Two Kids Sleeping! What now?

Oh my god.  It happened.  Both my kids are sleeping. Not by luck, but by sheer will and determination, I have succeeded in getting them both to nap at the same time. 

My 2.5 year old is typical, from what I hear, in his attempts to do anything but get in bed.  More milk, less toys, more toys, one more book, sing two songs Mommy, no, sing them in the chair, Mommy, start again.  Sigh. 

My 4 month old is typical, from what I hear (and know from before) as well.  Eat, burp, pee, change diaper, poop two minutes later, change diaper again, cry some, suck on pinky, push pinky away, grab bunny, fall asleep in bouncy chair. 

This miracle was assisted by a brief yet powerful contribution from my work-all-hours-of-the-week-making-me-a-single-mom husband, who was able to feed my daughter while I was going through the Pre-nap Olympics with my son.  

So, here I am, with about an hour of free time.  What now?

My first instinct is to clean.  Then I realize I'm dying of thirst and have to pee, so I do that first.  Then I come out and assess the chaos.  I methodically pick up everything in the living room that belongs to the kitchen, which brings me to the kitchen.  So then I pick up the kitchen, start the dishwasher, then fill up the Brita so I can make more lemonade (which fends off kidney stones which I am prone too...gee, figure).  I then realize I'm starving so I grab a snack and my drink and that brings me back to the living room to eat.  The living room is still dirty, just sans dishes.  So I put down my snack and finish cleaning the living room -- really just picking up toys.  To say I am "cleaning" the room is a stretch.  Then I think about what I can do with my free time. 

I decide I will catch up on email and make my plan for the week.  So I look for my computer and it is buried under papers since my husband has taken over my the desk for the day.  I dig out my computer and track down my husband down so I can use the power cord that is charging his second computer and sit down to get to work.

At this point, my husband, who has gotten his own snack, is starting to catch up with me about his work.  I take a deep breath and focus on his mouth, pretending to listen.  The whole time I am freaking out because I know the time bomb that is my kids is about to go off at any minute and I haven't done a single thing.  Visions of reading 5 books and my stack of magazines in my bedroom are dancing in my head.  I focus on the task at hand...check email.  So I casually start typing at the computer while he is still talking hoping that he will get the hint.  I start the sync process for my Outlook.  My husband seems to understand, wraps up the story and goes back to his the desk.

200 messages later, the send/receive is complete.  I take another deep breath and start deleting.  I get rid of 160 of the messages in what I consider a pretty timely manner.  Still 40 left to respond to.

I open up the first one and start typing....I look at the clock and realize an hour as passed....I glance at the sleeping baby and....BOOM!!!!

The "bomb" went off.  The baby is up and number two is to follow.  What did I get done?  I cleaned, I quenched, I peed, I deleted and I opened one email.  I guess that will have to do for today. 

This is an original NYC Moms Blog Post.  Rebecca is a NYC-based Life Coach, Change Management Consultant, Actress and Mom.