The Not so Pretty Truth About 2 Under 2

Despite the fact that we absolutely love having 2 girls 16 months apart (read about in the previous post “2 under 2… More than Twice the Work, More than Twice the Fun“), there are definitely challenges in having kids under 2 years apart.

For starters, being pregnant with a small baby running around is a….Challenge! A Mind and Body challenge. I’m horrible at being pregnant, I’m extremely nauseous, I vomit all the time, I’m extremely uncomfortable and bloody exhausted. Not to mention that I’m about 5 feet tall and weigh 90 pounds so by the end of the pregnancy I feel like a human puppet, the baby just playing me like I’m a marionette.

I thought it was hard the first time around…I definitely had it easy in comparison to my second. When you feel sick and tired but have a tiny ENERGETIC baby to run around it’s a whoooole different ball game. There is no lying down to rest or even puking in privacy. I don’t know how many times I bolted for the bathroom trying to hold the door closed while my 8-month-old was trying to get in to see why mommy was making strange noises. I felt so bad she had to see me that way, thank god she doesn’t remember.

Thankfully I had a great supportive husband who took on as much as possible and my amazing parents who helped out any way they could, from cooking meals to babysitting Ava whenever they could.

 

It can be hard not only because you have another kid but because your kid is still a tiny baby, you can’t explain that you are sick and you can’t play or that you need to sit down for a second and you definitely can’t make them take care of their fragrant bodily functions ;P.

Another challenge with having two babies so close together is once again not being able to explain to your one-year-old that mommy is with another baby (feeding or changing) and she can’t play at the moment. They don’t know what hit them for a while and it’s heartbreaking.

I think there was a little bit of confusion about mommies boobies for Ava, I’m pretty sure she tried to reinstate breastfeeding once or twice haha!!

Most days I feel like I run in two different directions, how is it that two humans get hungry and poop their pants at the same instant? They are starting to play together more often these days but they are both very independent ladies who haven’t developed any sense of fear yet. When one is trying to get into the fireplace the other one is no doubt trying to learn to climb the stairs, which one do YOU run after first?

The hardest part is definitely the lack of being able to communicate to your oldest child.

For some reason when I was pregnant with Ava (my oldest) I thought that when you have a baby life magically stops and you are able to bathe in new baby glory, take fabulous cat naps all day long and just live the dream. I was young and naive because life does just the opposite. As I described in one of my earlier posts “Why does one start a blog…” we were selling/house hunting all through my second pregnancy in the HEAT of the HOTTEST summer on record, and then packing and moving across the city with a 6 week old while recovering from a c-section. When it rains it pours I tell ya.

But somehow we got through it. Being 6 months and almost 2, it’s getting more fun every day. Now that they both sleep through the night we are all enjoying ourselves to the fullest. It’s definitely not rainbows and butterflies every day but what is, am I right?