Two-Under-2 Survival: When They Have You Outnumbered

Is parenting your singleton feeling, oh, just a little too easy? Time to turn things up a notch and add a child to your brood!

Having a second kid is just lovely (particularly in the 2 parent/2 child, 1 parent/1 child, 2 parent/1 child variations), but at some point it'll happen: You'll be outnumbered. Suddenly, there are children than you can comfortably handle and many, many, moving parts to coordinate, both literally and figuratively. Regardless, you need to get things done. This is how I tacked three of my least favorite 2-on-mama challenges.

Grocery trips
Entirely possible, though you need to remember two words: maximum load. You will be carrying children and groceries at the end of this little adventure, and a gallon of milk can feel veeerry heavy. 

My strategy:
(1) Always park near the cart corral. I keep both kids in the cart and enthusiastically steer them toward samples to keep those idle hands busy.
(2) Keep perishable foods to a minimum. Actually, you'll have to keep most food to a minimum; toddlers limit cart space. I always bring my backpack and bag perishable food in there to bring home right away. I leave all other grocery bags in the car until the reinforcements come home.

The carseat shuffle
I live in a city with busy streets, busy sidewalks, and very few parking lots. Safely loading the kids -- one wiggly but still requiring carrying, one older but speedy and not altogether trustworthy -- into a parallel-parked car presented an interesting puzzle. Still burned into my memory is the terrifying day last spring when Estelle darted into traffic while I loaded Lulu into her carseat. Yikes, just typing that still makes me feel queasy.

My strategy: It's honestly so simple, I'm shocked I didn't think of it sooner: I always load Lulu into her carseat first, but before I do, I open the front door (driver or passenger side, it doesn't matter) to let Estelle play up front with the door shut. Estelle loves pushing buttons and steering, and aside from the CD she once jammed in our CD player it's entirely safe. Possibly my best maternal innovation to date (ever?).

Flying solo at bedtime
Remember when I waxed poetic about letting go and picking a few parenting priorities? Well, it's not all roses. Getting the girls a good night sleep is definitely one of our top priorities, which means that most nights -- since Lab Partner works late -- I'm doing the girls' nighttime routine solo.

My strategy: The girls' bedtimes are staggered by about 45 minutes, but we do most of the routine together.
(1) 6:15 pm. Everyone brushes their teeth, gets new diapers and changes into jammies.
(2) Everyone treks upstairs to the girls' room, which "we" tidy.
(3) Estelle and Lulu pick out their before-bedtime books. Lulu and I move across the hall to read books on my bed. Estelle has the choice of listening to Lulu's stories or playing quietly in her room, but she almost always chooses to play.
(4) After Lulu's books, we swap rooms with Estelle. I sing Lulu her lullabies and put her to bed.
(5) Estelle and I watch her nighttime installment of "Elmo's World" downstairs.
(5) Back upstairs for Estelle's books, potty trip and lullabies.
(6) I deposit Estelle in the bedroom, where Lulu now asleep.
(7) Estelle chatters for another 20 minutes or so. By 8 pm, they're both miraculously out. Relief is palpable.

Of course, reality is um, messier, than these strategies might indicate. The "quiet play" in bedtime step 3, for example, isn't always quiet. Sometimes Estelle wanders between the rooms, generally interrupting Lulu's stories. Sometimes I long for a television that could distract Estelle and ensure that Lulu gets the lovely, uninterrupted bedtime that Estelle had at her age. Sometimes I wonder if any of these parenting priorities, from TV to bedtimes is even worth it.

But, we just keep working on it. Every few weeks I come up with a new innovation (a quiet reading spot in the hallway! special bedtime toys!) that I'm sure will make things run more soothly. Some do, others don't. But, as with all two-under-2 survival, it's a work in progress.

Two-Under-2 Survival: The Ultimate Convenient Food without Convenience Food

Before the kiddos arrived, cooking around the Lab was a hobby more than a habit.  The average weekday night was a mix of takeout and quick, relatively healthy meals with an actual recipe-based home-cooked meal thrown in every now and again.  On the weekends, though, the Dr. and I spent a good deal of time trying out in-depth recipes, to a mixed degree of success.  My focus was always the long-cooking Sunday-dinner type meal.  They were never anything too fancy, but we did develop some fundamental cooking skills, and learned to make some good rustic classics, mostly Italian, because I always wanted to become the mid-American guy version of the old Italian lady who kicked ass in the kitchen, but could also make some great Mexican food when asked.

