Thursday, June 25, 2009

Settling Into a Routine

I keep expecting things to get a little easier. When our second daughter was born three months before our first daughter’s second birthday, I knew things would be tough. Everybody you talked to said it would be really hard the first year. I believed them.

However, it seems like we often make things hard on ourselves. In addition to tackling child rearing, we are also doing some home remodeling this year and I have taken up a new hobby in the form of triathlon. We have offset some stressors by maintaining a house cleaning service and adding a lawn service. At a bare minimum we need to take care of laundry, baths and meals. On the meal front, I need to start poking my wife in regards to ordering in food from a local caterer we know.

It is still a lot of fun being married and playing with the kids. It is terrific to share life’s joys and frustrations with my wife. I get a kick out of playing kitchen and going to the park. I will never tire of seeing my little one’s face light up when I prop her on my lap and swing her arms around.

I don’t expect anything magical to happen February 2010. I do expect to witness some of the small miracles, like Diya getting potty trained and Nisha learning to walk. As they start interacting more with other kids there will be new challenges. They will be able to communicate more needs and learn about disappointments that result from limited resources. They will also grow out of being Daddy’s little girls and will not be excited about helping clean my bicycle or pulling weeds out of the yard.

The perspective I am gleaning is that there will never be a comfortable routine. With four individuals and personalities in our family, the only constant will be change. Each of our personalities will change. My wife is not the exact same person I married four years ago and I am not the same either. Diya changes every month. Two months ago she was hooked on Sesame Street. Today she is hooked on going to the park. Nisha hasn’t changed as much, but she is holding her head up now and 4 weeks ago all she would do is stare up at you from her crib.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let's enjoy every moment- before you know it, we'll be bailing them out of jail - ahh! Let's hope not.