Life with Two

Everyone asks how the adjustment to 2 kiddos is going. Ah, Life with Two.

Life with two is a mix. It is animated, and it is tired. It is feeling utterly content one moment, and totally fried the next. It is frequently running behind, and struggling with sentences, and typically being covered in spit up and a little extra deodorant. It is wonderful.

One minute, you can barely hold your eyes open because it was an every-hour-and-a-half-kind-of-night, and the next, you’re wide awake because your kid just smiled at you. We forgot the bleariness an infant’s sleep (or lack there of) brings, but we also forgot how fast babies learn and grow at this stage, and watching yours yawn and sneeze and discover her hands and voice is no less amazing the second time around. 

It is all new, yet totally familiar. It’s like going for a hike we haven’t been on in years, but suddenly we see these landmarks we recognize, and every memory associated with it jumps forward, brushing the rust of busyness and time away. Then we remember all there is to look forward to, like bouncy chairs and solid food disasters, babygarten at the library and the first time crawling happens.  Only it’s a whole new life, a whole new person who’s doing it, and even better because it is while we watch Adalyn become her own person. Imagination, talking to herself, walking Wallie, cooking pancakes, tricycles and preschool in September.  There is never a dull moment with either girl.  (That is, of course, a lie. Parenthood is full of dull moments of the same book 191 times; nursing at 2 am; pushing a swing in 97 degree weather while slapping mosquitos away and bouncing the newborn in the wrap; taking turns playing doctor; walking in circles around a dining room with a fussy baby; reading blogs like this one…)

Having two feels like double the stress but double the reward. When Adalyn melts down because, you know, we didn’t fold the paper right or stirred the cereal too soon at the same time Bria poops or has reached her witching hour of angry-baby-time, we camp out in survival mode. When one of us is doing bathtime with Addie after convincing her to try to poop, and the other is pacing the Bria-is-fussy-route, I often cannot wait for quiet and the hour of sleep I’ll get before the next feeding.  But then Bria breaks into a smile at Addie, or Adalyn explains to her “see-ser” what a stethoscope is (“See Bee-a? Dat is your heart. Don’t worry. Doctors don’t bite!”), or when one is snuggled on your chest and the other in the crook of your arm, or when Addie sprints in circles on the beach while Bria sleeps under an umbrella, or when we make it through Kroger with Adalyn pushing the little cart and Bria asleep in the wrap all the way to check-out, or when Addie goes up to Bria and gently cradles the top of her head and says “Aww, she so tute, Mama. You o-tay Bee-a?”… those are moments I love, that make the long, grating moments of the day so worth it. It’s a very contented joy in the simple and ordinary.

I think two kids have solidified that we still don’t quite know what we’re doing. Addie took a picture of me the other day, and I was shocked when I saw it. Kind of like when you hear your voice on a message and wonder who it is.  I saw this girl leaning up against a dresser with a babe on her lap, a fairly haggard and tired face but hopeful smile as the little photographer tried to find the button to take the photo.  I saw it and thought “Oh my god. Who am I kidding? I don’t look like I’m a mother. I look like a kid myself.” It’s this juxtaposition of feeling (and looking) ONE THOUSAND YEARS OLD when I pass a college student, but at the same time still feeling like we are kids just playing house.

I do wonder if we’ll ever reach a point in which we aren’t adjusting. When we aren’t trying like hell to figure out the next mile, or some days, inch that it takes to move forward. Will we ever reach a point when we feel like a Real Grown Up? My guess is no. In a Neverland-esque style, if you do it right, you just keep growing but keep the magic.  That’s the goal anyway: family of four + a pup, headed for the second star to the right, and straight on till morning.  

I guess now we just better hope Tink throws a little caffeine in our fairy dust to keep us moving.