Something unsettling happened this week. I had a period scare; I was over a week late. If anything, it just confirmed the following: We are done having kids. I am done having kids; I’m pretty sure Tim would have been okay if I wanted to just stop at one, but I wanted two and I wanted a brother for my baby boy and I got that, and now… I’m all done! Get me out of the chair and away from the table or I will start screaming and throwing my chicken nuggets and diced banana on the floor.
Needless to say, I was actually giddy when it arrived!
I like things how they are, thankyouverymuch. My boys are easier today than they were yesterday. And they’ve been getting progressively easier as they’re getting older. Maybe the word “easier” is being used a little too loosely here; they give me a hard time and I’m sure those hard times will just keep getting harder as they get older, but they ARE easier than a newborn baby, for crying out loud. Newborns, or infants, or anything younger than one year olds, are SO hard, yo.
They don’t cry when I walk out of a room; actually, I think they might just like it. They very rarely projectile vomit. They walk! Nate walked around his first birthday; Matthew was more like 15-16 months old. And he’s a tank of a child. 30 pounds at almost-2 compared to his brother’s 36 pounds at almost-4. They walk right beside me, they hold each other’s hands nicely, and we just walk like Real People into places. Sure, they might dead weight themselves as we’re walking out because they don’t.want.to.leave, but they still walk.
If Nate would stop coming into our bed in the middle of the night, I would be getting a full night’s sleep. But! Technically speaking, they do “sleep through the night”… which in my book means I don’t have to change or feed or rock them. If I just have to move over a little to let him squeeze in beside me, that’s fine, he can sleep next to me and rub my cheek as long as he wants to as long as he lets me sleep. I can sleep through his many verses of Old MacDonald, but I can’t sleep through a reflux-y baby screaming all night long, while my ‘pretty useless during the day – definitely useless through the night’ husband snores beside me. I like feeling rested when I wake up, even if they drive me so hard into the ground that I’m crashing by 3pm.
We can just get up and go places. We like that. No bottles or worrying about breastfeeding in public, or if we’ll need a blanket in the restaurant, what if it’s cold? No baby food! They can eat anything, anywhere, anytime! No worrying about naptimes, Mattie still takes a nap every day obviously, but he can skip and not be too, too, too out of control.
They have real personalities. They’re fun, and funny, and interesting and just plain ol’ cool little guys. I like hanging out with them all day long. I actually like my “job”. I’ve wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember, and when they were infants, I loved it, I thought it was everything I’d been waiting for, but really, this, right now, is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. School, and all the art projects and birthday parties and sports, and watching my boys be friends, playing together, fighting or sharing, snuggling or smacking, I love their interactions. I’m happy to keep moving forward knowing that we won’t be back in that place of caring for a newborn.
I’m sure that my uterus will still ache just a smidge every time I see or smell or even think of a brand spankin’ new baby, but after this last week, I know for sure that it won’t be mine. Well, not on purpose, anyway.
Needless to say, I was actually giddy when it arrived!
I like things how they are, thankyouverymuch. My boys are easier today than they were yesterday. And they’ve been getting progressively easier as they’re getting older. Maybe the word “easier” is being used a little too loosely here; they give me a hard time and I’m sure those hard times will just keep getting harder as they get older, but they ARE easier than a newborn baby, for crying out loud. Newborns, or infants, or anything younger than one year olds, are SO hard, yo.
They don’t cry when I walk out of a room; actually, I think they might just like it. They very rarely projectile vomit. They walk! Nate walked around his first birthday; Matthew was more like 15-16 months old. And he’s a tank of a child. 30 pounds at almost-2 compared to his brother’s 36 pounds at almost-4. They walk right beside me, they hold each other’s hands nicely, and we just walk like Real People into places. Sure, they might dead weight themselves as we’re walking out because they don’t.want.to.leave, but they still walk.
If Nate would stop coming into our bed in the middle of the night, I would be getting a full night’s sleep. But! Technically speaking, they do “sleep through the night”… which in my book means I don’t have to change or feed or rock them. If I just have to move over a little to let him squeeze in beside me, that’s fine, he can sleep next to me and rub my cheek as long as he wants to as long as he lets me sleep. I can sleep through his many verses of Old MacDonald, but I can’t sleep through a reflux-y baby screaming all night long, while my ‘pretty useless during the day – definitely useless through the night’ husband snores beside me. I like feeling rested when I wake up, even if they drive me so hard into the ground that I’m crashing by 3pm.
We can just get up and go places. We like that. No bottles or worrying about breastfeeding in public, or if we’ll need a blanket in the restaurant, what if it’s cold? No baby food! They can eat anything, anywhere, anytime! No worrying about naptimes, Mattie still takes a nap every day obviously, but he can skip and not be too, too, too out of control.
They have real personalities. They’re fun, and funny, and interesting and just plain ol’ cool little guys. I like hanging out with them all day long. I actually like my “job”. I’ve wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember, and when they were infants, I loved it, I thought it was everything I’d been waiting for, but really, this, right now, is exactly what I’ve been waiting for. School, and all the art projects and birthday parties and sports, and watching my boys be friends, playing together, fighting or sharing, snuggling or smacking, I love their interactions. I’m happy to keep moving forward knowing that we won’t be back in that place of caring for a newborn.
I’m sure that my uterus will still ache just a smidge every time I see or smell or even think of a brand spankin’ new baby, but after this last week, I know for sure that it won’t be mine. Well, not on purpose, anyway.
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