Baby Y is one month old!

We've survived the first month at home with two kids!

The highlights:

• I feel like my family is now "complete".
• Baby Y is very cute. 
• M seems to like Baby Y and is excited to play with him. She exhibits some jealousy occasionally, but it's very mild. 
• I've gotten into a "routine" of mid-morning walks and park time with Y. I walk about 10 minutes with the stroller and sit on the bench and read "The Economist" on my phone for an hour or two. 
• M's childcare arrangement is working out pretty well still. So thankful for it.
• O is on leave for another two weeks. I'm so thankful that he didn't have to go back to work after two weeks...that's just inhumane, in my opinion. 
• We've had a lot of help from family for the first month, which was crucial. In August we'll be "our our own" - mostly because of COVID - and I'm nervous. Thank goodness this isn't our first kid and that we're both on leave. 

Sleep:

Baby Y is not a fan of sleeping unless somebody is holding him. And therefore our sleep suffers. At the moment, my husband is trying to get him to sleep and he's protesting. Again. Even though he's clearly tired. Sometimes (OK all the time) I think it's unfair that both of our babies have been bad sleepers. But of course we are very lucky overall. So I try to remind myself of that. I'm falling into the trap of trying to find "the strategy that will work for his sleep". Even though I'm probably better off accepting that he's just a bad sleeper, counting down the days and weeks until we can sleep train (most likely cry-it-out) just like we did with M at around 3.5 months, and just lowering my expectations of what I can "accomplish" during this time. Being a sleepless zombie won't kill me (unless I have to drive, but I don't really have to go anywhere) and whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I am just tired of having needed to tell this to myself every day since I my pregnancy kicked into high gear in mid-October.

COVID:

The situation is just scary and discouraging, not sure what else to say about it.  I try to not read the news and just get important updates from my husband. I just can't or don't want to handle it right now. We are planning to send M back to preschool on August 3rd because her nanny/babysitter won't be available starting the following week  - her kids are going back to school, either online or in person, who knows - and she won't be able to watch M. I am nervous, but the alternative is having both kids at home all day every day, and my mental health can't handle that. If things continue to get worse, we might look into hiring a professional nanny and sharing with another family, but that poses a whole other set of challenges - the cost, the nanny's own social distancing, etc. We'll see.