Oy vey! 90 minute sleep increments! Portia, I'm officially giving you a medal. That's rough. I hope your DH threw you a parade daily for that commitment. That's a ridiculously difficult load to place on one person. DS will sometimes wake 4-5 times per night, by we seem to have hit a phase where he sleeps in 3 hour blocks. It feels heavenly.
My main strategies have been:
- Batch cook on the weekend
- Include DS in activities
- Sleep whenever humanly possible
- Place readings under pillow for subliminal learning (LOL). Seriously, I'm glad I've evolved to need little effort for grad school, because it only gets about 2% of my time. Literally.
- Go to the park daily for PT...DS needs the physical release, plus it's such a wonderfully open-ended activity. We'll easily be there for 2 hours just running and creating imaginary sequences.
I think we're going to start doing scavenger hunts at home, too. We do "I Spy" type games when we go for walks around town, but I'd like to use our own little oasis more creatively. Your DS is a very fortunate boy to have such a playful and interesting Mama. I hope you know that.
These ideas are fun! You're energizing me and rekindling that spirit of play, which is exactly what I needed. I was staring to feel like an adult which, categorically, I am not.
Re: music, I'm proud to say that DS is a rocker like his mother. He also has a taste for metal, which tickles me to no end, but this is softened by his love of Debussy and all things cello. The first video he ever watched was a 40 minute philharmonic performance with close-ups of the different instruments around 9 months, with him shouting out the instrument names. Does your DS play an instrument?
Re: only childhood, I don't think I could bring myself to have another child at least until DS is kindergarten or elementary age. I couldn't take another equally labour intensive child so soon. We deliberately started our family young to buy flexibility down the road. I would love to have another child (or two!) if I could be reasonably assured of my sanity (or maintaining my lack thereof...).
So glad I twisted your arm.
