Life with a newborn can be dark. Not like literally dark. Unless you're really holed up in your house cause you're terrified of leaving the home unprepared for fear of some sort of newborn disaster. (SPOILER ALERT, it gets even harder the older they are, so you might as well try now!)
I digress. Parenting can be dark sometimes. Why? Because there are a lot of times that are difficult as HECK. There's a lot of people who will give advice about leaning in, or really stopping and smelling the roses. Or truly appreciating the small things in life. Or whatever. Like saying those things are going to help me feel better in the moment about the toughest spots of parenting.
That's just not...me.
Humor. That's what makes parenting tolerable for me. A sense of humor. With that, I give you parenting with two anecdote #1.
I've been terrified since like...day 1 of 2.0's pregnancy about the thought of handling two kids around nap time. I still haven't, technically, handled nap time alone yet (M doesn't go back to work for another 3 days). So, why am I so terrified? Because AJ still naps with me. Yes, that's right. Naps WITH me, as in, he needs to cling on to a part of my body (with preference for both of my hands on him somewhere) before he will go down for his nap. There's rules. If he wakes up and I'm not there, blood murder ensues. If he wakes up and I'm there, he will immediately progress to a medium-sized tantrum, but will be consolable (it just takes about 3 minutes to de-escalate from ear-piercing scream back down to golden slumber). If done right now, AJ's nap time yields plentiful rewards - 3 hours of caregiver free time (again, tethered to him somehow, but hey, I only need 1 hand to operate my smartphone).
Now, with 2.0 in the mix I've had severe anxiety thinking about how to balance things. M and I have ruled out trying to teach AJ to nap alone - the kid is 3 and attends daycare 3 days a week. NOT worth it trying something new (and risking screwing it up) when most 3 YO's drop nap time soon anyway.
So here's our elaborate algorithm on how to handle naptime with two. Between hours 12-2PM, 2.0 will eventually need to breastfeed. Whenever that is, I'll feed him, swaddle him, and put him down in the pack and play in our room. Then I'll go downstairs to grab AJ and get him ready for nap in our bed (with me). With any luck (as in, if AJ is sleepy enough), he's go down without too much trouble, and there'll be a golden window of overlap between the two where I *may* just get a 20 minute nap in (that's ALL I NEED, I PROMISE!).
Don't be so surprised now, this elaborate plan has been, for the most part, working well. Til about 5 days ago, when both kiddos cried their heads off and no overlap existed. Good thing hubby was still home from work - he swooped baby away and napped with him in another room, offering me a delicious one hour nap.
Anyway, the day after that, I was determined to MAKE IT WORK. New edit to the algorithm: if baby woke up in the middle of the nap period, I'd take him, and immediately a) feed him or b) hold him and get back in bed to sleep, to ensure nap time progresses peacefully. This is exactly what I did on that day, except, one angry AJ also woke up during that time. I had 2.0 wrapped up in my left arm while sleeping in the bottom right corner of the bed, so I scooted up and offered my right arm to AJ, to offer some comfort. It was a super awkward position to sleep in, with about 1/3 of me dangling off the corner of the bed, but I bought myself peace, and I was proud of it. Eventually, I drifted off to sleep with a delicious smile on my face. I dreamed about something peaceful. Peaceful sights. Peaceful sounds. Peaceful smells. Wait. That doesn't smell peaceful. Smells familiar though...what does it smell like? Undigested chicken bits? Why is it getting stronger? I shot my eyes open and realized that the dog's butt was just a mere 2 inches away from my nose. DOG SHIT, that's what it smells like.
The worse part was, I could neither move (both arms occupied) nor shoo the dog away (risking that both babies will wake up). I couldn't even laugh about it cause that would wake them up too. So I silently laugh... and realize this. THIS. Is parenting, with number two.
No comments:
Post a Comment