all of my love

I'm 27 years old and I was born and raised on the east coast of the US. I'm an early childhood educator finally turned SAHM after years of loss and infertility before suddenly becoming lucky enough to welcome the sweetest boy and girl into the world within less than a year of each other: Elijah + Isla 🐻🐝 19 months and 7 months. I'm starting new here somewhat anonymously.

[alllofmylove]

We're looking around at sandboxes. I really cannot wait to see how much my boy is obsessed with spending time playing outside in it once the spring weather comes! He loves being outside already so we're never going to be able to bring him inside away from it and I can't wait lol ☺️ I think we might end up decided on building one ourselves after seeing what was available. I preferably want a wooden one w/ a cover and shade. I was looking at ones in the $150-$200 price range and I just think we could get something much bigger and much more durable if we make it ourselves. Even the plastic turtle ones that I remember are $70 or so? I'm indecisive!

[apocryphics]

girls will carry unimaginable primordial rage but still go about their day as if nothing is wrong and that is very sexy of us I think

[alllofmylove]

Tonight when I was making dinner and the boy was distracted, I very reluctantly had to throw away a book that was falling apart. I gave him a little job of throwing something away a few minutes later like the absolute FOOL that I am and my poor baby found his book in the trash and pulled it out. He walked away with it to the book shelf in the living room and made a sound like "Huh, good thing I caught that mistake, huh mama? 😌🤔"

[alllofmylove]

Thinking back to having my 3 month old at home (who was born after over three years of ttc and multiple losses) and finding out I was pregnant again. I can vividly remember the first ultrasounds and being so petrified of the thought of not being a good enough mom to handle having two babies who deserved the world. After everything we went through to have our son, I got pregnant without trying and I was shocked and felt so guilty about everything. Feeling so grateful that life happened the way that it did and gave me all that it did, when it did though. I can't believe how everything has just gone by and fell into place. Dan and I have settled into being the parents of two babies and we've settled into being a family of four. I've settled into being a mama. Each day the dynamic changes without noticing until one day I realize how much bigger my babies have gotten in the previous few weeks 🥺 I think having an about to be 1 year old and a newborn baby was different than having a 15 month old and a 3 month old... but having a 1½ year old and a 6 month old is even more different than that. I'm just loving the adventures of parenting them so close in age, even if there are definite and real challenges, they are so so so so worth it and then worth a million times more than that.

[alllofmylove]

I wonder how Jon is doing every single day. I drive by the business that used to be his motorcycle shop all of the time, sometimes by matter of coincidence and sometimes on purpose; just to feel close to him. I don't see the pain ever going away but the way it hurts today is different than it was last month, and the month before that and the month before that. I think it will feel differently next month too but I really do think about him all of the time, even so. I heard a song on my songs to avoid at all costs list and I really had the wind knocked out of me, like I was 6 years old again and falling hard from trying to rollerskate. I was alone in the car. Intead of skipping the song like I usually would, I replayed it a few times. I sat in my own head and tried to make sense of it all.

[alllofmylove]

Both kids and I were in the kitchen the other night while I was cooking and I asked Eli if he wanted to play with Isla and get a toy for them to look at together. Instead of getting a toy, he started playing the little stinky feet game Dan and I always played with the kids where we pretend their feet are stinky and say ughhhh stinky in a cute little way. 😂 He ran over to her sitting in her highchair and dramatically made a big sniff noise and then looked at me and scrunched his little face up in pretend disgust and sniffled hard and it cracked her up! 🤣

[alllofmylove]

I know I've probably said this every month since I gave birth to my son but I have no idea how time continues to fly right on by. I have no idea how my teeny, tiny, newborn son turned into my silly, happy, sweet toddler and I have no idea how my teeny, tiny newborn daughter who was just born is suddenly almost 7 months old. I just can't believe how fast newborn diapers and swaddles turn into rattles and then rattles turn into toddler toys and sippy cups. Bittersweet is the only word. I am so amazed and in love with the tiny little humans I see growing in front of me every single day but so hard knkwing that my tiny little snugglebugs aren't just these tiny little beings anymore the way they were the first times I held them in my arms seconds after they came into the world. I just love them so much 🥺🥰🥰

[alllofmylove]

Got the little big kid one of those little ball pits but the basketball hoop one and he is living his absolute best life. Winter is becoming really winterish 😂 and I'm happy we have a few indoor activities that keep him active inside because boiiii, I was afraid of how I was going to keep my toddler entertained during the harsh New England winters we get.

