twofer

a lot of people ask what it is like to have two children. i remember when i asked my cousin what it was like to have four kids. he said that the biggest jump was from 2 kids to 3 kids because they had to play zone defense now. there's no more man to man, he said.

maybe that is true. still, so far, for us, i think the jump from having 0 to having 1 is much bigger than the jump from 1 to 2. i think the biggest difference with 2 is that there is far less independent free time. when it was only aviyah, samantha and i could both do turns of one on one time and we could also do times when all of us hung out together. still, when it was the other's one on one time, we still had our personal free time to surf the internet or read or take a nap or whatever.

now, i think the big difference is that during the one's one on one times, we have one on one time with the other child. so, for the most part, when there is downtime with the one because they are playing with the other parent or because they are napping, it isn't really totally downtime because you are playing with the other child.

i think we have been really committed to bedtimes, though, and that's made a huge difference for us. we can know that at a certain time of day or by a certain time of night we are going to be off duty, you know? i think it would be a crazy mess without a naptime and bedtime schedule. aviyah has had more difficulty napping consistently at her new school. i think she's trying to adjust, and she's started to nap more regularly in the past week or two, but it's crazy because if i think about it, no matter where we have been, here or another home, she has always always always taken her naps. i think i can probably count on one hand the times she has just jumped her nap in her whole life.

i think the big reason i personally bought into the schedule times for sleeping is because 1) i know from teaching that if you don't have consistent systems then all of the fun stuff gets piled over and 2) dr. weisbluth convinced me that the bigge picture is that healthy sleep supports healthy development. i think, no doubt, people think it's a little crazy, and it may have it's drawbacks too. ( it may be that aviyah is a little bit more clingy to us sometmes because she is so used to a schedule and so used to routines.)

i think the truth is that each big system or method you chose, also in teaching, has its big pluses and drawbacks. i think the thing is is that if you have a general philosophy about what you want to do and why you want to do it it makes it easier to make your choices for which approach fits best.

in the end, all i know is that when the girls sleep well, really everybody is happier.