No Time Alone

I think our biggest complaint right now, and we knew this would happen, is that DH & I can't get any time alone. The girls have to be supervised constantly. Not only that, they are so excited to have our attention, and they want to sit with us, talk with us, play with us. They are very sweet and we love them and want to bond with them. We've just been rolling with it for the last nearly three weeks. But now it's time to start letting the girls know that Mommy & Daddy's relationship comes first.

I've already instituted that I will ride in the front seat with Daddy when we are in the van. They (all four of them) had been fighting over who got to sit with me in the back. Every night, D2 & D3 are on each side of Daddy at the dinner table. It's time for this too to change. I get to sit by Daddy. The other four can take turns. It's also time for D2 & D3 to realize that D1 & Son get a turn too, not just them. Each girl wants to make sure she gets whatever the other girl gets, but they don't bother to worry about what D1 & Son got to do. They don't compete with them at all.

So DH and I are trying to come up with creative ideas to be able to have a conversation. So far I've thought of two things. We could sit the girls down on the couch with a movie and we could talk at the kitchen table with them in plain sight. We could also go for a walk outside while they ride their bikes around.

Right now we are waiting for some background checks to come back on some friends of ours so that they can babysit for us. My parents sent theirs in and they have come back, but for obvious reasons I'm not asking them to babysit right now. Looking into the future, I'm hoping that things will have changed by the summer so that the girls can stay with my mom instead of going to daycare, but that's six months away and I have more to worry about right now.

After the adoption, we might be able to leave the girls with D1 & Son for short periods of time, IF we feel that it is appropriate. That too can only be decided in time.

But for now we'll have to be creative.