A mommy of two?

 

I have written about how it was for me to be pregnant with a toddler. But I haven’t written about what it’s like having two outside of my belly. Well here it goes.

 

When my second baby was born, things were going good. My first born didn’t know what was going on, despite how much we talked to him about his little brother before he was born. He stayed with my husband’s parents while we were in the hospital. When he came in to see the baby for the first time, his light bulb hadn’t come on yet. He didn’t know that that was his brother. I was a little scared that he would be mad at me and that our bond had been broken the moment he saw me holding his little brother.

I remember the moment the light bulb came on in his head. It was the next day after he came back to the hospital with his daddy to pick the new baby and I up. His eyes were focusing on his little brother and I saw it. I saw the light come from behind his pupils and shine down on his little brother. He bent over just enough to give his brother a kiss on the head. Then he looked at me as I explained to him that he had a little brother now. He didn’t seem mad, but he wasn’t being quite himself.

Being on an emotional roller coaster, I took it as though our bond had been broken. I thought that he would never love me the same and that I was going to be the bad guy for the rest of his life. I jumped to conclusions at every little difference that was happening. My body was going through so many changes and had been through so much trauma. I didn’t give myself a break, because even though I was expecting things to change, I tried my hardest to keep them the same.

 

There were so many times after we got home that I would just burst out in tears when my oldest would smile at me or even just acknowledge me. It took away from my bonding time with the new baby, because I was so worried about how our oldest baby felt. That isn’t a bad thing, to worry about how your babies feel, but there are times when you can’t help how they feel. I was so wrapped up in what I could do to help him not feel certain ways.

Then I realized that there wasn’t anything that I could do to keep him from feeling bad things towards me and the new baby. I realized that it’s only natural and that it was inevitable. If it wasn’t going to happen at first, then it would happen later. No matter what, it was going to happen. After I accepted that, things got so much better.

I didn’t begin to ignore my toddler’s feelings, I embraced them. I learned from them and I’m still trying to figure them out completely.

I made sure that every time the new baby was asleep, I spent my time holding our toddler and playing with him. Now that the baby is older, it’s easier to spend time with them both at the same time while they’re both awake. (There’s only a few rare moments when they are both sleeping and I’m able to have some time to myself, or time to spend with my husband.)

Our oldest didn’t understand, at first, why his little brother couldn’t play like him. He didn’t understand why his little brother couldn’t ride on his tractor or go outside with him. We had to keep explaining to him that his little brother was just a baby and that he doesn’t know how to do everything that a big boy knows how to do. We still have to do that today, but now we have to do it more when our new baby grabs our toddler’s shirt or starts hitting him in the face. Before our toddler hits back, because he makes that angry “Hulk face” and balls his fists up, we have to explain to him that the new baby doesn’t understand what he’s doing and doesn’t mean to hurt him.

Our big boy has his tantrums every now and then, about the smallest things of course. Our little boy has started having tantrums as well. Especially when he sees something that he wants and you don’t give it to him. Yes, there have been moments when they both have tantrums at the SAME time, about totally different things. I can’t always handle those moments, so I walk into another room or I just sit there and watch them cry (just long enough to catch my breath). There are days when I can handle those moments and I start doing something silly to try to make them both smile or I start singing silly songs to get their attention.

While I was pregnant with our second baby, my husband and I transitioned our toddler into his own bed. Before, he was sleeping in our bed with us. We weaned him from breastfeeding, potty trained him, and moved him into his own bed before the new baby was born. They were big changes, but we did them gradual enough to where they are still working out today.

Three months after the baby was born, we moved our first born into his own room. He sleeps in his own bed, in his own room. We have the new baby in our bed (we tried keeping him in his bassinet at night, but it didn’t work out, so bed sharing it is). At first, our toddler didn’t understand why he had to sleep in his bed and the baby slept in the bed with us. Every night for a few weeks we had to explain to him that he was a big boy and he had to sleep in his big boy bed in his own big boy room. He liked being called a big boy and he liked that he had things that he calls his own. We’ll ask him what he is and he’ll say, “I big boy.” He is proud of that and that makes me proud, because it helps with explaining things to him about his little brother. Even though it hurts that he’s growing up so fast, it’s still a good feeling to see him grow and understand.

