Hi friends! I haven’t done a motherhood update in awhile, so for those interested, read on to hear how things are going in parenting land! I’m also including some pictures from a few recent fun date nights (which have been a very nice reprieve from said parenting!).
I’ll be honest – we are in a rough patch over here parenting-wise. Wes is in the midst of basically 3 big transitions all at once and it’s just… a lot.
Wes switched to a new older kid classroom at his school and it’s been really hard for him as it’s a totally different routine, new classroom, different teachers, different building… new everything basically! Poor guy has been so grumpy and exhausted in general and very upset at drop off each day, too. It’s a lot for him and also it’s a lot for us supporting him through all the big emotions and constant tantrums (he does great at school once he’s in there/after the initial drop off, but then is a mess at home).
We took the kids on a family adventure to Mason Neck State Park last weekend and the amount of tantrums Wes had that day… yeah. It was tough.
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It was really beautiful there, although VERY windy that day. See the windsurfer out in the distance in the photo above? Great day for that, although he was getting whipped around out there!
The park has a nice mix of waterfront trails and wooded trails, and we had fun exploring the woods amidst the tantrums. This creek area was an especially big hit with the kids.
As was this boardwalk area! We saw a lot of turtles sunning themselves on logs.
The second big transition we are in the midst of is that Wes is ready to drop his nap (gah!!). He will still be required to nap at school until he’s 4, but that’s okay as school really wears him out and his naptime is not very long there anyway.
But on the weekends, we’ve been having issues now for awhile where we will try to put Wes down around 1 or 1:30 (with him fighting it a lot), but then he won’t actually fall asleep until closer to 2:30 or so, and then when we wake him up around 3:30 or 4 he’s an absolute grumpy mess. And then his bedtime has been getting later and later, too – usually we leave his room by 8 at the latest but he will stay up until about 9.
I had a quick call with our sleep coach this week and she confirmed that the writing was on the wall for sure: nap time had come to a close for us. It’s really weird to think about completely reworking our rhythm/routine on the weekends to not include nap anymore. We’ve been so used to it for so long!
A big upside is that it makes farther flung adventures much easier because we won’t have to worry about rushing back home for nap, and we won’t have to stress out about keeping him awake in the car, either. So that’s huge and very exciting!
But the loss of that break in the day for me and Matt (we let Riese watch TV when Wes naps on the weekends) is a bummer. And it’s also going to mean Wes needs a way earlier bedtime on the weekends for a bit, which limits social stuff/playdates in the late afternoon/early evening.
But overall it will be exciting to move more fully towards “big kid” land. Lots of possibilities opening up logistically without naps in the mix! We have spring break coming up soon, for example, and it will be really helpful to not worry about nap logistics while we’re driving around/traveling between hotels.
Our plan for a new routine is going to be to have slow mornings playing at home, then get out late morning for fresh air/something active, not coming home until late afternoon when we’ll do a little TV time right before dinner and early bedtime. We’ll see how it goes – wish us luck!
I seem to have amnesia about this phase with Riese, although I do know it happened around the same time for her (right before she turned 3). Things were really different then though as it was nearly winter (so it got dark out early, which makes early bedtime easier) and also covid times (so we weren’t going anywhere anyway) when she dropped her nap.
Anyway! The picture above is from Dora Kelly Nature Park, which was our family adventure a couple weekends ago. The kids loved it there! Riese especially is super into rock scrambling these days. I really want to take her to hike the Billy Goat Trail sometime soon, I think she’s ready…
The last big transition we are in the midst of right now for Wes is that we are in the final stages of potty training! (Gah!) It’s been a lot harder with him than it was for Riese. We are at the point now where pee is going great, but poop, not so much, so we’re having a hard time to committing to always keeping him in underwear.
But we probably just need to go for it and hope he figures it out. I cancelled our pull-up subscription to force us to commit, and we are almost out. So, here we go…! (He’ll still wear diapers at night, this is just for daytime. And yes, I have heard about the Oh Crap! method and it doesn’t feel like the right fit for us, so, just slow rolling it and hoping for the best. He’s already in underwear all day at school so that’s helpful for the situation, we’ve just been dragging our feet at home given we already have so much else going on with him.)
And now, on to some date nights!
Matt and I cancelled our date night last week because Wes was such a mess with the big classroom transition and we felt bad leaving him, but we had some fun dates at the end of February, and one this week, too!
One was a date that started with some fun squash playing at Squash on Fire! in DC, and then we grabbed dinner at Ris afterward:
And our last date in February was going to go see Drunk Shakespeare! It was HILARIOUS. Highly recommend, but only if you aren’t easily offended and don’t mind raunchy humor. 😉 We had an absolute blast! I laughed so hard.
We loved how much audience interaction there was, too, since you are literally sitting right in front of the “stage” area (which is actually just an open space right in front of and at the same level as the audience seats).
As for this week’s date night, now that it’s lighter out later again and has been a beautiful week, we decided to take advantage by starting out our date night with some tennis! So fun.
We went down to the beer garden in Del Ray after tennis to grab some drinks and dinner. Started with oysters and beer and then I had a burger with salad for my main dish. The burger was not the best I’ve had but the salad was good. It had a great tart and flavorful dressing!
And that’s all I have for you today! Please send us some calm vibes… very ready to move through all this transition chaos and arrive at the (hopefully at least kind of) calm of the other side! If you have any tips/advice, I’m all ears… 🙂
Have a great weekend and see you back here on Tuesday.
