Ankur is home! The boys of the fam spent the weekend in Portland. And, while I’m happy they got all that quality time together, I am VERY happy to have Ankur back home with us.

For starters, I missed him. Obviously.

But, also, Ishu sleeps like poop without him. He’s used to having both of us to his sides and gets thrown off when one of his sides is missing. And when Ishu sleeps like poop, his mama does too.

It feels nice to get to hand some of these parenting duties back over to Ankur. Last night, he brushed Ishu’s teeth before bedtime and I wanted to cry because I was so grateful that, most of the time, I don’t have to do this alone.

You know when you’re go-go-going and you don’t even realize your body has been yelling at you until you’re forced to sit down? That’s how it was on the half hour drive to pick up Ankur from the airport. Tuning out the Dinosaur Playlist on Spotify in the background, all I could feel was pure depletion.

It had accumulated from the week of juggling Ishu and work. And, so by the time the weekend rolled around, I had very little left to give.

Still, we managed to get out of the house a bit (for my own sanity). Being outside helps tire him out and, well, that’s a nice little break for me. Ha.

On Saturday, we went to the Farmers Market in Lincoln Park and walked around the area. Ishu was less interested in the fruits and veggies and more interested in playing chase and peek-a-boo with all the squirrels. We went back to the breakfast place we went to in October. And then made our way over to the Nature Boardwalk where we got to see frogs and fish and ducks!

Glad we took advantage of the morning weather because it ended up raining the rest of the day.

On Sunday, we went to the Navy Pier for a family day event! They encouraged kids and families to show up in costume, so we pulled out the good ol’ Cookie Monster outfit.

He got a lollipop after a book reading and was pretty much content (and sticky) for the rest of our time there. We also made a quick stop at the museum before heading back to pick up Ankur.

And now we’re starting a new week! Still on our own this week, but at least we get Ankur in the evenings. I’m starting to truly understand a tiny bit of the craziness that parents felt at the start of the pandemic. It’s no joke trying to do it all and, unfortunately, some shit gets neglected.

But working on building some better back-up supports so we can prevent something like this happening again in the future!

Hope you all had a happy, sunshine-filled weekend!