 

At first, our big boy wondered why the baby was getting some of mommy’s milk and he wasn’t. We told him that mommy’s milk was for baby brother now and that he gets to drink big boy cow’s milk from the refrigerator. He still doesn’t understand completely, but he understands enough to not ask about it anymore. He loves cow’s milk, especially chocolate milk. Tandem nursing may be for some, but it wasn’t and isn’t for us. I’m not sure why, exactly. We are happy with the way things are going now and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

 

We’re starting a new adventure with solid foods and the baby. He’s starting to eat purees. Our oldest is always wanting a bite of his baby brother’s food and I keep trying to tell him that it’s BABY food and that he needs to eat his big boy food. He keeps asking for some baby food though. So I’ve been giving him one bite each feeding and that seems to satisfy him enough to not want any after that. He thinks that he’s missing out on something that I’m giving the baby. When really, it’s the baby missing out on what he’s eating.

 

Right now, we’re working on sharing. Our toddler has a hard time sharing anything. Even if it doesn’t belong to him and it belongs to the baby. He still calls it his and doesn’t want to share it with the baby. There’s the old toys that USED to be his, the ones he got bored with and is too old to play with; he now LOVES to play with them. We saved a walker that looks like a car from when he was learning to walk. We gave that walker to our youngest for Christmas. Christmas morning, our oldest runs in the living room and climbs into the walker and starts playing in it. I just laughed and let him play in it for a while and I had to explain to him a few times that it’s the baby’s walker now and that he’s too big to be playing in it. Even after he got out of it and we put the baby in it, he still tried getting in it WITH the baby. I’ve been letting our toddler play with all of the baby’s toys that he has gotten for Christmas, just to avoid temper tantrums and toy snatching. It’s important that he knows how to share, because it keeps him from being greedy and self-centered. God teaches us that sharing is a way to show someone that we care and I want him to know that. Sometimes sharing is the only way we can show someone we care.

There are times that our toddler randomly walks up to the baby and gives him a hefty squeeze and a nice kiss on the head. He tells the baby, “Love you very much.” Of course that makes my heart melt down to my toes.

 

There are times when the baby will be babbling and yelling and our toddler thinks that the baby is yelling at him. So he goes up to him and points his finger at him and says, “No, (baby’s name).”
That looks too familiar.

 

There are times when our oldest will walk into the room and the baby will get so excited and just start laughing at him. Our oldest doesn’t notice sometimes. There have been times when he does notice and he’ll do one of two things. He’ll smile, squeak, then laugh or he’ll squish his face up and shake his head. I just love that they’re interacting with each other.

 

There are times that the baby will put a toy in his mouth and our toddler will walk over to him and pull it out of his mouth and tell him no. I can’t tell if it’s because he just wants to be bossy or if he genuinely cares that the baby could hurt himself.

 

There are times when I’ll have the baby almost asleep and then our toddler squeals at the top of his lungs and gets the baby’s attention. Or I’ll be nursing the baby to sleep and our toddler will come up to me to talk to me and the baby will unlatch on a letdown and milk will go everywhere.

 

There are times when our toddler wants to play ball while I’m rocking or nursing the baby to sleep. I’ve been hit in the face with the ball countless times.

In order to get anything done around the house, I have to do things very quickly or parts of one job at different times of the day. For example: I put baby down in his bouncer, turn the radio on for toddler, haul hoofy to the sink to wash some dishes. I wash a few dishes, baby is hungry again, toddler wants me to hold him and dance. I pick up the toddler, head into the living room to feed baby, sit toddler down beside me, get baby out of bouncer, feed baby. Baby is full, put baby down on a blanket with a few toys, tell toddler to stay in here and show baby toys, haul hoofy back into the kitchen to wash some more dishes. Oh, wait, there’s some clean clothes that needs folding on the dining room table. I fold some clothes on the table while watching the boys play on the floor. Toddler won’t share baby’s toys, so I fuss at him a little until he comes to me wanting me to hold him some more. I pick up toddler and dance with him some, put him down and do some more dishes. I pick baby off of the floor, because he’s getting bored and cranky. The cycle just keeps going on and on until I’m able to get anywhere with anything. Then my husband gets home and sometimes I have it all done, but most of the time…. I have nothing done. No matter how hard I worked all day to get anything done, it looks as if I did absolutely nothing.

