Two More Answers!

A couple more questions from my Q & A post:

6. I was wondering what you thought was the hardest thing about being a mother of two and if there is anything that you THOUGHT was going to be difficult about parenting two, but turned out not to be.
The hardest thing for me is dividing my time and attention between the two girls. I often wish I could give each girl more one-on-one time and I constantly feel guilty knowing that Jessica gets a lot less attention than her sister did at her age.
One thing I thought was going to be harder than it is is preparing meals. At least one girl always comes through for us by either playing independently, sleeping, or happily sitting in the bouncy seat. Steve and I are also good at tag-teaming the cooking, so one of us is always able to be in the kitchen and get things done. Mealtime just isn't as hectic as I thought it would be.

7. Do you consider yourself a laid-back mom, or are you more structured? Do you get flustered/stressed out often, or do you just roll with the punches?
In general I think I'm a pretty laid-back mom. I'm structured in terms of sleep schedules (I'm a slave to the nap) and meal times, but for the most part I'm easy-going. I consider myself to be a "yes" mom -- I don't like to say no unless there is a legitimate reason.
I feel like half of the time I roll with the punches, the other half I'm flustered and stressed (really it just depends on the day!). I stress out over things like feedings, milk supply, weight gain, illnesses, and what other people think of my parenting. I get very flustered when it comes to discipline and Emily's anxiety in public (Emily's tears have often brought me to tears as well). But some days my attitude is very positive and I love bringing humour into every good or bad situation.

Thanks Amy and Carrie! Great questions!

You Asked, I Answered!

Thanks to everyone for participating! I really enjoyed reading and answering your questions. 

1. I know you used to be awesome at drawing when I knew you back in elementary school... and you still draw a bit (those books for Emily), but besides that, do you still draw/paint/sketch? If so, can you post some of your work?
In elementary school, drawing was my passion. At a very young age I decided I was going to be a cartoonist or work for Disney. As crazy as this may sound, the fact that I didn't win the art award at my grade 8 graduation (Stephanie won it) totally crushed my hopes and dreams. I took one art course in high school, but never felt like I was good enough and didn't pursue any more courses. I did, however, take a few photography courses and developed a passion for that (and I did win the grade 12 photography award!). But again my dreams were crushed when I met a photographer at a job fair who seemed totally depressed and talked about how it doesn't matter how good your pictures are -- it's a tough job to make money in. Since high school I've barely done any art. Back in 2008 I decided to try painting for the first time. I painted this, a reproduction of Group of Seven painting:

(It's split into two canvases. I kept one and gave one away, kind of like a "friendship painting"!)

I really enjoyed painting and was totally immersed in this work of art. In fact I loved it so much that I even bought myself more paint supplies and an easel with the intentions of painting more. But finishing my master's degree and having a baby kind of took away all the free time I had (and I found painting to be very time consuming!). I would truly love to get back to doing more art one of these days.

2. What were some of the boy names you and Steve discussed? I love Emily and Jessica so I am curious!
Boy names were so much harder for us to pick and agree on! For both pregnancies we had a girl's name picked out but no boy's name, so we were pretty relieved when we found out that they were girls :). I had a few names that I liked (Jacob, Andrew, Joshua, Sam), but Steve couldn't find any that he liked. The only one we finally agreed on was Jacob, so that's probably what we would have named our boy. His middle name would have been Roger (named after my dad).

3. How do you keep Emily busy while nursing Jessica? I need some tips!
There are only a few activities that Emily enjoys doing on her own: reading books, doing puzzles, and playing with (jumbo) legos. Also lately she's been interested in reusable sticker books -- those keep her entertained for long periods of time.

If she doesn't want to do any of those, we'll sit on the couch and I'll nurse Jessica while Emily browses through pictures/videos on my laptop (she needs me to navigate the folders). Otherwise, she'll probably ask to go have a rest. That usually works out best because she sits in her bed with her books while I feed Jessica (in Emily's room) and I don't have to worry about her running out of sight. When Steve is around I try to minimize distractions so I take Jessica up to our bedroom and feed her there while Emily plays with her Daddy.

4. Did the doctor give you any tips to help Emily in putting words together?
I wish! It would have been great if he had given us tips on improving Emily's speech, but I didn't think to ask. Her only two-word combinations are "all done!" and "oh no!" (but those are more expressions than subject-verb combinations). The doctor just said we'll wait and see how she's doing at 30 months and go from there.

5. I think you mentioned having plans drawn, but have you found any already drawn that you like?
I'm pretty picky about the size and location of the rooms in our home, so I can't seem to find any already-drawn plans that fit our needs perfectly. I find ideas and inspiration from plans I browse online and in books, but our home will likely be a very custom design. I'll be sure to post about our plan when we get it!

Nathalieland Q & A

I've decided to do my first Q & A post! I've seen a few bloggers do these before and I've always found them fun/interesting to read, so I thought I'd give it a try. I have a few new readers as well as many whom I don't know in real life, so if there's anything you're wondering (whether about me, my family, motherhood, blogging, etc) or anything I haven't covered on my blog, now's the time to ask. Plus it would be nice to hear from you, the readers!

Chilling with Jessica

(4 months old) 

So just leave me a comment with your questions (or, if you prefer, send them to me by email: nthibode@gmail.com) and I'll answer them in my next post. And I'll try to not be sad if I don't get any questions ;).

 Chilling with Emily

(5 months old)