The way things are.

Sometimes I think, as I haul my screaming toddler to the car with a baby strapped to my body, that people probably feel sorry for me. Maybe they even pity me. And you know what? That's ok. I would rather be pitied than judged. I would rather people recognize that I'm an insane person, just trying to control the chaos, than a bad mother with a bad child.

Because, boy, has my child been... we won't say "bad," because he's not. But he's been challenging. Like it should be when your whole world has dramatically changed.

Let me tell you how its been going since H went back to work:

The first week- it was fairly difficult, but I was filled like a balloon with false confidence. I had an activity planned for every day. I was active in Collin's homeschooling, and Upsherin planning. I felt like I had this motherhood thing DOWN.

The second week- I was flattened. Monday came around and I sort of went, "Wait, what? You mean I have to do this again? FOREVER??" I was exhausted. I was depressed. I passed out the minute the kids went to bed at night. I watched Frozen and A Bug's Life multiple times a day because it meant I could get away with sitting on the couch, and it guaranteed at least five minutes of quiet.

The third week- Sibling adjustment was in full swing. Collin went through his days with both guns drawn. It was war. He is feeling very angry right now, mostly at me, and I felt it all week. Every day was a count down until Daddy came home. But, strangely, it felt easier than the second week, and I think that has to do with me. I'm feeling a little more confident. Real confidence this time, the kind you only get from life experience. You have to fall on your face before you know what you're made of.

By the way, I'm still on my face. But, I feel like, six months from now, I'm going to be a completely different person.

I'm so humbled by the way motherhood changes you. And, I'm learning, you are changed completely the second time around, just as you were the first. You bend, you stretch, you grow. You go into your cocoon and come back again, something else. You draw strength from places you didn't know strength was hidden, so you can be strong enough for your children.

I once heard of second time motherhood described as a passage from one of my favorite children's books, The Velveteen Rabbit. It was the part that describes what "real" meant, as the Velveteen Rabbit was a toy who wanted to be real. Becoming a mother again was related to being "made real."

"Your eyes are loved until they fall out. Your fur is all loved off."

Something like that. It said that the first baby made you a mother, but the second baby made you Real. It's true. It's all true. And I feel very Real.

Don't mind the crying lady.

I've heard the funniest joke, I can't wait to tell it to you. Are you ready?

It's any time anyone tells me to  "Sleep when the baby sleeps."

HA HA HA. Hilarious, right?

I've hit a critical mass of sleep deprivation. Here's what my week has looked like so far (and it's only Tuesday. Who knows what awaits the rest of the week?):
*Story has only worn pajamas, day and night.
*I ate cereal for breakfast AND dinner yesterday.
*I randomly started crying at Collin's preschool and I had NO IDEA WHY. I was not sad. The tears just literally leaked out my eyes, almost on their own.

I'm really feeling it now, this life with two kids thing. I get it. It's real, and it's gritty, and it's hard. But you know what else? I'm so loving having two. Really, I mean it. This is my dream, having children, and I'm living it. At night, I look at them sleeping peacefully, and I'm overcome with love and gratitude. These are my children, both of them.

Now, I'm going to bed.

Feeling like a hippie, and other news.

Two days ago, I was watching Babe with Collin, and I saw the part in the beginning, where Babe is a tiny piglet with his piglet siblings and his big, fat mama. Then, the farmer comes and takes her away with a cattle prod, and Babe cries for her while his siblings are fed their piggy milk from a machine.

"I'm going to be a vegetarian." I blurted out.

Husband looked up at me, surprised, but not really. He's seen this coming. I had been talking about it, wrestling with it, for a little while now. I was vegan (and raw, thank you very much) when I became pregnant with Collin, and I stopped immediately when a midwife told me I had a better chance of my baby getting enough protein as a burger king mom then as a vegan mom. We left her office, and I ordered a turkey burger. And I'm glad for all my choices, but I've always wanted to go back to my old ways. I've always planned on it, really.

