Adapting to Toddlerhood

Now that Delilah has entered the realm of toddlerhood, our daily lives have changed quite dramatically. Sometimes I wonder if it’s changed more now than when we brought her home as a newborn. I remember when I was pregnant and there was a video game I really wanted that was supposed to come out on my due date. Everyone told me it would be a waste of time that with a newborn I’d never have time to even play it. Well, my wonderful brother purchased the game for me as a gift and even with a newborn, I had plenty of opportunities to play even if it was just during naps. Newborns take a lot of naps! Nowadays that free time does not exist. I find it hard to even find the time to make a quick phone call. Usually, during naps, I’m so exhausted from getting up at 4:30 to go to work that I fall asleep with Delilah and we take good long naps together. Sometimes someone will even have to wake us up because we’re pushing the 4-hour mark. So, I thought it would be fun to just talk about some of the ways some of my little habits have changed since Delilah has dived headfirst into toddlerdom.

I now do my make up on the front porch 

Let me start by saying I love makeup, I love trying new looks and collecting fun eyeshadow palettes, but when I found out I was pregnant I got used to the idea of makeup being more of a once in a bit thing rather than a daily routine. I’ve tried coming up with a standard 5-minute face routine, but it’s just not my style. Since the weather has started to be friendlier we’ve been spending a lot more time outside. Delilah absolutely loves going outside! She’s even started bringing people her shoes as a way to tell us she’s ready to go play. On the one or two days a week, I end up wearing makeup  I’ve actually found it easier to bring my stuff out on the porch and use a desk mirror to put on my face while Delilah plays on her slide in front of me. Sometimes we still have our days where it goes not so smoothly because Delilah loves makeup as well. She has a few clean brushes that I keep on hand for her when she wants to do makeup with mommy.

I’ve made peace with never having a peaceful shower by myself again

One of Delilah’s new things since entering her toddler days has been deciding that she no longer wants to take baths anymore. She refuses to sit down whenever she’s in the water. Even in her little pool, she does not want to sit. I knew it was too good to be true when she never gave us any trouble with her baths since she was about a month old.  Since she’s refused to sit in her bath, it makes it extremely hard to do things like

washing her hair and cleaning her ears from outside the tub. One morning, we were in a bit of a rush, so I decided to take her in the shower with me to see how she did. And she loved it! We didn’t have any fussing like with the baths. I was able to reach her ears and hair just fine with her happy and not trying to get away from me. Since then, almost every one of my showers has been taken over by Lilah. Most days it actually works out great for us getting ready, but it’s still something I’ve had to adapt to since my little baby has become a big ol’ toddler.

I’ve gotten really creative at storytelling: 

Delilah loves books! I mean we have literally shelves of them. We got a lot of amazing books at our baby shower and we also signed up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library as soon as we brought her home from the hospital. I’m so grateful that this program is available in our county. We have so much fun every month when we get our new Dolly Book in the mail. Now Delilah has a ton of books, but I’m not always the best at rotating the ones we keep on the shelf in the living room. So, when she brings my mom or me a book, more often than not it’s one we’ve read to her either earlier that morning or the day before. Delilah also isn’t content to read a story all the way through just once.

Usually, after we say “the end” and close the last page she’s already reaching for the book for us to start it over again. After reading the same book 3-4 times in a row, I start to get a little creative with how I tell the story. Sometimes though, if I tell it too silly, Delilah lets me know that I’m not telling the story correctly.

I’ve had to learn to let go of some of my old routines:

So, when I do chores around my house I’ve always had a particular way of doing things. I clean things in a specific order or color code the clothes hanging in my closet. Joshua and his friends used to play little pranks on me by moving clothes around in my closet and seeing how long it would take me to notice. I always noticed right away. With a toddler, I’ve had to accept that I just can’t do things the way I used to, and I either had to adapt my routine or be miserably stressed all the time. When it came to house cleaning, I didn’t like feeling like I was just cleaning every day so I would usually devote one day a week and clean the house from top to bottom. After trying to keep up that routine and failing multiple times I would reach a point where the house was never getting fully cleaned. No matter which room I started in, I would always reach a point where Delilah decided she was done letting me clean and that would be it. I would always say after her nap I’ll finish the rest or first thing in the morning I’ll finish, but something would always get in the way. In the end, it never got done and I was just feeling bad about it all the time. Instead of feeling bad forever, I decided to be brave and stray from my routine. I’ve been trying to devote myself to cleaning one room a day and keeping up with laundry in between. I’m still working on getting this new routine down but it definitely seems way more realistic to fit in with my life now. I still organize all my clothes by color, but little by little I’m learning to adapt to the craziness that is toddlerhood.