On being a mother of two

Rex and Alice @ less than a week old

It's been two and half weeks since I started on my new venture, but only one week on my own.  The first two weeks I was really only a mother of one--Grandma Pattie took charge of just about everything except feeding the baby.  And then this week, I was on my own.  And I survived.  And it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  I did, however, send Greg and Rex to a ward picnic yesterday while Alice and I stayed home and slept and then repeated the same thing today during church.  But the important thing is that I survived.  And it could've been worse.

I find that as a mother of two, I am much less stressed than I was as a mother of one.  I still don't like Rex watching TV, but with little Alice eating every two to three hours and sometimes taking up to an hour to eat, I've decided that Rex and I can spend time just watching TV together while baby eats.  Sometimes we read books, but a lot of times we just watch TV.  I also don't worry so much about entertaining Rex every second of every day.  He does a pretty good job of entertaining himself, so I sneak off and clean a bathroom or mop a floor, or surprise, surprise feed the baby.  It's good for kids to learn how to entertain themselves, right?

I'm also less stressed about having a newborn.  With Rex, I was constantly stressed about feeding him.  I rushed all my errands so I could be home to feed the baby.  And Rex was only to eat every 3 hours.  Never more often than that.  With Alice things are...different.  In the past three weeks I have nursed: at the doctor's office, at the library, at the mall (in the playplace), in a park, and a lot just sitting on my couch.  And Alice gets to eat every two hours if she wants.  So much better than listening to her cry.  I have tried to stretch her to every three hours, but at night I just figure I'm going to be feeding the baby from about 8 until whenever I go to bed and don't plan to get anything else done.

Keeping my expectations low...

Rex, Alice and Dad on Alice's blessing day--Alice  a week and half.

Really low.  It's now three and half weeks.  That's right: this blog post has been staring me in the face, mocking me for a week.  I think about it the twenty times I have to fall back to sleep every night.

It's been an interesting week.  Alice has a good day followed by a bad day; Rex is mostly good but in general goes to bed after 11--which makes for lots of sleeping in to the late hour of 9 am.  Sweet.

Like I said, I've had a lot of time to think about this blog post every night as I feed Alice.  Mostly I think about the three things I've been feeling lately.

1. Disconnected.  I felt the same way when Rex was born so I know the feeling will pass, but, for now, it's a little disconcerting.  I recently heard that Steve Jobs only dealt with six people.  I was dealing with only two--Greg and Rex and I had my time divided so that that every one got the attention they needed.  Rex had me all day; Greg had me all night; and I had Rex's nap to myself.  And now, I have three people I have to deal with and I don't feel like anyone is getting what they need.  I just feel so distant from everyone.

Which leads to feeling number 2--Guilt.  Lots and lots of guilt.  Guilt that I'm not giving everyone the attention they need.  When I'm feeding Alice, I think I should be enjoying this time with my little baby, but then I also watch Rex playing by himself and feel bad that he's playing by himself, so then when I'm done feeding Alice I put her down to play with Rex, but then I feel bad that I'm not just staring into her funny little face (she makes a lot of funny, disapproving faces) and enjoying her.  And by the time Greg gets home, well I'm just done for the day and I all want to do is watch TV so then I feel bad that I'm too tired to talk about anything other than poop and puke.  And then I pretty much just ditch the kids on him while I attempt to do a few dishes and that's after he spent all day at work...

Which leads to feeling number 3--tired.  I'm just tired, and dehydrated.

Rex and Alice--Alice almost 4 weeks

But who would expect anything different?  Isn't this the way things are supposed to be with a new baby?