Going from one kid to two kids is hard. I expected things to be hard, no one ever said it was going to be easy. My life revolves around breast feeding, diaper changes, playing hide and seek, and making snacks and food for meal times. Though the change is harder then what I expected because a lot of things happened that I didn't prepare myself for.
Going from one to two kids is hard for anybody, and then you have the hormonal change that makes you extra sensitive and taking care of a newborn makes you extremely tired. Then there is also a little toddler who can't understand that Mommy just can't do somethings whenever he wants me to anymore. It's hard. Don't get me wrong, I love love love being a mother and having two kids is more of a blessing then I could have ever imagined.
The things that made the change even harder then what I expected was first of all I had a c-section. Now I knew that there was a chance that I would have one and I knew that things would be a lot harder if I did have one. First off, you can't move right away, literally you are stuck in bed not being able to feel anything and you need someone to bring you everything, even your baby when they are hungry. When you can move it hurts everything and things like getting in and out of bed feel like you worked out for an hour and someone is jabbing knifes in you the whole time. Also, you have a c-section you aren't supposed to lift anything more then ten pounds for six weeks, but when you have a toddler it's really hard to follow that rule. I did try to follow the rule for the first couple of weeks, it honestly did hurt to lift him or even things lighter then him. Now, I still try to follow the rule, but I can't all the time. I have no choice but to lift Gabriel and we also moved and I have to unpack boxes and what not so I lift them sometimes too.
Which brings me to my next thing, we had to move two weeks after Elizek was born. So the first week I was home from the hospital I tried to relax as much as I could but the second week I was rushing around my parents house trying to get our things together so we could move. Naps didn't happen, or if they did I felt so incredibly guilty over it because I knew I had so many other things to do. Then when we did move we get to our apartment the day we were moving everything in only to find out that we couldn't move in to the apartment we were supposed to get because they thought it had bed bugs, so we ended up moving all of our stuff into another apartment and then 5 days later when they found out that there really were no bugs we moved again into our original apartment. So I have been trying to unpack our boxes in between breast feeding and playing with Gabriel... so if you come over, don't be surprised to still find a lot of boxes:)
I also got Mastitis a week before we moved. Mastitis is an infection in your breast that you get from breast feeding and unfortunately it gives you flu like symptoms along with the pain in your breast. So I had a fever, was getting light headed, and was extremely tired (well, more then I already was) from it.
Then two days before we moved I found out that I had lymes disease. Lymes makes you overly tired, makes your joints and muscles hurt and as I found out, makes even your eyes hurt! Also, you can't always think clearly, or I should say, have the best memory. It was/is taking me forever to make decisions or remember what people actually said to me. So my doctor put me on meds for lymes, then had to change the meds 5 days later because more lab work came back and it turns out that the meds she put me on weren't going to work, so I had to start some new stuff. I think all I wanted to do a few days before we moved was cry because everything was happening all at once but I never had the time or the privacy (we were living at my parents still) to do that, so I just dealt with it the best I could.
The tiredness from the lymes, mastitis and having a newborn has been the hardest thing to deal with. I try to have energy to play with Gabriel and unpack my apartment but some days it simply doesn't happen. I also found out the other day that it is extremely difficult to wake up or are in such a deep sleep you can't hear anything. I about burst into tears the other morning when I woke up at 9am and realized that Gabriel had been sitting in his crib all morning waiting for me. Since then I set my alarm clock in hopes that it will wake me up in the morning and I've tried to avoid taking naps since I never know how long he is going to sleep and don't want to set my alarm for something way later then when he would actually get up... does that make sense? I hope so. Which would also be why I am writing this post (and probably why it's so long), Gabriel is napping and I am trying to keep myself awake but don't have the energy at the moment to unpack anything else. Anyway, I'm pretty good at pretending I'm not extremely tired when I go out in public or to other peoples homes, hopefully people still think I'm semi normal :)
Things have been hard, but it's all worth it because I love love LOVE my kids. I love having Eli and Gabriel around. They are such a joy! Even though it's a lot more work with two, they are such a joy and they also make it easier to deal with everything. I'm excited when the lymes will finally be gone and I'm not so overly tired. I mean, I'm sure I'll still be tired because I will still be getting up with Eli at night and what not, but it should be better then now. Gabriel did happen to freak me out today though when all the sudden he disappeared and he had literally been by my side two seconds before. He ended up being in our new walk-in closet hiding behind some of my dresses that were hanging up. I looked in every room before I got to that one and would have missed him completely except right when I was turning around to leave I spotted two little feet poking out from the bottom of a dress. When I pulled the dress back he had the biggest smile and started giggling historically! Little stinker:) He can be surprisingly quiet when he doesn't want to be found! Anyway, he was pretty darn proud of himself for hiding in such a good spot... and now I keep that closet door closed :)
This Saturday’s Recipes by The Pioneer Woman
5 years ago