Now that the girls are around, though, neither of us have a lot of time for meals with more than, say, six or seven steps, let alone recipes with layers of complexity. We also need to think on our feet, often really fast during times of stress while wading through two inches of stale cereal and dried apple bits. Our only rule is to keep the food as free of processed convenience food as possible, or to keep the convenience food we do use as simple and not-gross as possible.

That said, we do need to make meals and as necessity truly is the mother of invention, we have actually ended up finding one, lifesaving, timesaving meal that is almost always awesome: the frittata. As I learned from my proxy Italian grandmother Marcella Hazan's great Essentials of Italian Cooking, the frittate are omlettes with no fancy flipping or French pretension. Frittate are also healthy, easy to make and super delicious as it's basically eggs with ingredients tossed in. 

For kids, frittate offers protein and the other amazing things eggs offer, because, eggs are awesome.  Or, as Harold McGee says "An egg is the sun's light refracted into life."  I love that quote. They also accept tons of veggies and other ingredients and are very quick, and are more special than scrambled eggs. 

Frittate are really simple. All you need are eggs, some ingredients and a frying pan that you can put into the oven.  There are recipes for them everywhere, but Hazan's are my favorites because she offers this amazing twist that has taken the frittate and elevated it into an otherworldly form.  She has a recipe for a frittate with pasta in it!

Google books actually has the recipe here, so I won't repeat it verbatim. 

Basically, you make some spaghetti (or use some leftover spaghetti), toss it with cheese and butter, and then immerse it into beaten eggs, which you load into a frying pan or skillet, cook for a bit on the stove, and then finish under the broiler.  The link also has a version with tomato, mozzarella and ham, which was a huge hit at the Lab. If you want to defile the recipe Ugly American style, frittate with pasta can also be the home for leftover macaroni and cheese, which can make a quick lunch. 

A photo of Hazan back in the day, probably urging some lucky cook to throw some pasta into her frittate. (Photo via Gourmet.com)

Two-Under-2 Survival: Letting Go

Wise words from John Wilmot (a 17th century libertine, boozer, dad): “Before I got married I had six theories about raising children; now, I have six children and no theories.” Tell it, John.

I've learned that second children have a way of throwing your deeply held parental ideals into the diaper bin. Things that were challenging with one kid are harder, and the limits on your resources and abilities -- once conveniently overlooked -- are staring you in the face. The answer, of course, is simply to let go of some things, which can honestly sting at times.

Maybe it's just me. I know I can be a perfectionist with impossibly high standards and an unrealistic perception of my own capacity. A few months into Lulu's life, though, I grudgingly let some things go:

• House cleaning and home improvements
  Pain involved in letting go: Dull ache
  Oh, the Lab. There are so many things that bug me about the Lab: the piles of laundry to be folded, the piles of bills to file, the messy closets and paper-plastered fridge. And, for a fixer-upper, there's been very little fixing going on. Occasionally, Lab Partner and I look at one of our optimistic home improvement to-do lists (made when we were childless or back when Estelle slept for 80% of the day) which serves only to depress us. Hey, we'll have time when they are in college, right?
• Homemade baby food
  Pain involved in letting go: Paper cut
  I made all of Estelle's baby food. It was so easy! It was so cheap! Even my thrifty nature and self-suffiecient aspirations weren't enough, though. I traded homemade food for a valuable hour or two each week. Occasionally, I still buy sweet potatoes and tell myself that I'll whip up a quick batch for Lulu (never mind that Lulu hasn't touched the baby stuff for months). Those sweet potatoes are still sitting on my counter, waiting.
• Months of nursing
  Pain involved in letting go: Wind-knocking wallop
  When breastfeeding just didn't work with baby #1, I was crushed. I vowed to myself that if baby #2 was an enthusiastic nurser, I'd breastfeed her for several months at least. She was. I didn't. After three months, I admitted to myself that I couldn't keep up with Lulu's nursing schedule, either biologically or psychologically. Seven months later, I'm so relieved to have thrown in the towel, but in the maternal guilt department, this was a doozy.

