Three Kids?

I always knew I could handle one child.  I've done enough babysitting in my life, worked enough with kids in multiple jobs, that I felt supremely confident in my ability to be a parent. 

Ainsley arrived and our life changed, but not so much that I felt overwhelmed.  I've always been a homebody.  I've known how much work it was to care for a baby.  The only difficult aspect of becoming a parent of one was simply determining how Tim and I would rebalance household responsibilities.  Eventually we figured it out and things were going well.

2009.  One child.  Living the easy life.

I then foolishly determined that two kids wouldn't be too much of a difference to our lives.  We already had all the things babies/kids require.  We had figured out how to adjust our lives to accommodate one baby.  How much harder could it be to add another?

I was wrong.  I'm not sure if everyone else goes through what we/I went through when we added Durham, but man was it hard.  Perhaps I had put too much effort into being a parent to Ainsley, but adding Durham meant that I had to take away attention from Ainsley to give to Durham.  Perhaps it was because Durham had colic for the first three months.  I wasn't just taking away attention from Ainsley, but sometimes having to completely ignore her for most of the day as I did everything in my power to try to soothe a screaming baby. 




Angry, angry baby.  Three months of angry.  Just look at the difference in the expressions on my face from the first picture to this one.  Oy. 

Naptime and she isn't even dressed yet. 
Who's supposed to be in charge of this one if I'm dealing with angry baby? 
How do you balance two? 

My poor girl was now being babysat by the television.  My poor girl was no longer going to be in dance, gymnastics, swimming class, valedictorian, student council, sports, clubs, church, EVERY ACTIVITY that would make her well-rounded.  Now I could barely leave the house for more than 30 minutes without stressing out.  Two kids was hard. 

So. Much. Mommy guilt.  SO. MUCH.

It got better.  I gave up my ridiculous ambitions and realized that the joy of having a sibling and someone to play with and interact with was something just as, if not more, special than working with my sweet girl every moment of the day to mold her into a genius athlete.


Ainsley loved to be with Durham before Durham could even roll over.

Who else knows what your life is like better than a sibling?

Someone to play with 24/7.

There's always someone your age at family gatherings. 

Then I had to wrap my head around three kids.  This wasn't so emotionally daunting.  I'm not overwhelmed with mommy guilt anymore.  The problem with three kids has been logistical. 

Our cars didn't fit three car seats.  We had to get TWO new cars in the same year.  We don't want to go back to car payments, so we had to do that with only the money in our bank accounts.  Ouch.  There goes gymnastics/dance/vacations for 2013.



Three carseats across a bench seat. 

We then had to deal with putting Ainsley and Durham into the same room.  Whoa.  Pulling my boy out of his crib to put him in a big boy bed in a room shared with his sister was...adventurous.  The adventure is continuing today as we are still trying to work that out.



It's crowded and impossible to keep clean. 

 Laundry and dishes have exploded.  I feel like I'm constantly dealing with feeding my kids.  Our solution?  Put pre-filled sippy cups in the fridge so that Ainsley can fetch the drinks and snacks by herself.  Turns out a four year old is way more helpful around the house and with a new baby than a 2 year old is.  No wonder it was so hard bringing Durham home.  I didn't have a four year old to help me.  :)

Put as many pre-filled sippy cups as we can in the fridge in the morning to save sanity later. 
Daddy sanity is saved by the beer seen just behind. 

It's already interesting leaving the house with our brood of three.  Who holds whom?  How do I hold the infant carrier and stop the other two from running into traffic all at the same time?  My solution so far is to not leave the house with all three at once.  We do whatever we can to divide up the kids between the two of us when running errands.  We tend to send one parent to run errands by themselves just to prevent problems that can occur in public.  I'm hoping that will change soon.  Our family feels...disjointed. 

Overall, bringing Wrenn home hasn't been a toll on my mommy guilt load.  I've already come to terms with the fact that my kids will need to be more independent and that we will not be able to afford to allow them to participate in every activity they would want.  Right now, it doesn't even matter. 

They have each other to play with.  No matter how much Durham and Ainsley fight, it's so worth it to watch them chase each other down the hallway or play flashlight wars in their newly shared bedroom. 

I can't wait for Wrenn to join their chaos.  Looking back, I realize that I would have so much more mommy guilt if my Ainsley didn't have her siblings.  Having a brother and a sister is so much more valuable than anything we've had to give up to accommodate our growing family.
 

Priceless.