What My Life with a Toddler is Like

We are three full months into 2023, and you might have noticed that it has been a while since I posted anything on this blog and that’s because my life with a toddler is BUSY. When I became a mom, I was so lucky in having a “good” baby that ate and napped and was super content. He loved his swing and was sleeping through the night by the end of four months. I could do so much because he was so good. I mean, I even started blogging on my second blog, Pretty In Crochet again.

I considered myself lucky, and congratulated myself on having a good handle on the idea of self care and knew that while it was hard, I was making it looking easy. And that, it was easy because Baby J was so content.

But…it got harder. So for a while in 2022 and into 2023, I was just not able to do everything. At least, not without me losing sleep, or neglecting my health and I wasn’t willing to do that. The older and more active Baby J got, the less I was able to focus and so my blog schedule was no longer set, but rather unpredictable. My creativity too, was drying up; I was tired, I was busy, and self doubt began to creep in. I though to myself, lifestyle blogging is just too hard. I found solace in crochet, and began to build my crochet platform and that took time and effort as well.

New Beginnings

Life with Baby J is a brand new book. I had thought of it as a new chapter, but no. It’s a new book of my life with many chapters. His newborn days are long behind us, as is his infancy. In a few months, he’ll celebrate his second birthday. The sweet baby has grown into a sweet toddler, but it’s a busy life we lead.

But my life with a toddler is really nothing like my life with an infant. I always knew my baby would be a busy one because he loved to kick his legs. And as soon as he had strength to army crawl, he was off, exploring the world. And once he was crawling on hands and knees, there was no stopping him. He was in the kitchen, under my husband’s desk, playing in the toilet. He loves to push his toys cars around, he loves to play with balls, he loves Cocomelon and Winnie the Pooh, but most of all he loves us. His mom and dad. So I can’t leave the room hardly without him following me. Or crying. Or running to his dad who is trying to work. How can I write and work with him demanding to be picked up, or wanting to look at books with me? Or needing another diaper changed? With a toddler, I’m up and I’m down and I’m doing fifteen things at once.

This is a chapter that is full of confusion, laughter, exhaustion, frustration, and just is a whirlwind of activity, but it’s a fascinating chapter as I see my baby solving problems, meeting milestones, finding humor in things, express himself and show pride in his accomplishments.

He Grows, I Grow

As my baby grows, so do I. I’m learning more about him, more about what kind of mom I want to be, and how to be that mom, learning more about my marriage, learning more about myself. I’m trying to be less selfish, which is funny because I never cosnidered myself a selfish person, but then, I lived my whole adult life without a family of my own. I am more selfish than I thought, but sometimes I think I’m right to be selfish—I need a break, boundaries need to be drawn, but I never want to be selfish in a way that will impact my son’s development, or neglect the needs of my husband. I never thought having a baby would help me grow as a person, but it has in some ways. It’s given a bit more polish to the diamond I had been shaping from rough rock for many years.

And while I’ve been chasing the baby, tidying up after him, learning and growing, slowly I began to feel a bit of a creative spark in me to share more of my thoughts and ideas about motherhood, life and some of the things I’ve been doing to be a better me.

So I’m Back!

I’m excited to be excited once again about blogging here on Tidbits of Care, which really does mean a lot to me. I’ve learned so much since I started this blog, and met so many awesome people in the blogging community. I have some life plans that I hope blogging will help me meet, but more importantly, sharing with others my journey in self care is just really special to me. I hope to tell you more soon about my journey into fitness, some amazing things I’ve learned about health, some things I’ve learned about early child development and more too.

Be sure to follow me on my socials!