So, I'm vegetarian, on top of being already gluten free and low sugar. In my tarot deck, I pulled a card this morning that said I was entering a period of transformation, a season of giving and/or receiving, a time of refilling my cup. That all made a lot more sense at Story's doctor appointment today, as her pediatrician told me the source of her terrible gastro upset was probably not acid reflux, but likely a food allergy. She told me to cut out all dairy and soy for two weeks, and see if Story feels better. I had already cut out all dairy but cheese, because hello, cheese is amazing. But now, it seems, I am gluten free, vegan, soy free, and low sugar. I really do belong in Santa Cruz now. The funny part about all this, is how normal I felt at the natural foods grocery store as I spent about two hours reading every ingredient on the back of every package of food I hoped to eat.  Just another day, in Santa Cruz. I imagined how hard this diet would be, if I lived just about anywhere else. My new diet transformation has revived my gluten and sugar boycott, because let's face it, brownies saved my life postpartum. So, I'm reclaiming my health, and (hopefully) giving relief to my child.

In other news, Mike goes back to work next week, and I'm actually not hyperventilating into a paper bag. I'm  feeling boldly optimistic and just the tiniest bit excited. I feel ready. I think we're all ready. I feel readier than I did the last time Husband went back to work after we had a baby. How lucky we are that we had so much time to feel so ready. Collin has settled down SIGNIFICANTLY, which makes this feel doable. I feel like I have my son back, and it's a good feeling.

So yes, tarot deck, it is a time to start anew.

It's my party, and I'll rant if I want to.

I hate that moment when the baby finishes nursing and hangs in this half-asleep state until she has a poop explosion in her diaper and passes out for real.

Now what?

Do I wake her up to change her? It's getting smelly in here. She's getting a rash as I sit here on Facebook. Bad mommy, bad mommy, get up and change her.

....

I'm still sitting here. Why am I still sitting here? Why am I such a lazy mom? And for that matter, why does my house look like this? Do I think I live in the remains of a war zone? And why do I still wear the same maternity yoga pants every day? Actually, why did I wear the same exact outfit three days in a row?

...

I still haven't changed the baby.

Insane and wonderful.

Now it's Story's week four. She is still the sweet bundle of baby she was a week ago, only now she's much bigger. The clothes that fit her last week, fit her no more. She's got rolls and chins to spare, so different from my last baby, who was like a human noodle.

Speaking of said baby, he is calming down significantly. Or, he was, until he suddenly quit napping. It wasn't a slow process, like I thought it would be. His naps didn't gradually shorten and fade away into the sunset. No, one day he was napping, and the next day, he wasn't. And he hasn't since. And, yes, we're all going insane now. But, the good news is, he went to bed at 8 tonight. What? Has that ever happened before, in the history of Collin? No, my friends, it has not.

Something truly amazing to me about second time motherhood, is how much I love nursing this time around. I say that, even as I lay here feverish with mastitis (common nursing complication). Nursing was so hard to get used to with Collin, probably the hardest part of new motherhood. I have always been a marcher in the breast milk over-supply parade, which is a blessing, really, it is. But it's also spraying your baby in the face with milk and leaking all over everything you bump into. Story is having trouble keeping up with the supply, and ends up nursing like she's drinking from a firehouse. Needless to say, gas has been a big issue for my little nursling. I'm trying to take this in stride, as the pediatric nurse assures me over the phone that it's perfectly normal for a baby to turn red in the face and scream. Perfectly normal.

We're at a stage right now where she always wants to be upright because of the gas, and she has what  can only be described as "The evening fussies." I feel like the evening fussies are my equivalent of PMS: namely, large outpourings of emotion, mixed with a little rage, and totally beyond reason or consolation. Almost like complaining for the sake of complaining. Collin did the same thing at this age, so I'm not freaking out about it this time around. Score one for second time motherhood.

Nap deprivation aside, I really feel like Collin is starting to come back to earth. I see more glimpses of normal Collin every day, and we're having sweet moments together as a family. He's now starting to bond a little with the baby. She smiled at him in bed this morning, and it just about made his world, which just about made my world. He really wants to play with her, but she's still just a blob of tiny baby, so he improvises. He'll wiggle himself around on her hands or feet and say she's tickling him. He'll put his face in the way of her swiping infant arms and declare, "She got me!" It's all very cute, and I really can't wait until their relationship isn't so one-sided. Despite how hard it is initially to introduce a new sibling, I know the pay off is worth it. I'm still getting used to the fact that I have two kids. Two kids! Life is insane. And wonderful.

