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quizcustodietHello,
Later than advertised, some thoughts about parenting. Appropriately enough, I'm starting this while sitting on the steps at half five waiting to see if Arjun is awake for the day now or just taking a quick break from sleep.
In general, I was surprised by how massive the step up to two kids was. Logically you'd think it would be smaller than 0 to 1, but if so that's hard to remember given that 0 was a long time ago! Basically we'd gotten to a point where we were feeling really confident with Jovan, and suddenly we were faced with how to do all of that and deal with a baby as well.
I've been on shared parental leave since 1 April. With lockdown, that's been a bit more intense than I bargained for - I'd been expecting to have Jovan in nursery three days a week, and to have some places to go outside the house! Fortunately Southwark has kept the parks open. Running Jovan around and giving Arjun some fresh air are both key to a good day, and we don't have a garden so much as a ground-level balcony with extra pruning. Shreena has been amazing about building some breaks into her (very busy) new job so that she can help with the kids for a bit of a break during the day.
Arjun is delightful- one of the things that has been great about the last few weeks has been how fast he's warmed up to me. Shreena is still definitely the center of his universe, but I feel like I've moved several galaxies in towards the centre with the parental leave.
At the moment, Arjun is 9 months old. He's almost walking, but hasn't really bothered with crawling. He is a total force for chaos, charging around the house holding on to our hands looking for things he can knock over or bang with a stick. He's delightful! He thinks Jovan is the funniest person in the world, but still stands his ground when (e.g.) Jovan tries to take a toy he's playing with.
Jovan has overall been really good with Arjun, but is definitely jealous of time that Shreena or I spend with Arjun. I'm hoping that will improve when Arjun is walking completely on his own and they can play together more actively!
Later than advertised, some thoughts about parenting. Appropriately enough, I'm starting this while sitting on the steps at half five waiting to see if Arjun is awake for the day now or just taking a quick break from sleep.
In general, I was surprised by how massive the step up to two kids was. Logically you'd think it would be smaller than 0 to 1, but if so that's hard to remember given that 0 was a long time ago! Basically we'd gotten to a point where we were feeling really confident with Jovan, and suddenly we were faced with how to do all of that and deal with a baby as well.
I've been on shared parental leave since 1 April. With lockdown, that's been a bit more intense than I bargained for - I'd been expecting to have Jovan in nursery three days a week, and to have some places to go outside the house! Fortunately Southwark has kept the parks open. Running Jovan around and giving Arjun some fresh air are both key to a good day, and we don't have a garden so much as a ground-level balcony with extra pruning. Shreena has been amazing about building some breaks into her (very busy) new job so that she can help with the kids for a bit of a break during the day.
Arjun is delightful- one of the things that has been great about the last few weeks has been how fast he's warmed up to me. Shreena is still definitely the center of his universe, but I feel like I've moved several galaxies in towards the centre with the parental leave.
At the moment, Arjun is 9 months old. He's almost walking, but hasn't really bothered with crawling. He is a total force for chaos, charging around the house holding on to our hands looking for things he can knock over or bang with a stick. He's delightful! He thinks Jovan is the funniest person in the world, but still stands his ground when (e.g.) Jovan tries to take a toy he's playing with.
Jovan has overall been really good with Arjun, but is definitely jealous of time that Shreena or I spend with Arjun. I'm hoping that will improve when Arjun is walking completely on his own and they can play together more actively!
