Our transition from three to four…… (so far)

 

This is going to be a mostly random post full of stuff I’ve learned so far about being a mom of two.

First off, it’s not easy.  Dealing with the transition from one to two kids is hard stuff.

My 3.5 year old is driving me crazy.  He’s throwing fits left and right, he won’t go to sleep at night and he’s just plain moody.  Right now we are all home – hoping the transition flows easier with a couple of weeks at home with the whole fam.  Tim is off until the 24th and so we kept Cooper home from school during that time also. 

Keeping our house clean/picked up is SO DARN ROUGH.  I’m not sure if its just the addition of the extra toys that Cooper has or if its just the general “stuff” we use day in and day out, but I feel like I’m constantly picking up the house, doing dishes and doing laundry. 

While Tim is “off work” he’s technically not off.  He decided that since he’s “off” he’ll do a million projects around the house.  When I say a million, I seriously mean a million.  He made up a list of stuff filling an 8.5x11 sheet of paper, front and back.  He’s got Andrew and one of his buddies working on stuff also.  It’s nuts.  They are making big progress which is nice, but it’s not like I’m getting much help with the kiddos during the daytime.  Oh well. 

I wanted to breastfeed this baby so badly this time.  I quit already.  When Katy was in the hospital for the first 10 days of her life, I pumped while I was home, and breastfed her while we were in the hospital.  Then we came home.  Katy fought me – didn’t want to latch on, so I quit.  I pump every 4 hours, about a half hour ahead of her feeding schedule each time and I feed her from a bottle.  It’s a win/win.  I don’t have to fight with her, I get my part done in 15 minutes pumping, She still gets breast milk and that’s the main thing.  We’re all happier.  I did the same thing with Cooper, pumped for an entire year, I plan to do the same for Kate.

I took both kids out by myself for the first time yesterday.  We just went the 5 minutes to Kroger, did about 20 minutes worth of grocery shopping and headed home.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, I did let Cooper play on my phone the entire time to occupy him #momfail.  Oh well, it made the trip easier.  The only difficult part was wrangling them both into their car seats and then unloading the groceries into the car, and vice versa when we got home.

Between the behavior issues, lack of sleep for mommy and daddy, and keeping our house tidy, I’ve barely made time for a daily shower for myself.  I’m thankful that I feel pretty normal so far.  No postpartum depression like when I had Cooper.  I really don’t know that I could have survived this far if I had felt like I did after I had him.  It was miserable.  So, things may be rough, but its so worth it.  I wouldn’t change it for the world.  I am loving this new precious baby girl to the moon and back, and my little boy, although he’s crazy, I am in love with him just as I was when he came into this world.  These kiddos and their daddy are my world. 

If you’ve had more than one child, how was your transition experience?  Do you have any tips/tricks that helped you???