#ParentingUnfiltered

“The days are long but the years are short” is a quote that I never quite understood until I became a parent. When we have a day that is filled with crying and endless trips to the pantry, we count down the hours till bedtime. Yet here we are in the last month of 2015! How in the heck did we get here so fast!?! I was having a conversation the other day with a friend who was visiting from Florida (who rarely gets to see the kids unless it's through our social media outlets) and within the first few minutes of stepping into our home, she saw what she had been missing - everything I DONT post on our pages Hahahaha. She then went on by saying, "wow you guys make it look so easy but in reality it's a lot of work!" I laughed and then thought why don't I share the "unfiltered" side of parenting? Why are all my pictures and videos of only the joys of motherhood? I guess I never really meant to "only" capture these kinds of moments. I mean I don’t think to quickly grab my phone when Jax decides to throw his tantrums because he wants to blow bubbles at the most inconvenient times. The holiday season is the best time to look back at the years memories, but lets do something different and instead of only sharing the beautiful times, we are going to also share the not-so-happy ones. 

So I thought to myself, how can I rewind time so that I can also take photos of the meltdowns our kids have had? Although I want to pull my eyelashes out in those moments, they are still a very big part of our day to day. Plus I'm pretty sure looking back at those photos years from now would make some great stories.

 Hmm turns out that time machines are hard to find so I guess I will write about these "special" memories, to not forget them :)  

Now, let's see... At the beginning of the year, we had mastered the "catch Jax before he hits the floor" routine as he started learning how to walk. At first it was fun and it made us smile but after a bit our backs were killing us and we literally had to be all eyes on Jax at all times. So one day I said, "we have to let him fall so he can learn to get back up" I kid you not a few hours later one of those falls resulted in a fractured wrist. Good job Melanie and Vanessa; a broken bone in the first year! Talk about starting with a "Big Bang" lol

Hmm... Now I have a huge list of unfiltered moments that I can start throwing your way... Let's see...

Restaurant MELTDOWNS! I can’t even tell you how many times this year we have had to rush through our dinner to get these kids out of the restaurant as soon as possible. From throwing food on the ground to twisting and wiggling in attempts to get out of their high chairs, I literally come out of restaurants needing a vacation lmao it's so funny cause it's so true. 

Oh, the pantry, that's another story. Jax has spent entire days going into the pantry, asking for a snack, and once it was opened he didn’t even want it. This happened a good 15 times in the day. Don’t let me even get into the anxiety about the amount of food wasted this year. 

Although I sound like I'm being Ms. Negative Nancy right now, please know that the good outweigh the bad. I love my kids and wouldn't change a thing.... BUT LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY TUB THAT I STILL HAVEN’T GOT TO USE THIS YEAR. We moved into our home in the middle of this year, it is now the December and I have not been able to take a single bath with some candles and a glass of wine (which is what I envisioned when we first saw this house). Hm… wait I'm lying here, I forgot- I did manage to get the tub filled and was able to get myself comfortable in it one time... but for like 3 minutes because then one of the kids woke up crying and I had to run out of the warm water into the cold room all wet to rock baby back to sleep. Oh and check this out, once I put Ero back down, I tried to get back to my "Me" time but the tub water was already cold. I decided to hop into the shower to only find out that I had used up all the hot water hahahahahaha so a quick cold shower is what I had to settle for. Oh man I remember that night too well lmao. But Jax and Ero have used my tub plenty this year and they love it. Bath time for them is a lot of fun- yea yea for us too because we get to see their smiles when they splash each other but holy hell the stiff back pains we get from bending over to wash them off. 

I know this may be too much info but did anyone else have parties going on in their bathroom while trying to drop a deuce?!?!? I mean you'd think I could get five minutes of free time while I send out my package but nooooooo I had my two littles in there with me year round, one unrolling the toilet paper and the other opening and slamming all drawers.  

This year was also filled with hysterical car rides. Both babies went through a good 6-month phase of HATING their car seats.  Thankfully though, they are both over that phase and we can go to the outside world and run errands now lol. Oh but we had a special trick though... the BOOBIE! Desperate times call for desperate measures lol you don’t even want to know how many times I'd hover over the car seat, whip out my boob and vuala the crying would stop. Yeah, it was convenient but boy was it uncomfortable. The car seat jamming into your rib, holding yourself up and making sure you brace yourself for every turn and bump on the road. Just when your legs start to go numb, they have fallen asleep.  

Breastfeeding has its perks. No bottles, no mixing of formula, as soon as your baby cries you whip it out and done. It's pretty convenient if you ask me. But of course like everything else in parenting, everything has a catch. 3 words- clogged milk ducts Oh. My. God. I could count probably 10 cases of CMD this year and ohh I won't forget them. Boobs get hard, vainy, and any movement or no movement brings on the uncomfortable pain that would just put me in a horrid mood. And this happened with any feeding schedule change, growth spurt, and teething episodes; because that's when they nurse more often. Then we move on to PUMPING-- a whole other world. I stay home with the babies so I've never had the "pleasure" of pumping, (I was totally being sarcastic there) but Melanie gets milked like a cow 2 times a day while she is gone at work. That's a total of 15,600 minutes this year! Having to stop your work momentum to plug in your machine and then get yourself all connected has to be annoying. But of course pumping gives Mel the opportunity to continue nursing Ero when she gets home so she does it with no complaints.  

Usually at night is when parents get a break, right? Wrong! Hahaha We co-sleep with both Jax and Ero; it's two adults and two little humans on one king size bed. This year had multiple jumps up off the bed because one of them has rolled off, 3 am burst of energy that last about 2 hours and of course the amazing snuggles that come with co-sleeping. 

Ok so yea as I'm writing this I am laughing at all these 2015 memories that are popping into my head, but this was our year unfiltered.  If you are reading this and don't have kids yet, I promise that it's not all bad lol. In the middle of the madness I sometimes want to run away but that is very short lived. We are so grateful for these unshared moments. These are our kids. This is our life. This is Parenting Unfiltered. 

Plum Organics (@plumorganics) couldn't have worded it better, "This is parenting. It's about taking a chance, living unscripted, admitting uncertainty along the way. It's complex, but that's the best part. Why put a filter on it?" They are so right! So we would like to challenge all you parents to share those raw, authentic and real out takes by creating your own Holiday Newsletter at www.2015unfiltered.com . Make sure you hashtag #ParentingUnfiltered so we can all get the pleasure to see these untold stories!

With Love,

The Roys

this post was sponsored by Plum Organics