Why?

Having kids, being on my own in a new country, having to look after myself, house, husband and two children for the first time ever these past 6 weeks, has got me doing a lot of thinking. I have started to question a LOT of things. Why? Why? Why?

I knew that eventually the cold would get the better of us. William surprisingly seems to cope with 'little man flu' a lot better than Emma does. I guess that after starting nursery they were bound to come home with something infectious and I should be grateful for colds and coughs.

Now that our furniture has arrived and been unpacked for almost a week I keep thinking to myself that this is now my 'normal' life. So, I am trying to get myself, house, husband and the kids into a routine so that eventually I can start to feel normal. William settled into nursery, sorry day care, surprisingly easily and goes Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays now for pretty much the whole day. I'm meant to drop him off at 8.30 every morning but so far (he's been for 4 days) the earliest I've managed is 8:55. We're averaging 9 / 9:15. Getting dressed every morning is still proving a challenge. I'm running out of ways to make putting on pants fun.
Emma was enrolled to the same day care to attend two days a week to allow me some time to paint, take care of the house, clean, grocery shop and go to gym but after one morning and one full day we've decided to keep her home. Part of me missed her and hated dropping her off knowing that she would spend most of the day unhappy wondering where I was (and I'm not bigging myself up here) but we also realised it's probably a cost that we just cant justify until I find work. Turns out she is quite easy to look after on her own and the past two days we've enjoyed wandering the streets of Hoboken, having coffee in the park, playing on the swings - her, not me, and yesterday we even ventured over to NYC to visit friends and try the coffee east of the Hudson. I realise when visiting New York how chaotic it is compared to Hoboken. I love my new neighborhood but I do LOVE New York City. We strolled the streets of West Village into Greenwich Village - give me a couple years until all my dreams have come true and I'll be settled in a brown house just round the corner from Marc, Karl and Kate.

Pete asked me yesterday if being a full time stay at home mom was rewarding. I couldn't answer. When William isn't around me I miss him and the thought of putting Emma in day care makes me sad but yet put the three of us in a house together for one day by 10am I'm ready to send both packing off to boarding school and go get the wine out the fridge.

Why can I not cope? Why do I let them get to me? Why am I not more understanding? Why do I not know what to do with them?

What do other stay at home moms do? Do they really play lego with their kids all day and read and paint? Am I meant to treat my kids at home as if they're at nursery? Am I meant to give them a structured creative learning environment where they will be kept appropriately busy for the majority of the day? Should being a stay at home mom basically mean being an unpaid nanny?
Am I being unrealistic thinking that with both my kids at home I could expect to do my own thing?
I dont know what to think anymore. I just don't seem to cope.

Come on moms - please leave your comments - I need some advice!

My day today so far...

6.55am Woken up by Pete yelling down the stairs it was time for me to get up. Get out of bed, realise I still cant breath properly and am definitely losing my voice. Go upstairs, say morning to the kids, see Emma start crying. Step over yesterday's dirty clothes at the top of the stairs, walk into the lounge, get rugby tackled from William, watch Emma still crying as I wont pick her up. Watch as Pete makes coffee and then promptly leaves for work. Sit down on the sofa and drink coffee.

7am: Get up off sofa and step over Emma still crying as I wont pick her up. Go to the kitchen to make breakfast. Offer kids cereal or porridge. William choses cereal. Pour two bowls of oat squares and cheerios. Finally pick up Emma, clean her snotty face, put her in the high chair. Realise the high chair hasn't been cleaned since yesterday's dinner. Take her out the high chair. Clean both high chairs whilst stepping over Emma as she's now crying as she thinks breakfast isn't coming anymore. Get the kids eating. Prepare William's lunch for school, chop fruit, make sandwiches, prepare snacks, pack school bags. Make toast for kids who've spilt half their cereal over the floor. Find the kitchen towel to clean cereal mess. Clean cereal mess. Clean up bowls and high chairs. Clean kids, help kids out. Tidy kitchen, pack dishwasher.

Get kids to come downstairs to get ready for school. Find clothes, thermals and socks. Try get Emma to sit still so that I can dress her. Run after Emma and force her to sit still so that I can dress her. Change nappy and dress Emma. Find William fiddling in our bedroom with all my socks. Pack all my socks back into my cupboard. Get William to come back to his bedroom to get dressed. Ask him 10 times to sit still to help me help him get dressed. Try stop Emma from climbing the stairs. Run after Emma as she's about to climb into the washing machine. Go back to the bedroom to try get William dressed. Put half of Williams clothes on. Realise someone smells of poo. Check Emma's nappy. Poo. Ask William to put his own socks on whilst I change Emma's nappy. Take off all Emma's clothes I just spent 20 minutes trying to put on. Change nappy. Force clothes back on. Get William to sit still so that I can put his socks on. Notice both socks aren't the same colour. He wants both socks the same colour. Cant find two socks the same colour. Try convince William that different coloured socks is cool. Watch as he throws a strop because he wants same coloured socks. Try run after Emma who has climbed half way up the stairs. Get the kids upstairs. Lock the baby gate.

