Ohh What a Difference a Year Makes

Last summer was hard.  One baby and one toddler.  Two different sleep schedules.  Bottles. Diapers. limited mobility.  Packing for a cabin weekend was a 4 hour marathon.  And by the time you'd gotten in the car; made three stops in two hours; unpacked and "set-up shop" at the cabin; spent 9:00am-4:00pm trying to put one of the kids to sleep; repacked the show two days later; reloaded the car; made four stops on the way home; and unpacked again...you wondered why?  (And I'm lucky because my in-laws decked-out their cabin home with cribs, toys, monitors, books, bouncers, swings, and sippy-cups.)  Why did I put myself through this?  What was I thinking?  Will it always be this hard?  How do those other families do it...traveling up to their cabin home every weekend of the summer?

But life goes on...and somewhere along the way we found ourselves with two toddlers; on the same sleep schedule; sans diapers and bottles.  Packing for the cabin is more like 45 minutes and we are completely mobile.  Cabin weeks have become something that I genuinely look forward to these days.  James and I talked about how things would change last summer...but I guess I just didn't really believe it.

They say you shouldn't look back.  But I can't help but remind myself how hard it was...and how much better it is. I see my pregnant friends and I want to share my small tidbit of wisdom with them.  Warn them that it's harder, more exhausting, and more challenging than they could ever imagine.  And all these crazies who prattly-on about how rewarding it is to suffer through those first two years of a childs life can quite frankly, kiss mine.

Ohhhhh, What a Difference a Year Makes!