3 Weeks with no wife and 2 girls, DAY 1

Before I start out with the day I must comment on the night without my significant other.  I don't think I need to explain to any mothers or new mothers what it is like to have a child that wakes up in the middle of the night and does not yet posses communication skills.  For us when our young Mila wakes up in the night we calm her down by either giving her the bottle, changing her diaper, holding her while humming or some combination of all three.  As a good sharing married couple we tend to trade off on who gets up to deal with our young Mila based on how many times the other got up or who seems to be more tired from the day or lack of sleep.  While my wife is away however I do not have that extra support of "hey honey it's your turn." I got up a few times during the night and unfortunately Mila decided that she was ready to get up at 6 this morning and not going back to sleep until 10.  Lydia doesn't cry at night unless there is a thunderstorm but she does sometimes talk in her sleep and we have to go and tell her "everything is alright" or "don't worry the monkeys can't get you in here" and she falls back to sleep.  She doesn't remember any of what you are saying to her when she does it so I make up ridiculous responses to hear what she might say back to me just to make myself feel better for having to get up. I do have the support of my mother in law who is great with the kids and the household as we live on the second floor of the house.  After getting my older daughter up and dressed and fed and her backpack put together my mother took her to school which makes the morning much more manageable.  Older daughter Lydia was of course up to her usual stalling routine in the morning and I had to resort to setting a timer on her eating and teeth brushing and imposed threats if she did not finish before time ran out.  After Lydia was out of the house at around 8 Mila had free range to trash the bedrooms and kitchen and dodge my attempts to feed her.  Mila has adopted an interesting method of eating and sometimes I am ok with it but most of the time it drives me crazy.  Mila has a tendency to only eat the food you are feeding her when she is very hungry or hasn't had that type of food in a while, most of the time she tends to rummage the kitchen cabinets or point to food that she can see around the room and we feed it to her.  We also have to try and encourage her to try new foods and say "lick lick" or "umm umm" with a spoon and fork in front of her and hope she does.  When she doesn't try a new food we have to try and grab her hands and shovel the food into her mouth and hope we are not met with too much deflecting, spitting and crying to get the job done.   One of the best games that I play with my girls is "What was that sound?"  It consists of leaving wherever I am in the house and traveling to the room I think the noise came from and figuring out what happened.  While both girls are together Lydia can explain what occurred or hide in a corner and manufacture her soft version of why her sister is crying but when it is just Mila I have to figure things out.  The noise I heard this morning was just her tearing a book apart.  I am going to try to get a little bit of cleaning done around the house now that the destroyer is asleep and see if I can't plan my day out a little bit before I go back to my little sweetness being awake :) I am sure I will have some updates later today.