Transitioning …

Things have been super crazy around here, it seems like we never have a fee moment to ourselves anymore and when we do we are all too exhausted to do anything but flop down on the bed and try to reclaim some small portion of the numerous hours of lost sleep. We are all trying to get the hang of being a two child family and trying to make the transition into that family dynamic as smoothly as possible but man are there a lot of bumps in the road.

I forgot how much work having a baby is and how much sleep you lose and I am amazed that I wasn’t a walking zombie when we went through it with A Bird. We are making our way and defining routines for bedtime and things are starting to get there. Nat is still waking up around 3 AM every morning and then again as I am heading out the door for work so that always makes things interesting for L Bird. But I know eventually she will sleep all the way through the night, right?

One of the harder transitions that I didn’t even think about was how A Bird would respond to being a big sister. For 5 years she had been the sole attention getter of basically my whole family. She was our only child, she was the first and only grandchild  on my parents side, so how should I put this, she was and is spoiled rotten. Then last year in April my nephew Logan was born and then Nat came in December, so in the course of a year she has had to share the spotlight. We have had some rough patches where she wants our undivided attention and has had a tough time with it. It normally presents itself when L Bird or I are alone with the girls and we are feeding Nat, changing Nat or putting her down for a nap so our hands are obviously full and A Bird starts in with a ton of requests.”Can I have a snack?” “Dad, come look at this?” “Dad, can we go to Michaels?” “But I want it/to go/need it now?” She is just relentless. I try to explain that we will do all those things when I am done with Nat but it just leads to whining and carrying on until I lose my patience and snap at her. Then she runs off crying to her room and pouts and I feel like the worst father in the world. I know she is not aware that Nat takes a lot more time to care for so I feel like such an ass when I snap at her and she gets upset. We are figuring it out, I guess.

The other side of the pendulum is I can’t believe what an amazing big sister A Bird is and how Nat already loves her so much. A Bird has been an amazing help since Nat came home from the hospital. She grabs pacifiers, bottles and toys when they are out of reach and gives them to her sister. She grabs diapers and wipes for us when we have our hands full of a squirming half naked baby. She likes to help dress Nat. She is a huge help, but what is truly a joy for me to see if how much Nat loves A Bird. I routinely pick up the girls from daycare, so because I am home first I have a few things I need to do to make the night run smoothly. I have to let the dog out, go through A Bird’s backpack for homework and I like to start dinner. That doesn’t seem like much to do but when you have a fussy baby that you can’t put down it is a huge to do list. I’ll bed trying to accomplish all of this while Nat is fussing until I get to the point where I need both hands so I put Nat in her excersaucer and work through her “I’m irritated that you put me down and I’m going to cry and scream until you pick me back up” cries. During those cries my blood starts to boil, but I stay cool and go outside to let the dog back in the house. When I come in there is no more crying, only laughing and blowing raspberries. In the few short moments I am outside, A Bird is squatting down being a goof and Nat is a completely different baby. Her eyes sparkle as she watches A Bird dance around and make goofy faces. Nat laughs and coos and spits at A Bird until they are both laughing deep belly laughs and I just stand back in awe of what A Bird can accomplish so easily.

They love each other so much and are already thick as thieves.

So we’ll keep transitioning because that’s what life is right? One big transition. Bring on the next challenge, I guess but just don’t let be a big super hard challenge. There is only so much we can take, you know lol!