Adjusting

Everyone has been asking how I've been adjusting to having two kids. Like most things in life, some days are better than others. Truthfully the first 6 weeks were really tough. I can honestly say I was not myself. The fact that my hormones were switching gears really took a toll on me emotionally. I was unnaturally angry and stressed all the time. It was really annoying and discouraging. I knew I was being unreasonable and I couldn't figure out why certain situations would just cause me to explode. I was afraid that I was turning into a monster and didn't want these angry feelings and actions to become a habit. I also felt guilty and thought I was being a bad mother because I would let the TV babysit for me and yet at the same time I didn't feel I was giving Sister adequate attention or cuddle time. It felt like I was always putting her down to help K1.

I knew I couldn't do it anymore and I knew something needed to change but I didn't know what. I asked PC for a blessing and in it it said that I was given wonderful friends who were willing and able to help me and that I needed to let them. So I did. And that was when things started coming back to equilibrium. My sweet friends would come pick up K1 a few mornings a week for a couple hours and then bring him home again. During that time I was able to enjoy some quiet time with Sister and/or get in a small nap. By the time he got home I felt rejuvenated and happy to see him again. My friends did this for 2 weeks for me.

Thankfully something happened at five weeks. I remember waking up that Monday morning feeling like myself. I felt intrinsically happy again. Of course I still had up and down days after that, but I was able to cope because I felt more like myself (patient and methodical rather than angry and explosive). I still took my friends up on 'watching' K1 except I went with him to these play dates. The social interaction with my friends was so healing for me.

It was at this point that I realized that I needed to take better care of myself so that I could better care for my family. Granted, I still didn't have much control over how much sleep I was getting each night, but I could control just about everything else. I decided to start exercising again. My friends and I started an exercise swap twice a week (in which I would go running) and then I would do yoga the other four nights of the week. I also decided that I needed to partition all of my 'jobs' to separate days of the week (i.e. grocery shop-monday, vacuum dust-tuesday, etc). It may sound silly, but having these things written down made them feel more like rules, and I could therefore say, my work is done for the day, now I can go play with my kids. Or just know when to stop, for once.

Now, one detailed schedule, one kid leash, and 2 months later, I can say we are very happy and, for the most part, adjusted to having our new family member around.

I'm very grateful to my sweet baby boy. He's been very forgiving. I bet he was wondering where his Mommy went those first couple of weeks, but he's taken the change in stride much sooner than I expected him to. I'm so proud of him that he's been able to play by himself so well and been willing to read books while I nurse Sister. I'm especially grateful how sweet and loving he's been to Sister from day one. No kidding. It's not hard to tell that he loves his baby sister by how sweet and gentle he is when he's with her.

I'm also very grateful to my loving and extremely patient husband for taking care of our family when I wasn't able to. It's a very humbling thought that Heavenly Father reserved such a kind and loving man to be my husband and in tern be a loving and responsible father for our children.

*pictured: a bouquet of flowers that PC gave me after a really tough day with the kids.