Lyla just turned three months old and my Leo is about to be a three (going on 13) year old. At times I still can’t believe I’m a mom, yet these days I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t. Like what did I do with all that free time?? And all that money now spent on diapers and daycare?? It must have been glorious, but I really can’t remember…
I do vaguely remember a time of eating a lot more meals out (and drinking A LOT more drinks out…), getting a lot more mani/pedis, and buying clothes for myself whenever I needed a new “going out” outfit, rather than just mostly shopping for my son, who is already quite the brand snob (Nike everything, New Balance is acceptable also).
I had high hopes that giving birth and the newborn stage would be a bit easier and less panic-inducing the second time around, and for the most part it has been. Giving birth was no picnic and I’m not a huge fan of hospital stays (is anyone?), but when Leo visited us and we gave him his superhero themed big brother bag, and he held his little sis for the first time, it definitely turned my heart to mush and I didn’t really care at all that I was in a tiny sterile room, unshowered and wearing disposable underwear. Thanks to some sweet nurses and our second timers status we were able to go home a day early and get the whole two kid party started right away. I hate to jinx things and I’ll probably eat my words in a few weeks or months, but Lyla has been a very chill baby so far, sleeps through the night (and has been since like 6 weeks!) and is usually smiling, cooing or just hanging out and watching her crazy brother’s antics.
I was able to mostly take the summer off of work, and the whole marrying a teacher thing showed itself to be a real perk as we were able to spend a lot of time together adjusting to life as a family of four. Now as my husband heads back to school and I begin to dip my toe back into the working world, I’m left with a mix of emotions (as usual). Here’s what I’m pondering these days as I adjust to life with two…
I’m not sure what the perfect age difference in kids is. My brother and I were four years apart and I always thought it’d be cool if we were three or less, so we could have been in high school together. Leo and Lyla will be two grades apart in school which seems ideal, but I could also see how having a slightly older kid at home with a newborn would sure be helpful. No one tells you nor can you prepare for all the potential dilemmas that will arise when you have a semi-independent toddler and a brand-new newborn. Like when your toddler suddenly “has to go poop!” (and still needs assistance in that area) but your newborn is nursing away and cannot be disturbed…
Once you have two kids, there’s really no turning back. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but somedays it seems like “getting my groove back” is just so far away. I wonder when I’ll ever have “me time” again, when I’ll no longer have to worry about whether my outfit is nursing friendly, or dare I say “get my body back,” when I’ll ever go back to yoga class, read a good long book, actually get to sit in those new comfy chairs on my deck, read the paper and sip my coffee, and so on. I’m so grateful for my kids (a boy than a girl, a billionaire’s family so they say), and some days I think, lets just have another since I’m already so deep into this motherhood thing, but other days (most days) I do the math in my head to calculate “how many more months until she’s done nursing?,” “how many more years until they’re both in school?,” “how old will I be when they graduate high school?” (the answer to that one btw is TOO OLD!). I want to live in the moment, enjoy each phase, each hard day and each less-hard day, celebrate every milestone big and small, but I also want to take kid-free trip, wander around the mall by myself and sleep in on the weekends. I think this is every mom’s internal struggle though. We love our kids, they make us happy, but sometimes we yearn for who we were before kids, and maybe more so than for a man, it seems harder to get back to that person. (And don’t even get me started on work/life balance, “leaning in,” “having it all” and all that other crap, I’ll save my thoughts on being a working mom for another day and another post, but speaking of, have you watched Workin’ Moms yet? Best. Show. Ever.)
I’ve had the Darius Rucker song “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” running on repeat in head recently and it sorta makes me cry when I think about it. I feel like there’s always this constant internal struggle for me between “time hurry up and time slow down.” So my goal for this year (I always think of September as the start of a new year, school-aged or not), is to at least TRY to live in the moment, appreciate every day – and when all else fails, just laugh it off and try again tomorrow.
The Allie Zog Blog 