Sleep was a toughie and at the same time, not as awful as I was expecting. When Selah was a newborn, the sleep deprivation hit me like truck. A truck driven by an elderly person blasting into the front of a grocery store because they mistook the gas for the brake. You know what I'm talking about. There were days I definitely should not have been driving I was so tired but I considered it a success when I made it back home with Selah in one piece. But with Harrison, I haven't dealt with the same mind numbing exhaustion nor the dread of what a setting sun meant for me. Yes, I'm definitely tired and resemble a corpse (albeit a drooling corpse) if given the opportunity to nap but it's waaay more manageable this time around. Thankfully Selah is still taking an afternoon nap and most of the time, I get Harrison to take one during the same time so I have a little time to myself to catch up on things around the house or if I'm really lucky, pass out face down on the bed for an hour or so.
Some of those 'well intentioned' comments were of their kids being insanely jealous of the new baby. I have yet to see any of that happen with Selah. I have seen nothing but overwhelming love for her little brother...it's awesome. Well, maybe not so awesome when she's dragging him by the legs to 'put him in the Boppy because he wants to see', putting her toy stethoscope on his head to play doctor or putting her huge stuffed Winnie the Pooh over his face because 'Harrison wanted to see Pooh'. She's very caring and sweet toward him and gets bummed when she hears he won't be going somewhere with her. I can't wait to see what their relationship will be like when he gets a little older. I read a comment online a few weeks ago that I found helps a lot with managing 2 kids at once: if both of the kids need something at once, tend to the older child first and then the baby. If Selah wants a cup of juice and Harrison is starting to get fussy, I get the juice for her and then pick baby bro up and give him what he's looking for...usually food. Always food.
I'll be honest, I was a little freaked to run errands by myself with the 2 of them. Not sure exactly what I was scared of but you know...being outnumbered by little people can do that to you. The first trip alone was the ever awesome Target and equally intimidating Costco. I tried to minimize the chances of epic meltdowns (from both the kids and myself) by timing them between feedings for Harrison and lucky for me, all went well; not including the 2 bags of dark chocolate covered pretzel crisps I had to have from Costco. I'm now pretty confident in taking the kids out by myself and even took them to the park today. Harrison decided to pass on the monkey bars and nap while Selah was running around like a crazy person.
Will there be times when they're driving me nuts and I'm hiding in our closet with my foot keeping the door from opening? That's probably a big fat yes but right now, I'm going to keep on floating on my happy mom-of-two cloud.
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