Treading water

Feeling at a loss as to how to get anything done other than take care of kids and keep the house in decent shape right now.  I think it's a couple things combined: colder weather (even though it hasn't gotten crazy cold yet), baby is getting around and into everything, she just started pulling herself up to stand, extra holiday events, and I've implemented one hour of computer screen time daily for the 4 year old.  It was getting way to easy to just let her keep picking out shows on netflix to watch (we don't have a TV).  I do totally think netflix is a worthwhile thing to have because you can pay to eliminate commercials.  I believe commercials/advertising/marketing influence us a lot more then we'd like to think, and especially kids.  So she can do any combo of netflix shows and games (usually from safekidsgames.com, uptoten.com [I love Boowa and Kwala] or pbskids.org) for one hour a day during the baby's nap time.

I have lots of parenting ideals, but it's often a struggle for me to act them out.  Hopefully by putting in a lot of work now, it will get easier as they get older.  I have no idea though, I've learned to never act like you know what you're talking about with kids.  For instance, if you only have one baby, you can't talk about what you will do/how it will be when your kid is in preschool or high school or has siblings.  If you've never had kids you most definitely can't say how it will be when you have kids/what other parents should be doing with their kids.  You can have ideas and goals, but be prepared for them to change or for your future self to give a hearty, jaded laugh at your naive, kid-less self.  And if all else fails and I'm having a really rough day, I just watch Louis C.K. videos on youtube.  I'm totally from the Louis C.K. school of parenting (he apparently doesn't let his kids watch t.v. btw).  And speaking of Louis, you all should buy his new live show directly from his website for $5 if you're into him: louisck.com.  It's really good, and I love him.

Audio clip from "Hilarious" (explicit language of course)