Up to my elbows in mustard colored baby poop, and still (mostly) smiling.

This time, these past couple weeks, have been the best, and the hardest, of my life.

There have been your usual  postpartum suspects (I'm looking at you, hemorrhoids). But, when I say this time has been hard, I'm mostly talking about Collin's (lack of) adjustment. He loves the baby, as I knew he would, but he has proven completely incapable of handling such an extreme disruption in routine. Can I blame him? No. We got a taste of how unsettled he gets at disruption of the norm when we visited my parents in Minnesota last October. Collin basically kicked and screamed his way through that trip, and that's pretty much what our lives look like right now, but possibly worse. The first week was the hardest. I was completely unable to handle his energy. When Collin is struggling internally, it all comes bursting out as this wild, uncontrollable mania. He tears through the house, hollering and destroying and ignoring your every word. It's like living with a Tasmanian devil. He's like a toddler sized tornado.

At this point, we've just pretty much assumed the role of zoo keepers, and our primary objectives are to keep him alive and reasonably safe, and to avoid as much collateral damage as possible. But, I must say, every day has been getting just a little bit better than the last. I'm starting to see more glimpses of the old Collin, and it fills me with hope that I will someday have that little guy back.

So, now that I've thoroughly frightened anyone considering having a second child, let me mention some of the things that have made this the best time:

Going for family adventures in nature, with Collin on Mike's shoulders and Story on me in the carrier. We took Story to the redwoods when she was nine days old, just like we did with Collin. She chose that time to have her first diaper blow out. Later, as we were walking amongst the majestic trees, she started belching loudly, and it made us all laugh. It was our first shared laugh since we'd taken her home, and the emotional release of it felt so good, we just kept laughing and laughing. We felt like a family again.

Co-sleeping. When Collin was finally in his own bed, I enjoyed being able to stretch and roll and claim my space in bed so much, I thought I'd never co-sleep again. We put a crib mattress next to our mattress, and I figured the baby would sleep there. Since Story's birth, I have completely rediscovered how much I LOVE co-sleeping.  I discovered it the night she was born, when we put her in the hospital bassinet, and I lay awake, listening to her kissing sounds until I finally couldn't stand it anymore, and brought her in bed with me. I didn't sleep at all that night, but I dozed from time to time, and every time I opened my eyes, I saw her little cabbage patch face sleeping peacefully beside me. I fell in love with her that night. "Isn't she beautiful?" I'd whisper to the nurses who crept in to check our vitals. They'd smile kindly at me, and nod their heads. Before she was born, I bemoaned the thought of being squished in bed next to a night nursing baby for another two years. Now, I am happier for it.

The love. All the love that fills every room, every nook and cranny of this house. There's so much of it, it keeps me afloat when times get hard. I love my husband more than ever. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I love being a mother, and I'm frequently struck by the notion that I now have two children. The Universe has blessed me with two healthy, beautiful children. I feel so complete. I will never stop being grateful for the crazy wonderful people, big and little, that make up my family.

Getting there

Every day becomes a little more manageable.

Today is the first day I didn't long to be back at the hospital, where everything was quiet and peaceful and safe. Today, I didn't have an internal panic attack at the sheer magnitude of Collin's energy, as he spun around the house like a dreidel on the loose.

Today, I took Story to the doctor and found out she was thriving beyond what I possibly could have expected. Then, we all went to the grocery store, shopping at only six days post pardom. Today was a good day. Today was my best day all week.

Last time I had a baby, I didn't go outside until about nine days post pardom, and by the end of it, I was ready to die. Much different this time around, as I shushed the baby in one arm and dragged the full cart behind me with the other. Husband would have helped, but you see, he had an insane toddler perched on his shoulders who needed prompt removal from the store. Collin, God bless him, has been the biggest challenge since Story was born. Funny, he was the biggest challenge the last time we had an infant, too.

So, I'm going with the ebb and flow of post pardom, of life with two. I feel like everything is just a whole lot easier the second time around, but I say that as a woman who knows how good she has it. Husband has been running himself ragged, taking care of everyone. He is like the wheels of a wheel barrel, chugging and chugging away, doing all the dirty work. We would be lost without him.

"We like our Mike, and this is why: Mike does all the work when the hills get high."  -Dr. Seuss