Finn's 4-Month-Old and Family Update

Hello, hello and welcome back to my blog! Today I want to write about family life as a mum of two under two and Finn's 4-month-old update. Can you believe this little bugger is already 4 months old! I feel the newborn stage just raced past us and now he's already keeling to one side to turn on his belly. The main reason why I want to write about my kids' progress once a month - ideally - is because of this racing. It is insane how quickly time passes, even though the days can feel sooooo long sometimes when I count the hours until my husband comes home to relieve me, so I can shower, eat, or even just to take a dump without a baby on my lap (you're welcome for the visual). 

Finn is now amidst his fourth leap (according to The Wonder Weeks book and app, in case you're not familiar), and this leap has been kicking our butts. Also described as one of the most challenging for parents, I can wholeheartedly subscribe to that. In short, he's been a proper little sucker on some days in the past weeks. And I mean, literally. I feel if I'd let him, he'd be on my boobs 24/7. He has this glorious thing where he just falls into a coma in the afternoon and conks out for three, sometimes four hours at a time, but, as nice as that is, I feel he has to catch up on milk supply during the nights - and I KNOW, the simple solution would be to wake him up earlier, but I try to also get some quality time with Lily, so...pros and cons. 

Speak of the devil. Lily has just turned two and we couldn't be more in love with our little toddler. She's talking endlessly - mostly about what we're NOT allowed to do (Her favourite word is "nit", which is Tyrolean dialect for "not"). She's turning into a proper boss bitch and empress of the family, but as she's so darn cute, we mostly forgive her. What she enjoys doing most at the moment is reading books, books, books. It's so funny, we have this one wimmelbook where a child looks a bit like Harry Potter - and now she's always looking for "Hadi Dotta", I could just die (she also calls the Chinese-looking girl next to the boy "Cho Chang", so I guess she's already got her priorities straight). 

Meanwhile, a new struggle blossoming (so you don't think we're like a freaking unicorn rainbow family), is getting Lily dressed. She really doesn't like it. Now, as we were in the heat of summer, I didn't care if she said, "Batzi besser" (Being naked is better), but as we're inching towards autumn, I feel like she should get at least a top on, which takes lots of negotiating at the moment. From screaming to flinging her arms around, it can become quite the battle - even though I always try to give her choices (unless I feel they overwhelm her even more), and give her a few naked minutes before I insist she get dressed. 

Still, I feel we get very little of the "terrible twos", and I think it is partly because we always try to schedule in time for her to put on her own shoes and tell her she can always ask for help. Since she's starting talking and is now talking in half sentences already, communication has become infinitely easier. Usually, unless she's tired or hungry, she does ask for help before having a meltdown and a cuddle can mostly avert all bigger tantrums. 

However, on the matter of tantrums, it was - and still is - a huge learning curve for me to accept that these big feeling don't mean I am a bad parent. I often tended to deflect her big emotions because it was hard not to take it personally as a parent. A good friend of mine suggested pretending Lily wasn't my child when she had a tantrum - not like ignore her (though sometimes I'd love to do that too ;-)), but to imagine she was a strange child that somehow came upon you and you felt responsible for guiding it through the tantrum (as if you were their nanny, kindergarten teacher, etc). On some occasions this method has helped me to not take it personally and remain calm. 

As you can see on the picture, Finn has truly mastered the difficult task of lifting his enormous head (thanks for the tear, babe) and can now lie on his stomach to examine his hands, objects, and, his favourite object, himself in a mirror. Sadly, however, at the moment he doesn't like to entertain himself for anything exceeding two minutes - which is also a problem when driving with the car. But I hope he will outgrow these little obstacles, maybe even in month 5.