Guess who..mommy is going to pick?
One of the downsides to having 2 kids so close together is that my boy is forced to grow up a lot faster than he would otherwise have to. At 14 months, he’s still very much a baby, but with the arrival of an even smaller baby, the contrast makes him seem like a giant of a child. I often find myself thinking that he’s a big boy, then I stop myself short and remember that he’s just barely made it into the stage of toddlerhood.
To be honest, if things were a little different and I didn’t have Kirsten around, I’d still be babying him till he was 12. But with 2 kids, he’s just gotta learn to deal. We all do.
Only thing is, while he’s been amazing these past weeks in making room for his little sister and having to play by himself and coming to terms with the fact that Mommy’s not all his anymore, there are days where I can tell he’s struggling to adjust. And it shows up in different ways. One day he’s clingy and needy and stuck to my hip and another day he’s refusing to let me carry him. Also, after months of sleeping on his own without fussing, he screams bloody murder every time I try to put him to bed. I need to hold him and snuggle for a good hour before he’ll be contented enough to drift off to sleep.
That’s the dilemma though. On any given day, both kids will be demanding for Mommy AT THE SAME TIME and God forbid they have to wait a fraction of a second for me to magically appear. Much as that is a boost to my ego (I’m hot property), it breaks my heart to have to decide who’s turn it is to get me first. At first I was all like “of course I have to attend to the smaller one first since she’s a baby and all”, then I realize that they are both still babies and it’s not really fair for Tru to have to wait all the time. In fact, Kirsten is probably too small for a little bit of crying to do any permanent damage, but Tru’s at an age where he might actually remember that Mommy wasn’t there for him because she was too busy taking care of his baby sister.
So I’ve kinda developed a system to assuage the guilt. Kirsten gets first dibs if she’s hungry (which happens like MOST OF THE TIME and you don’t want to mess with her when she’s hungry) and all other times, I’ll attend to Tru first. When I’m particularly insane ambitious, I’ll try to tackle both at the same time. Although there’s that one time where I hid under the kitchen sink until they both stopped crying and fell back asleep.
I’m totally kidding. About the kids falling back asleep part. I was hiding under the sink but the screaming went on for hours. I think I must have been the one to fall asleep.
