A’s BIL & sister were in town today visiting and they asked if we could babysit their 8 month old daughter. Baby S is a total charmer, a total sweetheart. Of course I agreed to watch her.
As much as I love her, there is a tiny hitch about Baby S. She is approximately the age of the baby we might be referred. When I see how fast she is growing and learning, it is a sharp reminder of everything we are missing with the HFC. Baby S can sit up? Probably we missed that milestone with the HFC. Baby S can crawl, the HFC is probably booking around her crib too. It is bittersweet to say the least.
Anyway, when we agreed to watch Baby S tonight, I figured this would be a good test run for us. One night to try out having two kids, not to mention checking out what we need to do to adequately babyproof the house.
Piece of cake, I thought.
Yeah. Right.
Baby S came over in a great mood. She played with M and smiled up a storm. When her parents left, she hardly blinked. M brought over ever single piece of plastic crap we own and Baby S was mesmerized, laughing and giggling. Baby S is mobile, she can crawl pretty quickly and discovered a number of flaws in our death trop unbaby-proofed living room. It looks like we will be needing a couple of baby gates and to remove a few pieces of furniture.
As we sat down to dinner, Baby S continued to smile her happy grin as she gummed some cheerios. Then, M discovered a microscopic onion in her soup. Of course, she started whining and refusing to eat the onion. I started to get annoyed. Then A came home. After A arrived, it was as though Baby S suddenly noticed that her parents weren’t there (perhaps it was because A looks freakishly like a testosterony carbon copy of his sister).
Then the fun began.
Baby S took two looks at A and started crying. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get her to stop.
She wouldn’t eat cheerios. (M also wouldn’t eat any part of her soup that had touched an onion speck.)
Her diaper was dry.
She had already had a dose of tylenol for teething.
She wouldn’t eat squash (who could really blame her though, I think it is gross too).
She refused a bottle.
She refused all the shiny plastic crap M kept waving in front of her.
She refused to laugh when M put on her funny sunglasses and did a little dance. (After that, A took M to the park because she was so disappointed she couldn’t make the baby stop crying.)
She wouldn’t obey her normal sleep routine.
She fought like a banshee when I tried to put her in the ergo carrier.
She wouldn’t take her special washcloth for comfort.
She just screamed and screamed inconsolably for an hour and a half. Finally, she screamed herself to sleep in my arms.
When she finally conked out, I was a little shell-shocked. When A returned from the park, I was just sitting in the rocking chair staring blankly.
"We may have made a huge mistake," I said. "Babies are really hard when they have their own ideas and you don’t know what they are trying to tell you."
"Yeah, she sure was pissed," A said.
"Dude. We are SO SCREWED." I said. "Two kids may totally ruin our lives."
"Yeah," said A, "But it is too late now."
"Yeah," I said.
It has to get easier eventually, right? I mean, some people have like six kids, so it must. Maybe it is just the initial learning curve that is rather steep. That is what I am going to keep telling myself. It has to get easier eventually.
“Dude. We are SO SCREWED.” I said. “Two kids may totally ruin our lives.”
“Yeah,” said A, “But it is too late now.”
Ha! I remember having almost the exact same conversation a few days after Pumpkin came home.
It does get easier. Gradually. Very gradually. (But you! You’re going to be fine!)
It does get easier.
…
eventually.
About a month after Jayden came home — NOT SLEEPING AT ALL — my husband looked at me and said “we were so naive!” Jayden was baby number 3 BUT, I still wish I had been better prepared. All of the a-parents made it sound like it was nothing. She grieved for six months and could only get to sleep (for the 2-3 hours she slept) if I walked around and around the house with her in my sling. That said — 6 months was the corner and once we turned it!! I have never looked back. We have the sweetest, happiest, most beautiful daughter in the world! Although with 3 kids, the wheels are off the bus in our house. Don’t want to scare you — but I certainly wish I had known more. It too an attachment adoption meeting for me to understand whar was going on and how to help her sleep.
DS-L
I told you!!
You are so right two kids may totally ruin your lives, for like a couple of hours at a time and then, not so much for huge chunks!
Four is going okay for us and hey you survived the test run!
I got the same feeling when we went to our first childbirth preparation class the other night and saw the babies popping out in the videos! “Do I really have to do THAT?” You’re right, it’s too late now. I don’t know about you, but I felt totally overwhelmed with one, and that feeling went away so I’m just banking on that happening again.
Delurking to say that the first 6 months are really hard, but then it suddenly starts to get better. A friend of mine who has two adopted girls told me this and she was right on. My kids are both bio, and we are at the 6-month mark now (2.5 yr age difference). Things are just now starting to fall into place. Now it’s hard to remember what it was like with just one.
It is hard – really hard, but then once it starts getting easier, your forget about the hard pretty quickly.
You have also hit a bump that hit us hard – you can’t REALLY childproof until you have a kid to test it. They will find things that you didn’t know you had.
That crying you’re talking about? That was the first 48 hours with our 12-month-old daughter. She stopped to eat and (thank heavens) to sleep. It was not only inconsolable, but all attempts we made to comfort her actually made it worse. The third day was better.
Six months later it was even better.
And two years later, well, she’s 3 now, so she’s back to the inconsolable screaming.
I didn’t believe it when people told me, “two kids are more than twice the work,” but it is true. Everyone I asked said that the adjustment from one kid to two was more difficult than from zero kids to one. How could this be? We’ve had practice already! Painful, but true.
There’s a steep learning curve, and then it gets better.
I think it will make a big difference when you get to know HFC. It is very hard to console a baby who you don’t know well and who doesn’t know you. Unfortunately, this will be the case with HFC for a little while, but once you get to know each other, it will go a lot easier.
As someone who had two babies instantaneaously (twins) I have nothing to compare. It usually isn’t too hard. But there are times when we are in the park and one wants to go off to the street on the left and the other runs off to the street on the right at exactly the same time when I think I’m in my own personal hell. I’ve gotten very used to being able to scoop up both simultanously. But then you don’t have any left over hands to sheild you from the tantrum induced kicking.
Oh, joy. You’ll be fine!
I couldn’t believe how much harder the second one was but it did eventually get easier to juggle everything. The first month I felt very out of control so we stayed close to home and didn’t venture out much until I was more comfortable.
Both girls are adopted, the first spent 8 months in a SWI the second was in a foster home since her finding. Lots more mourning with the second and much longer adjustment period, but now she is MUCH more secure and confident than our older daughter.
Once you get the plates spinning you’ll be fine.
repeat after me… it gets easier.
Have two young children is like spinning plates. You do a lot of back and forth trying to keep them safe/happy/fed. I’m not sure if the kids get easier or if parents just get better at plate spinning, but it does get better.