Go back downstairs to try get myself ready. Shower. Wander around bedroom in a towel trying to find clean clothes. Struggle to find jeans. Walk back up stairs and find jeans at the top of the stairs in the dirty clothes pile. Try on jeans. Realise jeans are covered in too much kiddie snot, dirt and food to wear. Take jeans off. Wander around the house half naked trying to find something else to wear. Finally find another pair of jeans in the dryer. Put on slightly damp jeans. Figure those will do great for my cold. Tie hair up and run upstairs as I can hear the kids fighting. Realise I haven't put any make up on. Figure today I'll have to do without. Try find the one sock William has pulled off his foot and thrown across the room. Get all the bags together. Turn the lights off. Get the kids to go downstairs to the entrance hall to get coats on.

Get downstairs and someone smells of poo. Check Emma's nappy. Poo. Put William's shoes on. Find Williams coat and hat. Try convince William to sit still in the corner whilst I change Emma's nappy. Take off Emma's clothes. Change nappy. Put clothes back on. Put Emma's shoes on. Find Emma's coat and hat. Open front door, walk down 4 more stairs to our inside/ outside entrance to get into pram. Clean Emma's foot muff from all yesterdays crackers and watermelon. Try stop Emma from climbing the stairs and William from running outside. Put William in the pram. Someone smells of Poo. Ignore smell. Get Emma into her foot muff in the pram. Stop William from whacking Emma in the face. Find my own coat. Realise I dont have socks and shoes on. Leave kids and go back up stairs to get socks and shoes. Get back downstairs and finally get ready to go outside. Walk outside and realise its raining. Go back inside. Try find raincover. Cover pram. Walk down the road on route to William's school. Get about 2 minutes away and get told that little dog is at home. Little dog has to come to school. Go back home. Try open both our front doors whilst getting wet. Push pram inside. Go back inside and upstairs to get little dog. Try leave for school again. Walk 10 minutes to Williams school whilst getting wet. Cant hold an umbrella and push a double pram with windy rain. Get to William's school at 9:45. Realise his class has left already for their walk to the park not back until 10.30. Cant leave William on his own. Have to keep him off school today.

Walk over 2 miles to get back to the other side of town and to Emma's Thursday morning music class. Get to Emma's music class with only 5 minutes to go. Decide theirs no point going in so head next door to Starbucks instead for coffee. Order the biggest coffee they have and down it. Sit down for the first time since 7am and start crying. Stop crying as I'm getting odd looks from people in Starbucks and from William. Walk back home in the rain. Get home. Sit on the steps in our inside/ outside hall and watch both kids asleep in the pram. Wonder what I'm doing wrong. Wonder why I can't seem to cope. Cry. Take William out when he wakes up. Let William into the house and try play with him quietly till Emma wakes up. Tire of playing cars. Try start tidying up our study. Stop William from going outside. Stop William from playing with the rubbish bin. Stop William from playing with the TV cabinet. Stop William from playing with the bath in the spare bathroom downstairs. Hear Emma crying. Take Emma out pram. Take kids upstairs. Try get the kids to eat lunch. Remember lunch bags are in the pram downstairs. Leave kids upstairs and get lunch bags. Try feed kids lunch. Watch as Emma refuses help to eat and throws all her food all over the floor. Clean the floor. Clean Emma. Unpack dishwasher, pack away dishes, pack dishwasher. Smell Poo. Check Emma's nappy. Poo. Wish for once she could change it herself. Take off Emma's clothes. Change nappy. Leave clothes off. Put Peppa PIg on TV. Hope the kids will sit still for 5 minutes to watch TV. Realise that apart from coffee haven't had anything else to drink or eat all day. Go to the kitchen to contemplate making lunch. Stop William from snatching toys from Emma. Listen to William moaning that he doesnt want to watch Peppa Pig. Count to ten whilst William screams on the floor. Try not yell at him. Try not punch something. Step over Emma who's now crying because I wont pick her up. Persuade the kids its sleep time. Get the kids downstairs to their bedroom. Put them in their cots. Listen to them both screaming. Think how lucky I am to have such wonderful kids. Close bedroom door to block out screaming. Go back upstairs to make lunch. Feel slighly sick from hunger. Decide to go lie down instead. Sleep.

To Be Continued...

