It’s what keeps me from falling in too deep

by Jessica on February 10, 2012

Google Friend Connect is going away Spring of 2012! So, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss a thing. Thanks for visiting!

Today, I’m guest posting on Jessica’s fabulous blog, The Spit-Up Chronicles.

My post is about why I blog and what I get from blogging. It’s called “It’s what keeps me from falling in too deep.”

Come over and say “hello” and if you’re a blogger, tell me why you blog. If you don’t blog, tell me how you maintain balance between motherhood and you.

Happy Friday!

 

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On raising babies and toddlers

by Jessica on February 8, 2012

When I was pregnant, and people would ask about the ages of my two daughters, instead of saying that I would soon be having a newborn and a 1 year old, I would say that I was having a 20 month old and a newborn. I never counted Nya’s age in years except in writing out the invitations for her first birthday party.  She was always “such-and-such” months old. Always.

Doing this during my pregnancy made her age feel more substantial in my head. It allowed me to convince myself that I would be raising two different kinds of children—a baby and a toddler.

So, she was 20 months! She was 20 GIANT months of almost potty training and solids and walking and words and tantrums and skinny jeans mommy’s lipstick and attitude.

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She wasn’t a girl yet. She was a toddler. She was a small toddler. She still needed to hold my hand when traveling on uneven pavements and she still needed me to hold her at night when the light in the hallway went out and she still needed me to cut up into tiny pieces the chicken cutlets that I often made for dinner.

She was not as independent as the “experts” said she should be when introducing a new sibling. But, I convinced myself that she was “independent enough.” She was almost two-years old, after all.

Two-years old.

And as an almost two year old, I expected more from her. I needed more from her. I expected her to be independent. I needed her to independent to make the 20-month age gap between her and Annah make perfect sense in my rationale brain.

And things did make sense until just weeks before Annah entered our lives. “She’s regressing,” I told my husband one night during her screams and tears and kicking and hitting for not wanting to sleep in her bed without me.

She was fighting something it seemed then, resisting something, with her unwillingness to walk up the stairs and her tears at even the thought of leaving my side.

 Babies and Toddlers

When Annah came, Nya began to talk more. “Up. Up. Up,” she would say in the early weeks of our lives as a family of four. This was her way of asking to be held. Then, weeks later, in seeing that her little sister was carried most of the day, she changed “Up. Up. Up” to “Baby. Baby. Baby.”

It took a couple of times of hearing “Baby.Baby.Baby” before I realized what was going on.

“Baby me, too” she was saying.

“Baby me, too.”

Just writing that makes me want to cry.

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When I became a mom of two under two, I separated my girls’ worlds into two distinct halves: the toddler half and the baby half.

I so desperately needed to see a grown up Nya, an independent, toddler Nya that I failed to see her in the early weeks.

I failed to see that while, seemingly, much bigger than her little sister, while more experienced than her little sister, she was still small.

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And she became and felt even smaller with the unexplained, unannounced addition of her sister to our “perfect” family.

And with this realization, I changed.

I let go of the ideas in my head about what Nya should be doing as a BIG toddler and gave her free rein to be a BIGGER baby.

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I let her have a pacifier (even though she prefers her thumb). I let her get in her sister’s swing and bassinet. I let her sleep in our bed.

I stopped fighting against her fight to be… her age.

And, guess what happened?

She changed. She stopped crying when I would put Annah down for her naps. She started accepting cups again over bottles. She began playing with her toys independently. She stopped hitting her sister.  She pooped in the potty. She took on her role as big sister more willingly.

“My two babies,” I often tease when I sit them beside each other on the sofa in our living room.

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I say this because they really are.

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Strategies for Leaving the House with Two

February 6, 2012

The first time I left my house with my newborn and toddler was at five weeks postpartum. We went to Target. It was a nightmare. But, we did it. We survived Now, we leave the house almost daily. Now, with a lot of planning and preparation, things are a lot easier than they once were. [...]

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52|5: No bon bons for this stay at home mom

February 3, 2012

One of the most common questions I’m asked as a stay at home mom is “What do you do all day?” Because some assume that stay at home moms have it so easy, sometimes, when answering this question, sometimes, what I’ll emphasize most are my “hardships.” “Oh, did I tell you that I never have [...]

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Stumbles| A lesson in mothering for a second time

spacer February 1, 2012

I walked into motherhood blindly.  During my pregnancy with Nya, I didn’t bother learning anything about parenting or babies because I assumed that parenthood was one giant ball of mistakes, stumbles, and regrets waiting to happen anyway. So, why, oh, why would I bother learning from the mistakes and scientific conclusions of others? So, with [...]

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Second birthdays are more fun

spacer January 30, 2012

This year, for Nya’s second birthday party, I promised myself that I wouldn’t go overboard with…everything. I would keep it simple. I wouldn’t try to compete with Martha Stewart for the “most crafty” award or Betty Crocker for the “best baker” award. I would not get to know the employees at Hobby Lobby and Michaels [...]

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52|4: Girls are

spacer January 27, 2012

Ever take a picture of your children and see them in the picture more clearly? I mean, not like visually, but like an essence? That’s what I felt in taking these pictures of Nya. This is, within these pictures, her essence, and in seeing it, it made me think about girls and what it means [...]

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About that quote in the mirror|On birthdays

spacer January 25, 2012

In a comment on yesterday’s post, the fabulously funny Christine of The Aums asked me for the background story on the quote in this picture:  I gave her the backstory in a comment, but in writing it out (or the comment), I thought maybe I should write a post on that story. If you’ve been following [...]

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Happy Birthday, Love.

spacer January 24, 2012

This is for the girl who turned my life upside, then right side up again. Today, on your second birthday, I feel as though my heart just might burst. I write this with a lump in my throat, with feet clenched and toes digging into the carpets of our living room, and hardly breathing because [...]

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52|3: Three Months

spacer January 22, 2012

In sorting through photos of Annah’s birth for the writing of her long overdue birth story, I realized that I haven’t formally introduced her on this blog. I mean, besides the post that I wrote announcing her birth, she’s mostly appeared here in shared photos with or mostly about her older sister. She’s been like [...]

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