When I dreamed of three kids (which I did often in the several years that Sacha and I debated and occasionally fought over whether to have three), I imagined three little booster seats at the table, a pack of buddies playing together and then being friends together as they got older. I kind of forgot, although I didn't really forget, about the newborn stage!
Since Mateo and Natalia's infancies are such a blur in my mind, I think I assumed Rosa's would flash by in a blur as well....neglecting to remember that the gaps in my memory from the first two kids were caused by sleep deprivation, not by time passing extremely fast! Instead, as I now remember from the other two, we are in the trenches of looooooooooooooong days and loooooooooong nights. It's like that saying about how the days are long but the years are short. I imagine I'll look back on this time as a blur, too, but it definitely doesn't feel like that now.
Having three is wonderful and I certainly wouldn't take it back. Rosa is about the easiest baby we can imagine, which I say while keeping in mind that wow, that kid can scream when she wants to!, and Mateo and Natalia seem to be adjusting pretty well. However, along with normal newborn ups and downs, we also have a four-year-old who feels overwhelmed and sometimes unattended to and is lashing out over nothing - ie, hitting his friend with a toy yesterday for no real reason.
And, we have Tali, who loves the baby so much that she wants to smother her with love, toys, hugs, pats, pokes, and on and on, and who is also displaying flashes of temper and clinginess and all that stuff. I know people go and have six kids or ten kids, so I know we can adjust to three. I think I just spent so much time reassuring Sacha that we could do it that I forgot about the undetermined but probably longish period of time until the baby sleeps through the night and the kids get used to her and things start feeling normal again.
For quite awhile before Rosa was born, we had gotten to a point where we had our routines and our life with the kids was rolling along quite smoothly for the most part. I know we'll get back to that, but wow, this is definitely a shock to the system and I think we're going to be finding our footing for awhile yet. Luckily, we have the cutest and funniest kids in the world to make it all worthwhile! Stay tuned for our many baby steps in learning how to be parents of three...
2 comments:
I know exactly what you're going through. Not with three kids, but the whole dealing with the newborn and sleep deprivation, and the older kid who is overwhelmed and needing attention too. I feel like we are just coming out of that (8 months later). Although, C wakes up constantly at night still. But the newborn stage where the baby needs to eat ALL the time and goes through so many diapers etc. takes its toll. Hang in there. Call if you need help. Really.
I bet this post will be priceless to you later. You've written quite well about the joys and the struggles. Hang in there!
Post a Comment