[alllofmylove]

I don't have any social media besides Tumblr and I still have to take breaks from it once in a while for my own good. I hope everyone and their little families are doing ok! ☺️

[alllofmylove]

Played video games after the babes went to bed last night. Doing a survival with 3 other people. I make it through without dying once until the last wave but we made it through all nine waves! We have 1 teammate left and he makes it through the very last wave alone and he's annhilating 60 npc's or so without even breaking a sweat so we have it in the bag easily. There's literally just 1 npc left to get and we win the entire survival. He gets out of cover to go get the single npc that's left and it kills him and we lose.

🤣🤣😫

[why-bless-your-heart]

Another couple good things about babies:

When they’re being lugged around and their little sausage legs just dangle

The way they put their whole body into being so angry but they’re so small.

The way they scrunch up into your arms when they’re sleepy.

When they see something they like so they do a little happy dance.

[alllofmylove]

Sundays are my favorite.

Sunday is our family day. We get freshly baked pizza from our favorite bakery and then we go to the grocery market and I let Elijah walk around with me instead of going in the cart while Dan has Isla because it's not really busy. He gets so excited getting to walk around like a big kid 🥺🥰🥲 After nap we hit our verrrrry favorite playground/field. The kids mimi stopped by before we left for the playground but Dan let me escape the time with her to have a little thc time insyead of dealing w his mom 🤪 I finished making meatballs and pasta I started at nap time when we got home and the little big kid and his dad were Very Happy. The meatballs came out better than I've ever made them in my life. I didn't mix too much 😳 and I used the perfect amount of ricotta cheese, parley, basil and oregano. I tried them after they came out of the oven and packed one for the boy for a snack at the playground and they were so good. Today was a good day.

[alllofmylove]

I had called the oil company we use at the beginning of winter and put $1k in the tank but after last nights negative temps, thinking I should check to see where we're at now. 🥴

[alllofmylove]

Before we went through a few years of trying to get pregnant and the heartbreak that comes with miscarriage and infertility, we did things like talk about our preferred timing for me to get pregnant. Better yet, when we didn't want me to be pregnant 😂 I said I didn't want to be heavily pregnant in the summer time and Dan said he didn't want the baby to be born around his birthday. 🙄

I really would've given anything to be pregnant and have a baby in my arms after all we went through. When I finally got what I had waited so long for and had a healthy baby in the end, the little things like that didn't matter even a little bit anymore. I got pregnant in November with Eli and spent the end of my pregnancy in the summer and I went into labor three weeks early so I ended up giving birth eight days after Dan's birthday! 🤣 I got pregnant with Isla the following November and I spent the end of my pregnancy in July again and gave birth to her three weeks early too putting her birthday 2 days after Dan's birthday. She probably would’ve been born on his actual birthday if the materiniy hospital had room in L&D and I wasn't waiting to be induced in the antenatal unit. 🤣

I really don't care even a little bit about how the timing worked out in the end. I ended up here. I'm living this life I never thought I would have with my baby and my baby and they're both happy and healthy. 🧒🏼🤍👶🏻🤍 I would go through anything on the planet to have them both exactly who they are despite being uncomfortable during pregnancy in the summer months.

But we still think it's HILARIOUS that it happened that way! 😆

[alllofmylove]

We just about made it to his normal bed time. I hope I didn't mess his whole schedule up too badly today 😬 I've been putting him in his crib around 7:20ish and he usually takes about 10 mins to fall asleep but tonight, instead of playing in his room for a few mins he went right over to his crib and started trying to pull the blankets out to snuggle 🥺 I put him in his crib and you could see his eyes start to close immediately. He was pretty much asleep by the time I was downstairs. Poor sleepy baby.

[alllofmylove]

My 18 month old son has had no nap today. Right before he fell asleep I went back into his room and had to change him because I couldn't let him sleep the way he was and it woke him up. Started roaring in his crib and all 😂 He's acting his normal self, babbling away and happy and silly since then. I really hope it doesn't dawn on the poor boy later right before bed or make him too overtired to have a peaceful night's sleep but... hoping we make it to bedtime feeling ok! He woke up at 5am. 😳

[alllofmylove]

Today was the first day I put my girl into her highchair and fed her more than just a few bites while in my arms. She had lunch today with us 🥲 so Elijah had a buddy to have lunch with and he thought it was pretty funny having her next to him taking bites of her own. ☺️ Completely melted my heart into a puddle to see them both next to each other in their little highchairs lol. They look so much alike and when they're sitting next to each other it's just so adorable to me how much you can see it, especially as Isla gets older.