So I’ve been hemming and hawing about what to write for a few weeks now: “March Break on the Cheap”? “Our New Life with Baby #4”? “Battling Chronic Disorganization”? In short, I’ve had alot of things on my mind. I think I’ll just start and see where it goes.
Tonight I sit with a little rascal sprawled on her belly across my lap. My newest little one has been a great sleeper this past week. She’ll usually take 4-5 hour stretches of sleep at night but the problem is if she’s had a late nap, she’s wide awake until midnight or so, like she is tonight. Once she settles, I head to bed too ‘cause I can be assured she’ll let me have a good stretch of sleep. My first two children slept through the night at around two months old so I’m crossing my fingers for this one.
Things are busy here at this house, and mostly very noisy. It’s a close competition between the fighting and screaming of a seven and five year old, and the dual-crying fits of the babies. My big baby as I call her, is soon to be two but she still has a lot of baby tendencies of course. She is also so busy it never ceases to amaze me. There’s a saying I’ve coined: “When you have a toddler and you feel like you’re losing your mind, you are not losing your mind, you just have a toddler.” I realized this when my second child hit the toddler age. I had thought I was just going through a particularly rough time emotionally when my first child was a toddler (which was the problem in part) but much of it was just the fact that that age is a really rough age on Mama and baby. Toddler’s can be so emotionally labile, disobedient, and absolutely into EVERYTHING. It’s kind of deceiving in that they are little older so you tend to let them have a little more freedom because you aren’t worried about them as much. However, that backfires because before you know it the toilet is clogged with a children’s board book (my son) or the Vaseline you didn’t put away after the last living room diaper change is all over their face (my first daughter) or the make-up concealor that was neatly tucked away in your drawer is suddenly all over your bathroom sink (my current mess maker). My toddling terror of late is a big climber which makes things twice as difficult. She doesn’t just find some mess to get into, she goes looking for it. Such as going through our vanity drawer to find my make-up, getting a stool to climb up onto the vanity, proceeding to color her face and the sink with a full tube of concealor, and at sometime during her make-up coloring, using a bar of soap to decorate the vanity mirror. Where were Dad and I you ask? Obviously relaxing a little too much. Then again these shenanigans can happen in a matter of minutes, and just when it clicks with you that your little one is just a little too quiet, you smack yourself in the head because you know that just means trouble.
So that really kinda covers life with our new baby. She isn’t much work at all. Well she’s work of course, nursing every two or three hours, diaper changes and occasional fussiness is work enough but it’s easy work. It’s trying to take care of everything else around caring for her too that’s the hard part. Just when I get to work at one task, someone is hungry or ready for a nap or needs a diaper change or wants to play a game and believe me once I’ve been distracted it is so hard for me to get back on track. I mentioned last time that my Mom came to stay with us during the last couple of months of my pregnancy. It was an answer to a prayer for me really that I’m not sure I really prayed for. I had often said to myself, “I just wish I had Mom or somebody come to stay with me and show me how to keep things organized.” I don't know if I ever really put that wish God-ward but having Mom here gave me a reality check of what I need to do to keep my home and ultimately my life in order. Don’t get me wrong, I will never be the domestic goddess my Mom is; I don’t where she gets her energy! But the experience has given me the motivation to do better. Those of you out there who aren’t messies may not understand why these seemingly common sense tasks are so overwhelmingly brain boggling for me but I dunno, you just have to be in my shoes. I don’t think time and time management computes with me the way it does to most people. My Dad’s nicknames for me since childhood have been “Speedy Gonsalez,” a sarcastic moniker from some 50’s tv show I suppose (I should ask him about that) and the more literal “Slow Poke”. So has tardiness and disorganization been something that has slowly crept up on me as I added more people to my family like it has for many busy moms? Nope, not at all. I’m glad to say that it hasn’t really gotten worse, but I always seem to lose 10 minutes somewhere along the way that makes me late, as a single person and now as mom of four.
Speaking of the angel who gave me that wonderful title, I think she is finally settling for sleep and it’s time for me too. Keep stailing.