Really, though, it's best not to linger on the things given up, but rather the practices and ideals that you gave them up to retain. Letting go isn't a free fall, but a way to retain and try to actually enjoy your most important priorities.

Instead of focusing on our mess or the price of formula, I try to remember what I was determined to keep: Hands-on time to play on the floor with the girls. The gift of small, mundane moments -- Saturday errands, afternoon snacks -- together as a family. My cockamamie plans to keep Lulu off TV until she's 2. Encouraging the girls to be readers and imagination machines.

What makes the cut for you?

Two-Under-2 Survival: Entertaining the Troops

In a period of one week last spring, the Lab experienced two sea changes: hello to lovely Lulu, buh-bye to Estelle's awesome-but-too-expensive days at daycare. Suddenly, keeping two girls entertained fell on our shoulders, and the 17-month difference in their ages often seemed simultaneously too big (for the exact same activity) and too small (for independent play at different activities).

Example: Estelle thinks peek-a-boo is for babies. Lulu thinks Estelle's favorite Frog and Toad Together is boring. Estelle begs mom to play Play Doh with her; Lulu wants to eat all Doh in her vicinity. Le sigh. Is there ANYTHING these girls can actually do together?

Ta-da! My top 10 ways to entertain a toddler and baby simultaneously:

1. Swings: Overcomes the constant hurdles of holding baby/containing a toddler. Universally loved. Totally safe. Perfect.
2. Recreational bathing: Like the swings, above, bath tubs provide excellent baby/toddler containment*. (Look at me, I'm the George Kennan of parenthood!) Both girls like tub time, particularly when there is no actual scrubbing involved. 
3. Bubbles: Magical, at least four blissful minutes of dual delight.
4. Smellathon: Aside from the cardamom incident of 2010, sniffing our way through the spice rack/mom's perfume collection/various medicine cabinet salves has never let me down.
5. (Some) silly songs: Clearly, at the age of 27 months, Estelle is much sophisticated for songs like Pat-A-Cake. She will, however, enthusiastically supply animals for Old Macdonald and I Had a Rooster. And Lulu likes animal sounds. Thank god.
6. Scrambled magic: Not sure what it is about eggs, but both girls are transfixed by the just-long-enough process of holding eggs, cracking eggs, beating eggs, and cooking eggs. Oh, and eating them. Surely other kids are similarly enchanted by them?
7. Backyard sprinkler time: On this 26-degree Chicago day, it pains me to remember this.
8. Books: Fantastic five that both miraculously love: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Ten Little Ladybugs, Goodnight, Gorilla, Dear Zoo, Animal Babies A to Z.
9. Dance parties
10. Tickle monster: Cures all ills, regardless of age.

Add them all up and, adjusting for the typical baby/toddler attention span, you have a whopping 90 minutes of entertainment! (Repeat as necessary.)

*Important note about baby bath containment: At bathtime, Lulu uses a bath seat, which I still consider one of the best $30 investments yet.

The Two-Under-2(-ish) Survival Guide

The other day, I looked around the house. I was surrounded by the typical chaos associated with life in the Lab -- errant graham crackers and peas on the floor, Dupos and crayons littering the table, clothing from the day's various wardrobe changes piling up in the hamper. As I surveyed the wreckage, I realized something: we are really in the heart of this crazy baby-filled life, and we're actually doing just fine.

Remarkably, the past 10 months, I've learned a thing or two about wrangling a toddler and a baby. The hurdles that seemed so terrifying at first -- from taking on a grocery run with both girls to simply getting them fed and bathed and in bed -- have become old hand. Even the cluttered chaos of a home we attempt to untangle each night has become just another to-do item, nothing more, nothing less.

I remember scouring the internet for survival suggestions and strategies when I was pregnant with Lulu. Each blog post on bathing multiples or meal planning or a similar mundane topic was seemed a precious pearl of wisdom, a key to my future sanity. Of course they weren't pearls or panaceas. They were just strategies that happened to work for other mamas.

Strategies are helpful, though, and I've decided that this week I'll be paying in forward with some nuts-and-boltsy posts about how we make things work around the Lab. Got a question about baby bunching logistics? Send them my way and check back for the Two-Under-2ish Survival Guide this week!