For a while, lots of people would ask me, "So how are you adjusting to two?". My answer always just depended on the day. Some days were easy. Other days were so hard that everyone ended the day with tears, yes, me included. The first two months were definitely the most difficult months. Sometimes Justin had to be away in the evenings for coaching football, adult softball league, Bible Study, etc...... Sometimes I did ok doing dinner and bed with both kiddos, but other times it was a nightmare. One evening, I was so stressed out that I decided to document it as it went on. I thought to myself..."Maybe I will look back and laugh at this one day".
This is James. I couldn't even get the camera to focus because he was throwing a huge tantrum that lasted all through the evening. I mean screaming at the top of his lungs. I think we had about 20 time-outs that night. (spankings have stopped working for us, so we have moved on to some more creative discipline and keeping spankings for the exceptionally bad behavior.) Notice he doesn't have his pj's on, probably because I couldn't get him to calm down enough to put them on him.
Hmm...I am not sure if this is normal or not, but when James cries, many times Reese cries. It's like she feeds off of his emotions. Weird. So of course, while James threw his tantrum, Reese decides to throw one herself! I tell you, a baby's scream has got to be one of the most stressful sounds. Mix that with big brother's cries and you wanna pull your hair out!
So of course, I will do anything to get her to stop crying...maybe she is just hungry early. I was trying to pour Reese's milk from a "mommy milk bag" into a bottle, and I spilled it all! Probably because I was trying to do this with one hand while the other was holding the screaming baby. Now every breast feeding mom out there understands that your milk is like gold, so it is an incredible loss to spill it! And on top of that....I spilt it all over my precious cookbook my sister-in-law, Cassie, had HAND-MADE and had given to me for a wedding gift six years ago! Now it's pages are permanently wrinkled. :(
And yes, I am breast feeding, but when Reese was this young, she tired out too easily breast feeding often, so we also did some bottles to make it an easier feeding for her. Well, that didn't help much during Reese's first two months of life because as soon as I started feeding her.....
She just started to scream even harder. This was how almost every feeding went. Acid Reflux? Colic? Who knows what it was. We couldn't put our finger on it. Poor thing.
So ok, here we are so far, screaming toddler, screaming baby, spilled milk, and now it's time to get dinner ready ;)
So dinner is a battle. Note: I am only warming up leftover pasta and throwing together a simple salad. As I am holding screaming Reese, I try to get James to stay in his seat and eat. Nope....James learned to take full advantage of the screaming baby in mommy's arms, so he decides to run, hide, not eat, get up, get down....so on so on. Notice on the table, I managed to scarf down some pasta, but my salad sits there the rest of the evening and later gets put back in the fridge.
And here is my messy kitchen that I can't begin to even think about cleaning up after dinner.
So how do I cope this evening? I turn on Thomas the Train. Yes, I gave in. Yes, the TV baby sat James for me while I tended to Reese and got her in bed. Yes, it was Thomas, not discipline, that straightened up my toddler and got him to calm down. You know what? OH WELL!
As I dried my eyes, I watched a little Thomas the Train too. Nice break. And a quick text to Justin, "When are you coming home?" ...haha.....James could stay up until Justin got home so he could put him to bed!
I gave up this night, but there would be another night when I could maybe handle it all and do it better.
Ps...and yes, there have been much better nights since then....actually it has gotten tremendously better here on out!
