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!

Life is so rushed...

When L Bird and I first had A Bird and we were struggling with things like bedtime routine, crankiness and bouts of crying we always heard things like “If you think this is bad, try having 2 kids!” or 3 kids, blah, blah blah from the parents of multiple children. I always blew it off and quit asking people their opinions because I didn’t want to hear how tough it was to have multiple children when I was just asking for advice on raising one. Now that we have Nat, I truly realize that having more than one kid is tougher than you think. With two of them, you now have to fill two kids’ needs rather than solely concentrating on one and in that process there is little to no time for yourself. I mean that is what parenting is, right? Devoting your life to your kids and guiding them through the pitfalls of childhood so they can become successful adults and start the process over with their own children while still managing to spend your limited time together with your spouse. I think that is truly great and I wouldn’t change it, all I am saying is it is HARD.


Everything is so rushed now and it is rushed on both ends. I think L Bird and I make a phenomenal parenting duo because we agree on most things when it comes to parenting, but we do end up doing a lot of stuff separately. I start my day early and leave for work long before the sun is up or anyone else for that matter, so L Bird has the task of getting both girls up, fed, clean, dressed and ready for the day. She really is a super woman because I don’t know how she does it and still manages to make it to daycare for A Bird’s bus and to work on time. Then I catch afternoon duty, I get out of work run home quick to let the dogs outside, while they are outside I bring in firewood and get a fire started so the house is warm when everyone gets home. Once the fire is going pretty good, I head out to pick the girls up from daycare. I make sure to get the run down on when Nat ate last and when her diaper was last changed as I pack her into her snowsuit and into the carrier, then I gather up A Bird and her school bag and we hit the car running. On the way home I quiz A Bird about her day and ask her about homework. Once we get home I get A bird set up with a snack, then unpack Nat from her layers of snowsuit and try to start dinner. While dinner is cooking, I hold Nat and try to keep her happy while helping A Bird with her homework, normally by the time that is finished dinner is done and L Bird is walking through the door. We all eat our dinners then ping pong back and forth between the two girls until its bed time and they are tucked into bed. Luckily for us we have always been schedule Nazis and a routine has been set for A Bird and is starting to be set for Nat. By 8:15 – 8:30pm the girls are tucked in and sleeping, hopefully.

Now for the next hour I get to spend time with my lady. This is the magic hour, the time when we can settle in, relax a little bit and talk about our days or lately watch Duck Dynasty and laugh with each other. It’s easy to get so caught up and stressed out in all of life’s day to day tasks that I forget to give L Bird a hug and a kiss until we go to bed. It’s tough when you get so frazzled that you lose the physical contact with the person you love, and that’s something I am trying to work on, to at least greet her warmly when she gets home even if I’m stressed out.

That is my life right now, it feels tough now that we are going through it but I know that kids just grow so fast and in the big picture you really only have them for a moment in time. So I try to remember that as I can barely keep my eyes open at 8:45 in the evening or when I feel like I am scrambling at such a fast pace that my mind is going to crash. I am trying to take pleasure in the small things to balance how frantic I feel lately. Little things like “talking” with Nat while she practices her voice cooing and vocalizing, sitting next to A Bird and reading to her or just talking to her about her day and her friends, and getting some adult interaction with L Bird before bed. Real simple pleasures like a hot cup of black coffee and a new Grit magazine on Saturday mornings.

I know in a blink of an eye, the girls will be older and we will be trying to figure the next portion of our lives together. It’s just trying to balance it all and still enjoy our time together. Well, I’ve rambled on so long I forgot what my original point was, so on that note it’s once more back into the fray…

Time heals all ... memories???

I have talked to a few people about this and I have read an article on brain function, biology and memory and it seems pretty true that “Time heals all wounds.” I mean I think that it most applies to relationships, you could be in a serious relationship and have some crappy things done to you but years later your mind tends to soften those wounds and you only remember the good stuff. But I think it applies to childbirth and raising children as well.


Now that A Bird is almost six, life is easy. She can pretty much take care of herself, just the other day she got up, got herself dressed, turned on the TV and was getting herself some breakfast when L Bird walked out to see what she was doing. It was a proud moment to see how independent she has become and how her independence has eased our life considerably. That independence was what we had grown accustomed to before we had Nat. So the whole time we were trying to have Nat our minds had only remembered all the sweet times when A Bird was a baby. We remembered all the smiles, coos and her first laughs. We remembered watching her personality develop and her first steps, we remembered worrying about her not speaking then worrying she would never stop talking. Yep, that’s all we remembered and envisioned while L Bird was pregnant with Nat. Sure, we vaguely remembered sleepless nights and crying but time had softened those blows in our memories so they “really weren’t that bad”. From talking to L Bird labor was hard, but she made it through and “it wasn’t so bad”, it was something to be proud of to make it through naturally. Yep, that is what we remembered.

Now Nat is officially here and making her mark on our lives and the realities of raising children have set in and are vividly marked in our minds. Don’t get me wrong, I am so so so thankful to God that he blessed us with Nat and I wouldn’t change a thing. I am truly blessed, but it is tough to go through the screaming, crying, sleepless nights again. All of the things we forgot about during A Bird growing up are right at the forefront of our every waking thought with Nat. All of the bouts of explosive diarrhea, the fun of being peed on as you change a diaper, the inconsolable crying that only L Bird can comfort when I am alone with both girls, and the constant worrying are present. You just get the baby down to sleep, then the random thought of what if she pulled a receiving blanket over her face? Or what if the cat jumped into the Moses basket and is smothering her? creep into your mind, so you sneak into the bedroom as quietly as possible, army crawling if you have to, when you step on a toy or a cat meows and you freeze like you are caught in the spotlight of a prison break movie. You stand stock still and hold your breathe until you’re positive she is still asleep then you sneak to take a peek at her and she is absolutely fine, flat out asleep with her hands above her head like a drunk hobo. All I am saying is you forget about all of these things when you are pregnant and waiting for the baby.

I read an article that said we are biologically programmed this way, to forget the bad and only remember the good. The article said we are programmed this way to ensure the survival of the human race. The point it was trying to make was if we remembered all of the not so good experiences as vividly as we remember the good and great memories not many of us would have brothers and sisters because our parents would have stopped at one child. It makes sense to me, if women could remember with explicit detail the pain of childbirth I’m not so sure they would want to experience it again. I know they remember it and remember it well, but “time heals all wounds” and the memory is softened by the fact that you get a cute ball of joy at the end.

I know that in time all this will pass and I’ll be left with a new set of worries like boyfriends and driving and even those memories will be softened as I grow old, but for now I’ll suffer through the bad because the good stuff far outweighs the bad. We’ll make it through with a lot of help from our friend, COFFEE. On that note, I’m off to pour myself a nice hot cup of black delicious caffeine.