Revisiting Gina Ford

We're going away in a couple of hours to Las Vegas. And no, we're not bringing the kids, to answer the question that inadvertently follows the proclamation that we're off to the Sin City. It's going to be very hard for me. I've spent the last 2 weeks with the twins 24-7 and I'm going to have to go cold turkey. But we're going and have packed in some extra guilt and an overweight conscience. And since I've been doing all the child caring for the last fortnight, it's become necessary for me to record a schedule of what the twins do from day to day for those taking over so that there is minimal disruption to their routine. While writing it, I marvelled at how much they have grown and matured over the last weeks.

Daily Schedule for Evan and Jordan
7.15 am- Change to Bumwear and wash up. Diaper MUST be taken off.
7.30 am- Come down for breakfast (This is new. They used to wake up at 6 am and stay up.)
8.00 am- Bath.
No more morning nap. (This is in preparation for school next year and also because it's been inconsistent for the last two months and has made it difficult to plan outings.)
10.00 am- Milk
11.30 am- Lunch
1.00 pm- Nap (May or may not drink milk)
Should sleep for at least 2 hours. Might wake before that. Must put back to sleep. Room should be air-conditioned and blinds down. (This is great! They fall asleep more or less at the same time and it is actually a big enough block of time for me to do stuff, even though it still didn't open up enough time for me to blog.)
3.30-5.15 pm- Play and tea (Milk if milk hasn’t be drunk yet)
5.30 pm- Dinner
6.30 pm- Bath.
7.30 pm- Go to bed. Read books. Formula feed. (This is new too, also in preparation for when I finally get round to stop nursing. Unfortunately, Evan hates formula. He'll drink it but after showing me a lot of disgust and about 5 minutes worth of false starts).
Milk remainder to be warmed up and kept for Jordan later.
11.00 pm- Change to night diaper.
- Jordan might want milk.
2-4.00 am- One milk feed.
6.00 – 7.00 am – Morning milk feed. Allow children to go back to bed. (This works when their nattering is ignored)

So as part of their daily routine, I was lying by their beds this afternoon, waiting for them to pass out. But this afternoon, they were hopped up from something or other and took a good hour and a half to fall asleep. This meant a great amount of pretend sleeping on my part, as well as a bruised forehead. In a bid to get the attention of the sleeping Mommy, Evan lopped over his FULL bottle of milk, hitting me square in the forehead. In Tym's words, it automatically triggered the teacher voice. Thankfully, the boy had the decency not to chuckle or laugh; his usual reaction to any sort of chiding. Otherwise, the cranky, tired mommy would have been even more incensed.

And strangely enough, it's made me even more sad to leave and to already miss them. And also even more worried. Should I just be laissez faire about their routines and just let what happens happen? Or should I try to pre-empt everything and leave endless lists of instructions. As you can tell from the schedule, I went for the latter.

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