Going out anywhere is a whole different story than it was before. Getting ready takes twice as long and it definitely takes team work. I wouldn’t ever be able to look half decent if it wasn’t for my husband’s help. He usually gets himself and our toddler ready while I take care of the baby and myself. We have two HUGE car seats to deal with. They’re both convertible and we have to make sure they both fit right and safely in our affordable vehicle. There’s so many buckles, latches, and as they grow, adjustments.

 Keeping both of them entertained until we get to our destination isn’t always easy…. Unless they’re both asleep. I sit in the back seat with them when we go anywhere; my husband usually drives. We have this toy that we’ve been using to keep them both entertained. The songs that that particular toy sings are going to be engraved into my and my husband’s brains forever. They’re musical bongo drums, “Hey, Big Bongo! Hey, Little Buddy!” I’m sure we will never forget those drums. Also, there’s my singing. I sing all kinds of songs to them. My husband and I both do. From their toys’ songs to ‘Ice Ice Baby’. There was a time that I was singing to them in the car, both of the boys were cranky. I was singing my heart out. My husband looks at me through the rearview mirror on one of the drawn out notes of ‘Go tell it on the Mountain’ and says, “Don’t sing like that, it sounds like there’s something wrong with one of the car tires.” We still joke about it, because he wasn’t trying to be mean. Just honest, right?

I feel like that’s why I’m becoming a hermit. It takes so much to go anywhere and I don’t have the energy to do it sometimes.

 

Both of our boys love their daddy something fierce. They both want to be held by him and have his attention. When my husband gets home from work, if they’re awake, they both do whatever they can to get their daddy’s attention. Our oldest has the advantage, of course, since he can walk and follow his daddy everywhere he goes. Our youngest just stays where he’s at with a huge smile on his face and says, “Heh!” We think he’s saying, “Hey!” So that’s what we say back, “Hey!” He just laughs and starts bouncing or kicking his legs.

 

We always have the same conversations with everyone about our boys. I can’t count how many times we’ve been asked if our oldest was the same when he was that age. Our answer is always, “Nooo, they are totally different!” Which is true, because our first born was so calm and attentive at six months. Our second baby is so smiley and happy! He’ll laugh about everything, unless he’s hungry. He doesn’t have as long of an attention span and he’s so active. They are so different even though they look very similar. Everyone tells us that they look just alike. I don’t agree, but I can see how they think so. I’m with them every day and see every side of them. So they look completely different to me.

 

We are so excited that our first born has a brother to grow up with. We can’t wait to see how they’re going to get along and how close they are going to be. It excites me every time I see our boys communicate with each other and when I see them get along. It makes me so happy and it takes away that guilty feeling I had for not spending more time with just our first born. Yes, I went through that. I felt like I was betraying him and that he was going to grow up resenting me because of having another baby. Then I remembered how I feel about my brother and I never have felt that way. Also, our oldest started communicating with the baby and started helping me take care of him. That guilty feeling went away and left a new feeling: excitement.

 I don’t want that excitement to get in the way of me enjoying the moments when they’re still small, though. It’s hard to keep it from getting in the way of that. But just breathing and taking things as they come, helps. We hardly plan anything too far ahead anymore and we may still talk about what we’d like to see happen in the future, but we don’t dwell on it as much. We just take each day one at a time and at the end of the day, we thank God for it.

 

Our boys are so precious to us, but we can’t forget who they are even more precious to. They are even more precious to God. They aren’t really ours. They are God’s children and they were sent to us just for caretaking so that they can fill out their purpose that God has for them on this earth. Keeping that in mind helps motivate me to do my best at taking care of them and making sure they are taught about God first and foremost.

We are blessed to have one child and even more with two. I’m looking forward to having more, but that can wait another few years or more… no doubt about that.