Kids are asleep now, hubby came home early and I'm off to bed. Fingers crossed tomorrow will be better than today. x

Where has 'me time' gone???

We're finally in our new house and official residents of New Jersey, Garden state. Awesome!

I've been trying to update my blog for the past two weeks but every time I get time to write something, something comes up and I usually find by the time I return the information is in need of updating. Apologies. I can only blame two small individuals who seem to be devouring my free time at the moment.
As usual I've been running around like a blue ass fly (I'm not quite sure where that saying comes from) but if blue ass flies never sit still, are constantly badgered from two smaller blue ass flies and occasionally feel more like headless chickens than blue ass flies, then thats me.

I can't think of another time in my life I have felt more stressed than I have been these past few days. Having babies is easier than this. Give me twins. Everything seems such a challenge and the days, although full of activity seem to last FOREVER. Despite the kids running amok in our house for hours and being taking to play gyms its 8.03pm and they're both still awake?! What happened to my 'in bed by 7pm in Singapore time children?' Please tell me!!!

Our move over here hasn't exactly gone to plan. We had hoped our furniture could be in place before moving into our new house to make the transition as easy as possible for the kids but sadly not. All our worldly goods have been stuck somewhere off the coast of Florida and only arrived in New York a couple days ago. I thought living in serviced accommodation was challenging until I moved into a house with nothing in it.
Living in an empty apartment has it's advantages. Its roomy for sure; the kids are loving the space to run around; its easy to maintain; with nothing in it, there's nothing to clean and I'm not constantly finding myself asking William to 'put it back'; there isn't anything to fiddle with, but it also brings a lot of chaos, confusion and boy does it echo. Creaky wooden floor boards can sound incredibly loud when there is nothing else to absorb the noise. Oh, and hardwood floors are so uncomfortable to sit on.

The kids cots were airfreighted over to our serviced apartment so when we arrived in Hoboken on Wednesday they were put up in the house in their now shared bedroom- which they love. We went to Ikea the weekend before to buy a sofa bed (hoping it would be delivered the day we moved in) to see us through till our bed arrives but annoyingly got a call Tuesday afternoon to say that it wasn't going to be delivered till Thursday or Friday (and if there's extreme weather- which I'm only hoping refers to snow and not rain) it wouldn't be till the following Tuesday. So, at 4pm Wednesday afternoon with nothing to sleep on that night we traipsed around Hoboken and Jersey City looking for a cheap alternative to save us from 8 hours in the bath with the three pillows we have.
To cut a very long story short we ended up finding a 'spare' bed, but that wasn't delivered in time either, so after a few stressful hours- and a lot of wine- we managed to locate a Sears store in Newport and luckily a rather inexpensive air bed. So, we now have space in our house for 7 adults and 5 kids. Please come visit!!

The first few days in our house have been great. I have to admit that occasionally I find myself in a corner, eyes closed counting to ten, holding my breath so not to scream at William or Emma for the 100th time, but apart from what I'm going to put down as 'teething problems', everything is seeming a lot better. Sometimes I wonder why we left the comforts of our privileged life in Singapore, but on other days I couldn't picture living anywhere else. It's amazing that you can bath your kids and not sweat. We can run to the park down the road and enjoy 2 hours extreme sliding and come back and wear the same clothes all day and the next if we like. Amazing.

I'm not sure what Pete thinks. I know for one his job isn't exactly what he signed up for. He seems to be at work ALL the time so not only have I had to get used to looking after the kids on my own, I've had to get used to being on my own. I can only say that I've learnt a lot these past few weeks.
For one - I never thought I'd have a playlist on my iphone titled 'cleaning songs'; I never thought I'd be able to drink two bottles of wine on my own on two successive nights and still wake up at 7am the next morning fully function-able; I never thought I'd actually want to send Emma off to nursery school and I never thought I'd actually find supermarket aisles fascinating. I also never thought I'd one day be left to find my new BFF on an online 'friendship dating' website. I knew when leaving Singapore I'd have to go through this whole palaver again of meeting friends, hoping people like me, building up the courage to ask someone out for coffee etc, but I forgot how wierd it is. 'Hi I'm Caroline, I'm a mother of two, I like painting, wine, cheesecake and hate humming, untuned radio stations, whistling and gherkins. Please be my friend'
I joined the website Meet Up and next Monday have 9 strange woman and their children descending on our house for playtime. Wish me luck!

Tomorrow is the kid's first day at nursery. I've managed to get them into a local playgroup for 3 days a week to give me time to clean our house and look for work so I'm hoping it all goes smoothly. If Emma cries I bet I will.
Sorry this update has taken so long. The next one will be coming soon with pics of our new place.;-)