Six.
Welp, it happened. The end of my (brutal) pregnancy, and new baby-hood caught me. I haven't posted since February. Seriously, I suck. But now, I'm back. Baby brother is snoozing in the cheap-ass vibrating baby seat next to me... While the $$ Mamaroo we borrowed from a friend sits neglected across the room. Babies, man. What are you gonna do?
I'll spare you the details of baby brother's birth story, but I went into labor 7 hours before my scheduled C-Section, labored in the hospital lobby for an hour+ because there were no available beds, and ended up delivering via C-Section 3 hours earlier than planned. Apparently changes in barometric pressure cause women to go into labor because there were so.many.babies born that night.
So far, life with two kids is going well. The baby does baby things: eat, sleep, and fill diapers faster than we can change them. The kid does new brother things: poke, pinch, and breathe too closely to his brother's face. But he loves him SO fiercely, that I can't really complain. We're sleeping decently (hell, I was sleeping SO poorly beforehand that this waking-every-three-hours business is a breeze), showering, getting out the door mostly on time, and high-fiving ourselves that we got that badass minivan... The doors, y'all... Do it for the m-f-ing automatic doors. Aside from a gassy baby and a minimal case of Thrush, we're functioning almost at one-kid level.
We are well aware that the wheels could come off at any moment, and knocking on any wood surface we can find when things go smoothly, but so far so good.
3.5 year olds are interesting creatures though. The kid LOVES his brother. And I mean LOVES. Since he saw him in the hospital, he's been totally smitten. Even when baby brother is screaming his head off, the big kid just calmly sings "It's okaaaayyyy Baby Brotherrrrr". He says to me "Mommy, let's pick him up... I'll get the head, you get the rest" and I just melt... This is why we had another kid. Brothers. Big and baby. Seeing the kid with his brother makes the 9 months of hell I endured worth it. We gave him a brother. His attitude towards us for the first 2-3 weeks however: not so much love.
The kid has always been a tough cookie. Button pusher extraordinaire, stubborn, and unable to be bribed. The first 3 weeks of bringing baby brother home (spoiler alert, he's only 4 weeks old) were a fuzzy blur of family visiting and the kid being on time out. Like I said, he LOVES his brother. The discipline had nothing to do with his behavior towards him, and everything to do with his behavior towards us. Saying no, pouting when he didn't get his way, crying at the drop of a hat,and making this awful scrunched up "angry face" that he most definitely didn't (did) get from me. 90% of the day he was still his fun self, but the other 10% was rough, real rough. Threats didn't work, bribes still didn't work, and ignoring just made it worse (for all of us). By the end of the third week of having a Jeckyll/Hyde kid, we were at a loss.
It's subsiding now, 4 weeks in. We've introduced some new behaviors and incentives and we'll see what happens. As normal as life feels for us, introducing a new baby has def thrown his life through a loop... No matter what we do to keep things moving like they were before, and we're trying to be mindful... Even as I remind the kid that not putting his toys away means he might not get a sticker for his behavior chart, and if said behavior chart isn't full, he doesn't get to go see The Incredibles 2 this summer.
Please send me all the patience... And all the wine I couldn't drink while I was pregnant.
I'll spare you the details of baby brother's birth story, but I went into labor 7 hours before my scheduled C-Section, labored in the hospital lobby for an hour+ because there were no available beds, and ended up delivering via C-Section 3 hours earlier than planned. Apparently changes in barometric pressure cause women to go into labor because there were so.many.babies born that night.
So far, life with two kids is going well. The baby does baby things: eat, sleep, and fill diapers faster than we can change them. The kid does new brother things: poke, pinch, and breathe too closely to his brother's face. But he loves him SO fiercely, that I can't really complain. We're sleeping decently (hell, I was sleeping SO poorly beforehand that this waking-every-three-hours business is a breeze), showering, getting out the door mostly on time, and high-fiving ourselves that we got that badass minivan... The doors, y'all... Do it for the m-f-ing automatic doors. Aside from a gassy baby and a minimal case of Thrush, we're functioning almost at one-kid level.
We are well aware that the wheels could come off at any moment, and knocking on any wood surface we can find when things go smoothly, but so far so good.
3.5 year olds are interesting creatures though. The kid LOVES his brother. And I mean LOVES. Since he saw him in the hospital, he's been totally smitten. Even when baby brother is screaming his head off, the big kid just calmly sings "It's okaaaayyyy Baby Brotherrrrr". He says to me "Mommy, let's pick him up... I'll get the head, you get the rest" and I just melt... This is why we had another kid. Brothers. Big and baby. Seeing the kid with his brother makes the 9 months of hell I endured worth it. We gave him a brother. His attitude towards us for the first 2-3 weeks however: not so much love.
The kid has always been a tough cookie. Button pusher extraordinaire, stubborn, and unable to be bribed. The first 3 weeks of bringing baby brother home (spoiler alert, he's only 4 weeks old) were a fuzzy blur of family visiting and the kid being on time out. Like I said, he LOVES his brother. The discipline had nothing to do with his behavior towards him, and everything to do with his behavior towards us. Saying no, pouting when he didn't get his way, crying at the drop of a hat,and making this awful scrunched up "angry face" that he most definitely didn't (did) get from me. 90% of the day he was still his fun self, but the other 10% was rough, real rough. Threats didn't work, bribes still didn't work, and ignoring just made it worse (for all of us). By the end of the third week of having a Jeckyll/Hyde kid, we were at a loss.
It's subsiding now, 4 weeks in. We've introduced some new behaviors and incentives and we'll see what happens. As normal as life feels for us, introducing a new baby has def thrown his life through a loop... No matter what we do to keep things moving like they were before, and we're trying to be mindful... Even as I remind the kid that not putting his toys away means he might not get a sticker for his behavior chart, and if said behavior chart isn't full, he doesn't get to go see The Incredibles 2 this summer.
Please send me all the patience... And all the wine I couldn't drink while I was pregnant.
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