Hellobee

Hi there, hive! I’ve missed you! It’s been a hot minute since I showed my face around these parts, but I have a good excuse – things have been crazy in my house!

Let’s just do a quick recap of everything that has happened in the Garland household in the last two months:

• Mr. Garland’s father moved out (he had been living with us since April)
• We renovated our master bathroom in 6 weeks
• We all got massively sick for a few days
• We did a mini-renovation in our garage-turned-media room
• Mr. Garland started a new job

Um, yeah. It’s a lot. Mr. Garland’s father lived with us temporarily from April through September – just a week or so after he left, Mr. Garland and I dove into a giant bathroom renovation. I also blogged about the whole thing, so it wasn’t just a normal renovation, I had to photograph every project and write about it. And the deadlines…oh, the deadlines. Suffice it to say the last 6 weeks of our life have been a bit of a whirlwind.

On top of all of that, Mr. Garland just recently changed careers. We used to both be teachers, but he left the teaching field to go back to accounting (what his degree is in) just this past week and it has been a major adjustment for everyone! We’ve gone from carpooling together every day and having the exact same work schedule to heading off in opposite directions every morning, not being able to talk much throughout the day, and me having to take care of basically all of the afternoon and evening routines with Jackson.

I figured for my first post back after the insanity I’d share a few things that we’ve learned over the last couple of months about dealing with crazy-huge, occasionally life-altering changes when you have a toddler to consider.

The first thing that’s been really helpful to us is to keep things as normal as possible. I know that sounds a bit obvious, but it can be so hard to keep life normal in the midst of chaos and as adults we often forget how important the little daily routines are for toddlers. Jackson’s behavior completely fell apart when things got particularly crazy in our house – it was just so hard for him to hold it in when his entire little world was getting turned upside down! Now that the major renovations are over and things are slowing down, we’re trying to get back into our normal routines and I’m noticing a significant improvement in his behavior. It’s gotten challenging to do this with Mr. Garland’s new job – he gets home so much later than we do now, he only has about an hour with Jackson in the evenings before bedtime! We’re all still adjusting, but we’re learning to make the most out of that hour and really embrace family time on the weekends.

Another thing that has been helpful to us is to involve Jackson as much as possible. He gets frustrated and confused when everything is changing and he doesn’t feel like he has any control over it. We tried to let him “help” with the bathroom stuff anytime we were working on it while he was awake, and every morning we’d take him in there to show him how things had changed since he last saw it. This helped him process why our home was turned upside-down a little bit better and alleviated some of the behavior problems. With Mr. Garland’s new job and with his grandfather moving out, we tried to talk to him and prepare him for the change as much as we could.

I feel like every few weeks lately something significant happens that changes everything! I know if I’m overwhelmed by all of the changes then Jackson has to be feeling at least a little confused and stressed out. Of course, right as things start to level out we are headed into the holiday season when nothing is normal, so I have a feeling it’ll be January before things really start to settle for us. Of course, as Jackson gets closer and closer to turning three we’re also gearing up for some pretty major changes for him – we’ve been talking about ditching the crib and giving his room a little makeover (more on that later!) and it’s my goal to be rid of the pacifier before his third birthday. Poor little dude has no idea what’s about to hit him.

I’d love to hear some words of wisdom from you guys – what do you do when it feels like everything in your life is changing? Do you have any good tips for making these transitions easier on the little ones?