Parent Fail 508 - My Second Child

Last year I had a baby, my second child. Nothing about my second child has been like my first, NOTHING!  My second child, Caisley, will be one at the end of the month. This year has been struggle in so many ways. I was SO unprepared for the challenges of juggling the needs of two tiny souls. In this short year I have learned so much...


NUMBER ONE...was accidental bliss. Newly married, eyes towards the future, David and I were blinded by the blessing of our first born. Unexpected and unplanned, we walked hand and hand into parenthood, skipping gleefully through the aisle of Babies R Us designer cribs (all of which ended up being recalled BTW), video monitors, bath water temperature checkers...

Once our bundle of joy arrived we were like deer in the headlights:

PARENTS! How on earth were these hospital professionals allowing us to leave with a person. A person! We weren't qualified!  

It wasn't long before we were fully transformed into Parent Zombies: dark circles under our eyes, wrinkled clothes, chicken nuggets for dinner. Our DVR got us through the first 18 months of Colver's life in which he never slept through the night. We laid in heaps on the couch, surrounded by mounds of laundry and dirty dishes, mindlessly watching Stargate, all 10 seasons...and Stargate Atlantis...and Stargate Universe...and Farscape...and Battlestar Galactica...You get the point.

By the time Colver was 2 or 3, I can't recall specifically due to the number of brain cells I lost as a result of sleep deprivation, we had completed our ride on the new parent roller coaster. We had emerged butterflies, with strong parental wings, ready to soar. We felt like parents. We were confident. We owned it. So much so that we decided to do it again. We thought we knew what to expect, we had does it before, this wasn't our first rodeo...FAMOUS LAST WORDS!


My second child knocked me right off my parenting high horse and back into the trenches. NOTHING about my second child has been what I expected. Not that it should be. In hindsight that was very naive of me.

NUMBER 2...was planned. Number two was fought for. We waited until the time was "right" and started trying.  Trying to have a baby is a very weird thing.  When you are trying to make a baby you learn A LOT of stuff about your body that you never had the desire to know. I learned mine wasn't working the way a proper lady's should. To put it bluntly, ovulation wasn't on my lady part's to do list. I like to imagine a little Caisley egg just hanging out in the ovary, smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of wine for nine months until she finally grew bored of her companion egg's company and decided to leave in search of adventure. Knowing my daughter, I am pretty confident she laughed maniacally all the way down the fallopian tube, knowing she had foiled my plans.  After spending 3 weeks in the birth canal, my little princess decided it was time to school her parents in parenthood, and the struggle of having multiple children began.

Fitting a new person into an existing dynamic is difficult in any situation. Adjusting oneself to
accommodate the needs of two little people while balancing work, housework, dinner, and sometimes the simple act of bathing is a daily struggle. The work is more than doubled. There was absolutely NO time for me, or for me and David. I had expected there would be an adjustment period, but I didn't expect it would leave me physically and emotionally drained. I didn't expect my confidence would be shattered, leaving me questioning if we had made a mistake, which made me feel guilty for even thinking that. I didn't expect to feel like a new mom again, but that is exactly what I felt like...insecure, unsure, unqualified, and consumed with guilt. Oh, these manifested themselves in different ways than with my first born, but the uncertainty and doubt I felt as a new mom were just as present the 2nd time around, if not more so.

With Colver I struggled because I went back to work. I was afraid he would be scarred for life, turning to life of preschool bullying and biting, because he went to daycare. With Caisley, I knew that wasn't true; her older brother was well adjusted and thriving. With Colver I would leave work as fast I as could to get him and swoon of him the rest of evening, consumed by the guilt that he hadn't seen me all day; that someone else was raising my baby. I would stare the face of my angel for hours as he slept, just taking it in, cherishing it. With Caisley, I took my time leaving work, treasuring the few minutes I had to myself. I felt so guilty that I wasn't dedicating the same about of energy to her. I would tell myself:

She is getting gypped. She deserves 100%, just like you gave Colver. You're missing out. She's missing out.  

I struggled with guilt that Caisley would end up scarred for life, resenting me, plotting my death like Stewie on Family Guy, because I didn't record every first she had like I had with Colver. (His first smile. The first time he rolled over.  His first step. The first time he farted...) Every single thing Colver did was earth shattering and special...Caisley could start tight rope walking and I wouldn't bat an eyelash.  So what, they all do that...would probably be my response. I felt guilty that I just wanted to be left alone...for a day...for an hour...for a minute, just to think, just to not be needed by anyone FOR ONE SECOND!  And that made me felt horrible. That made me question my ability to be the mother I should be to this new sweet beautiful child. Sure I had figured one out but what if I just wasn't cut out to have two kids?...

Then it hit me...3 lighting bolts of truth...actually it was more of an internal actualization that took of me months and months to reach. So what did I learn?

1. My children are different people. Well that's obvious, but what wasn't so obvious to me was that meant I would have a different relationship with each them. I will never have this parenting thing figured out because I am parenting two completely different people with different personalities. Colver is my oldest and every experience with him is fueled by the excitement and naivety of the first time. My doubts and fears are that of the unknown. With Caisley, my doubts and fear as fueled by reflection and the desire to do better. I have learned that I will never be a confident parent, but that I can parent confidently, knowing we will figure it out and do what is best for each our children as individuals within our family.

2. I have to take care of me and us. Time to decompress and refuel is necessary so BOTH my children get the 100% they deserve. This means we leave the kids at Grandma's more than we ever did when it was just Colver. Every moment I have to myself, or we have together, whether planned or not, I cherish without guilt, because it is in this time that we reconnect, or I decompress and recenter, allowing me to be completely present when the kids are with me. Oh and if 90%, or 60% is the most I can muster some days, that's okay too.

3. My journey is not your journey. This one is the biggest one. I can't begin to contemplate the challenges of more than 2 children or a special needs child; that's not my journey. And the struggles another working mom with 2 kids, a boy and a girl, five years apart, may be nothing like mine. That doesn't devalidate my struggle in any way. Parenting is hard, plain and simple.

The love we have for our children is the bar against which we judge ourselves. As parents this love consumes us and make us vulnerable to our fears. For me, it is a fear of failing to be a perfect mother, as defined by some ridiculous expectation I concocted of what that would look like. I spent a lot of time this first year questioning myself, doubting myself, and beating myself up because having two children wasn't what I expected, but it was my expectations that set me up for "failure." I have learned that having children will never be what you expected...it will be harder and it will be better, but it will never be anything like you expected.