Last night Baby Girl was up seven times in nine hours. Seven. Tonight as I write this, I am nursing her for the third time in four hours. Like always, as I set her down when she has passed into a cozy milk coma, I will say a quick prayer that she stays sleeping for at least a few hours. While I am awake, I will worry about how she seems to be getting up more, not less. I worry that she eats too much, that I am not washing her neck rolls enough, that she may develop childhood diabetes. I worry about stupid things, like she will be kidnapped from my bedside or that I have an undetected cancer mass that will leave her without a mother.
When she woke up this last time, there was a toddler butt in my face. For the second time tonight, I picked up his little deadweight body and carried him into his room and tucked him into his big boy bed. If history is any indicator...he will be back. As I lay back down I worry he will never sleep in his own bed, that he feels too skinny, that he will fall out of bed and hit his head. I worry about more stupid things, like that he will wake up without me knowing and climb his dresser and fall or that he will be attacked by the two thousand bees that seem to live around our house and go into anaphylactic shock and die.
In the morning, just like yesterday and like all last week, I will get up at nine o'clock while both babies "sleep in". I dont really think it counts as sleeping in if they were up all night though - it is just regular catch up sleep. But I don't stay in bed with them for any catch up sleep of my own. I let the dogs out and eat breakfast and pack up both their diaper bags and my gym bag. I go back upstairs and lay out clothes and diapers for two. I wake up Baby Girl and change and babble at her. I wake up Baby Boy and convince him that he does want to go potty and put clothes on, even as he clutches the blanket up under his chin like it has magical restraining powers.
I carry them both down the stairs at the same time because Baby Boy is always still clingy. I throw night time bottles and any needed supplies down the stairs ahead of me and just kick them as we go because I never have any hands. I detach the clingy child with fifty squirming hands and leave him on the couch, deposit the baby in her swing, and make morning bottles. Baby Boy insists on sitting on my lap with a blanket in our spot on the couch every morning for a bottle. Occasionally Baby Girl allows this and talks to her swing animals. Usually though she objects and my lap is full of babies and bottles. And as they cuddle up I worry that they will grow up and I will never get this moment back. And then I worry that they will never grow up and I will never sit in a chair alone again.
We finish morning bottles and I wrangle dogs into kennels and both babies and their bags and my bags out the door into the van. I think I locked the door behind me but there is no way I am going back to check. I say a quick, fervent prayer that if we are attacked by thieves while we are away that they take all the dirty dishes. We head to the gym, even though I am bone tired, where I will walk/run the track and then go swim with Baby Boy. Because it is good for us. By the time I have ushered both kids and our gear into the building, through locker rooms, and back out in the van...it has been two hours. And I have done approximately twenty minutes of actual exercise.
When we get home, I return all the stuff and the babies to the house. I attempt to feed Baby Boy actual solid food for lunch. He resists and begs for his bottle. Two plates of food on the floor later, I give up and it is nap time. All I have to do is juggle this toddler and nurse his baby sister and get them back sleeping on their respective couch cushions and I can eat my own lunch. At about two o'clock.
This is the time where well meaning people tell me I should nap while the babies do. This is also the time where my husband believes I should get everything done that I never seem to have time for. Sadly, neither are right. The laws of nature demand that if I even think of resting, one of the babies will immediately begin to move and make noise. It is never good to piss off nature. On the flip side, there is no way I am doing any noisy house activity and potentially ruining the magical dual nap moment. I will do every quiet thing I can think of, but it is never everything. By the time the babies wake up and I make and feed them dinner and we play outside for a bit and I make Jack's lunch...it is bedtime. And I feel like I have fought wars today...but it looks like I have done nothing. I want to cry. But the babies already are, so I put on my big girl panties. And we do it again. Every other week we do it with the three big kids too.
There are no bonbons while watching television. Actually there are no bonbons at all. Just a hastily swallowed Swiss Cake Roll while chasing a naked toddler that escaped the bathroom without underwear and gleefully realized he has dangling parts. And the television may be on but I never fully understand what is going on in any show because someone has screamed and/or pooped through the important parts. And the less important parts. Pretty much all the parts.
This is motherhood in our house at this moment. It is a mass of contradictions. Exhilarating and exhausting. Inspiring and frustrating. Sweetly sung lullabies and muttered curses. Chaotic dance parties and sullen silent pouts. Our five beautiful children are this whirling dervish of personalities and life stages; a brand new high schooler, an exuberant middle schooler, an experienced elementary kid, our high octane toddler, and the newborn baby girl. Some days I feel like I can never keep up. But some days one of them pulls me by the hand into the middle of the dance party and all is right with the world.
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