the evening because by the time I’m leaving work, I either want to enjoy some music or have a few minutes of quiet. Sometimes I just need some quiet. I can’t listen to podcasts while I work because I can’t do both at the same time.

Also, because I’m old-school and I have Project Fi wireless service, I don’t like to stream while I’m driving, so I download them to my phone. I could make things easier for myself by using an app and subscribing to the podcasts I like. But, like I said, I’m new to this and only have a few podcasts on rotation. That’s my excuse.

So what podcasts am I listening to?

Moms Getting Through the Day – Dinner and Bedtime

April 5, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

I’m really paying attention to what makes my days easier because I want to share that with you. So, I’m going to tell you what I’m doing to make it through the day.

We had an early start today. The baby started waking up at 4:30 this morning. We let her cry for a little while and she quieted down. When we were finally back asleep, she started crying again. Eventually she quieted back down. When it started up again at 5:30, we figured it was time to get up.

So how did I make it through dinner today? The crockpot.

Working Moms Getting Through the Day - Crockpot - Just Getting Things Done

I know, everyone else is all about the Instant Pot and here I am still using the crockpot, but that’s what I know. I don’t do recipes in the crockpot, I just take my protein and a veg philosophy and let the crockpot do the cooking. I don’t brown the meat or anything either. Who does that?!

The crockpot, simplified.

When Your Toddler Sleeps Good at Night, What Happens in the Morning?

February 2, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

Our soon-to-be 3 year old, Ivy, was not in a great mood last night. When I was putting the girls to bed she did the usual 2 year old thing of crying and getting upset about me doing what she asked me to do. She wasn’t happy with any of the choices I gave her. Nothing was right. She didn’t want the pillows there. I didn’t set them up right. Her water bottle didn’t go there. I couldn’t even decipher most of the requests. But in the end, Ivy and Emma went to sleep really fast and no one besides Ivy got upset.

It was a pretty big deal for me. I didn’t lose my cool. I didn’t threaten. I just gave them choices. It was going much better than what I wrote about in this post. And they did good, even though there was some crying and yelling (mostly directed at me).

Then, we only got woken up one time last night (by the baby). This was also a big deal, since we’ve been woken up probably four times a night for the past several nights.

I woke up on my own this morning. No one was crying. It was awesome.

I was in a great mood. I thought everyone else would be too.

I was wrong, of course.

Toddler Struggles – Sleep and Frustration

January 31, 2018 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

We have been struggling lately with a couple of related issues: sleep and frustration/attitude. My husband and I are having a hard time staying calm with the children because we have just lost all of our patience. One of the reasons we currently have such a bad attitude is because we are not getting enough sleeping. Sound familiar?

The sleep struggle is about more than just us not sleeping enough, though. Sleep became an issue when our two older daughters started sharing a room. This, in and of itself, caused a ton of frustration.

For several weeks our entire evening was consumed with the struggle and frustration of getting the girls to sleep. For 2-3 hours, we would just get more and more frustrated until one of us lost our cool and then the girls would finally go to sleep.

My husband and I were going to bed later than usual because we needed at least a little bit of time to recover before we actually felt like sleeping. And of course, we have a baby that still wakes up during the night.

It was not fun. It felt like it would never end.

My 2 Year Old Isn’t Sleeping Through The Night and It’s Driving Me Crazy

November 20, 2017 by Rachel Bowman Leave a Comment

I’m back at work after maternity leave. The baby is finding a rhythm now and consistently waking about the same time each night. But the 2 year old? She’s waking up 3 times a night! Every night! And yelling so much that she wakes up the 4 year old in the basement. I’m so angry and frustrated by it that I swear and criticize my husband in the middle of the night. Of course I blame it all on him. It’s the middle of the night. And I can’t go back to sleep right away because I’m so frustrated. Why isn’t my 2 year old sleeping through the night?

My 2 Year Old Isn’t Sleeping Through The Night and It’s Driving Me Crazy - Just Getting Things Done

How did we get here?

Ivy slept through the night earlier than either of our other two kids. At two months old she was sleeping through the night and it was awesome. Then I went back to work when she was 3 months old and that was the end of it. It was devastating.

It was hard because she woke up at random times every night and there was no rhyme or reason. I knew she could do it, she just didn’t. One night she would be up at 10pm, the next night it would be 1am. She did this until she was about 9 months old, when she started sleeping through the night consistently (again).

She seems to always revert back to waking up during the night though. If she gets sick and wakes up once during the night, she’ll continue doing it for weeks until we finally realize she’s not sick anymore. So we talk about it with her and then we don’t go in her room for a night or two when she calls out. It’s hard to listen to her calling out and not answer, but we know she doesn’t need anything and if we do what we say we’ll do she’s back to sleeping through the night.

This time around the problem has been a long time coming. When I was pregnant with Clara, our youngest, Ivy was calling out pretty often. At first she said she needed medicine. Then later it turned into “I need a drink.” At some point she didn’t need anything. My husband would go in, tell her to go back to sleep and then cover her back up. That was it.

She went back to sleep right away so it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. I got upset about it sometimes, but it was one of those things that I would say needed to change, but nothing changed. I wasn’t usually the one getting up so it wasn’t that big of a deal for me. Sometimes I didn’t even hear it. But when you have an infant that’s sleeping better than your 2 year old, who doesn’t actually need anything, you realize it’s time to put a stop to it. [Read more…] about My 2 Year Old Isn’t Sleeping Through The Night and It’s Driving Me Crazy

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