24th
April
2008
Survival
Being the short-term thinker I am, I have yet to fully comprehend that in less than six months there are going to be two children living in my house.
I’m firmly, obliviously entrenched in pregnancy survival mode. It’s sort of nice living in this state of denial.
But the odd time I do let my mind wander into the near future, these are the random things I worry about:
- learning to breastfeed again. My nipples cringe when I even look at nursing bras, remembering how utterly painful the first few weeks were
- sleep. Or better yet, lack thereof. We have been so blessed with Lucy and so comfortable in our freedom from 7:30 p.m. – 7 a.m. that I know this baby is going to kick our asses when s/he arrives. This turns into near panic when I read posts like Mary Lynn’s — then hear it again from Eric (he works with ML’s husband) in the form of Ed’s red, blurry eyes
- two children = four appendages each. Last I checked, despite wishes every night, I only have two hands *sigh*
- baby
crapgear clogging up the house. It’s so nice now having Lucy’s toys tucked away beside the sofa out of sight. I think back to the early baby months of swing, bouncy chair, receiving blankets, smalltrippable toe-stubbingtoys and say bye-bye living room - oh, the screaming and crying around dinner time. Do you remember those?
- Spencer becoming a hermit when he realizes, “ohdeargod there’s another one.”
- Lucy’s reaction in general
But then this afternoon, at the grocery store? There was this frazzled-looking mom, hair in a sloppy pony tail, crusted spit-up down her back wearing mismatched socks, leaning into an infant seat and nibbling on the bare toes of her three-month-old to his gummy-mouthed delight, and I realized all the above doesn’t matter for moments like that one.
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There are currently 6 responses
I agree that nothing beats those toothless grins. A bit scary but we do deal with it. Now I’m just wondering if I’ll be able to do it with 3. Just 2 more weeks to go.
It’s moments like those that we live for ..
Oh…I’m so sorry my sleep post had you all worried. Honestly, the sleep issues are a bit rough, but there are a lot of things I found a whole lot easier the second time around. I had a horrible start to breastfeeding with Hana, but Jamie was easy to feed right from the start. Jamie also didn’t fuss at dinnertime as much as Hana did. I just found there were a lot of things I stressed about with Hana that I dealt with easily with Jamie.
The other thing that makes having baby #2 so worth it is when the two kids get old enough to actually notice each other and interact. It’s so cute seeing them play together!
Mary Lynn’s hit the nail on the head. Yes, going through the whole sleep deprevation thing again is difficult, but if you have a good partner, it’s easier (slightly) to deal with. It’s hard to remember that they’re sleep deprived too sometimes.
I’ve heard (and probably said it here before) that when you have your second, you’re more relaxed because you’ve dealt with the same things before and a relaxed Mommy is a relaxed baby … Like with your first, when they are starting to walk and they fall down, you may over-react and rush to their side, cooing softly to soothe their bumps and boo-boos and they milk it for all it’s worth. With baby 2 and onwards, they fall down, as usual they look for your reaction. When you say stuff like ‘oops, down she goes!’ they tend not to cry unless they’re really hurt, sometimes they even laugh.
New Moms tend to be a bit neurotic. It’s understandable because hey, you’re new at this just like the baby is. Their first fever, tooth, cold, bump on the head etc. is a big deal and you don’t know how to handle it. After going through it a few times, you get used to it and tend not to panic as easily …
it gets easier …
and oh those little toes and fingers and noses and the baby smells and the grunting piggy noises newborns make! I miss that sooooooo much and yet I am so glad that my kids are at the exact age they are and wouldn’t trade that for the world. My oldest is learning to read! My youngest is learning to walk! Tell me that’s not marvelous, wonderful, exciting, and everything else to make a mom proud!
Mary Lynn is right, it’s so cute to see them interact once they realize they’re in this together. When the oldest gets over the jealousies and starts playing with the baby and knowing they’re probably best friends already. They’ll fight, they’ll cry and they’ll love each other and there’s nothing better.
Carly and Eric and of course Miss Lucy, Congratulations again and look forward to the new arrival
So True
I too was worried about what life would be like with two while pregnant with our second, okay scared to death. I’ll admit that it didn’t turn out to be quite as scary as I imagined, but I would be lying if I said it was easy. Just like anything in life, some days are harder than others, but once you have two you discover so many new joys that you didn’t have before or realized existed. One thing I have taken real delight in is watching the boys’ relationship with each other blossom. Alex just adores his big brother and it sounds cheesy but I seriously am so overwhelmed with love when I see them interacting/playing together.
On the flip side, however, with two your mother’s guilt is doubled…you feel guilty because you’re not giving your youngest the same amount of attention your first had, you feel guilty because you’re not giving your oldest the same amount of attention they had before baby, and because they have been dethroned of their only child status.
The other thing I’ve learned from our experience is that your second child may be completely different than your first, so most of what you learned/how you did things with your first, you might as well pitch out the window. Fortunately in our case our second turned out to be our easier child so adapting to two was much easier.
But at the end of the day Carly, you will find a way to cope and manage everything. We’re moms and that’s one of the things we are best at!
Again congrats!