Going From Two To Three

Going from two to three has been harder than going from one to two. Intuitively this makes sense—you’re going from man-to-man to zone; you’re outnumbered—but somehow we didn’t expect it. There was a lot more trepidation going from one to two; we couldn’t quite wrap our minds around it. What do you do when they both want to be held? What if one cries and disturbs the other one’s nap? What if they both need you at the same time? Does the universe just end?

In retrospect, with two we still had a good amount of control. Three, on the other hand, heralds a whole new way of parenting. A mother of five once told us the toughest step was two to three. After three, she said, it was all pretty easy. D hypothesized it was because you learn a new skill set with three that you then more easily carry over to four, or five. I hypothesized that said skill set was, well, not caring. Letting go. Giving up control.

That’s what it feels like with three. The middle one cries on the ground for thirty minutes while you’re nursing, because the baby just has to feed. You leave the baby for the oldest one to entertain/irritate because you have to make sure the middle one gets more soup into his mouth than onto the ground. There’s more mess, more crying, more slightly weird outfits because you didn’t have time to debate whether purple polka-dotted tights match a grey striped shirt.

People remark on how the third baby seems so laid-back. Come to think of it, each baby seems to have gotten more laid-back. We always thought it was lucking out in the genetic lottery, but it’s probably also that we’ve both become more laid-back. My friend who’s a first-time mother doesn’t want to bring her baby out until he’s had vaccines—ours has already gotten sick twice courtesy of his siblings. I was trying to keep them from spreading their colds until I actually saw her cough directly into the baby’s open mouth, and then I gave up. We made our first baby adhere to a strict EASY schedule; we pretty much just remember to feed our third every three hours. Often he eats while two other kids are crowding my lap and stroking his head.

D cites a study which found that the moms who were most stressed were those with three kids. Moms of four kids were actually less stressed; the study hypothesized this was because they simply learned to care less.

Is this all a good or bad thing? Unclear. On one hand, we try to make sure we each get quality time alone with each of the kids. We still plan and prepare as much as possible and have learned it’s okay to hire more help. On the other hand, there’s a certain level of entropy and chaos we learn to embrace, and it doesn’t mean there’s any less happiness or joy. It just takes us thirty minutes to get out the door—can she bring her bunny? But then can he bring his doggie? He wants to wear his grey sneakers but can only find the left shoe and insists on putting it on his right foot. Why again does she have to wear a jacket? Wait; where is the baby?—but I guess that’s how it is these days.

Attitude

I remember my attending in residency, the only one who liked talking about being a mother—she would tell me not to prescribe these drops after cataract surgery to prevent risk of macular edema and then offer to check if my car seat was installed right—she used to say, there are three big milestones with kids. When they start sleeping through the night, when they stop breastfeeding, and when they get potty trained.

E sailed through all three with surprising ease and little effort. Because she was so sleep-deprived in daycare during our residency years, she conked out for twelve hours every night starting at three months. No exceptions, except maybe violent illnesses or severe thunderstorms. She self-weaned after my milk ran low. She potty trained in a day without a single accident, which I attribute to the fact that I dreaded the idea of a personal encounter with poop so much that I put it off until she was nearly three. She heard the word “lollipop” and the rest was history. I told her once that she could pee in the pool, and she looked at me like I was crazy.

Not so with dee-dee, our dimple-cheeked bundle of grinning stubbornness. He refused to take the bottle and was driven in for me to nurse every three hours at work. My milk ran low and I had to fill the bottle with orange juice to get him to take it. And he still, at ten months, does not reliably sleep through the night, regardless of what we do. Once every three or four days he’ll cry, mostly briefly, but enough to wake us up and leave us sleep-deprived the next day.

I remember my mom saying once that taking care of children is a privilege. Maybe it’s because I’m tired, but I’ve been viewing each day as more of a chore. I wake up each morning feeling exhausted, counting down the hours until I leave for work, hoping he naps so I can prep dinner and/or give E the solo attention she needs to avoid a descent into whininess. I get to work and count down the hours until I leave, seeing patients or operating nonstop. I arrive home to clingy kids and more chores, counting the hours until their bedtime. Then I spend an hour or so trying to feel like I have my own life, before waking to start it all again.

Those are the days I work. For the other four days of the week, I have a one- to two-hour spell of time off in the afternoon when their naps overlap, but it feels much the same.

It’s strange to realize that here I am, with two adorable kids, and most of the time I just feel tired and want them to be sleeping. I fantasize about weekend vacations without them. I think more about how to prevent spills and what to cook for dinner than how to enrich their days. I’m getting by rather than being present in the moment, playing defense rather than offense, being reactive instead of proactive.

Some of that probably just means I need time off or a full night’s sleep. But some of it is in my mind and choices. When I live in my grumpiness instead of in the Spirit; when I complain instead of being thankful. When I take them for granted.

But that is what’s so difficult about having kids. They wear you down, physically and emotionally. You get so used to doing things because you have to that you forget about doing them because you want to. I know bringing them up right—demonstrating Christ, teaching important things, discerning specific needs—is a privilege. I know my mood determines the mood of the entire house. I know we want our home to be a place of safety and peace. And I sure know now that none of that is possible unless I’m asking God for help. I’m trying to change my thinking, to enjoy each day. And I’m praying he starts sleeping regularly through the night.

Parenting

“Never before have parents been so (mistakenly) convinced that their every move has a ripple effect into their child’s future success.” –Madeline Levine

“Parents want their kids’ approval, a reversal of the past ideal of children striving for their parents’ approval.” Jean Twenge and W. Keith Campbell, professors of psychology

I was reading this New Yorker article entitled “Spoiled Rotten: Why Do Kids Rule The Roost?” which contrasts American kids with those in societies where children are better behaved and take on more responsibility at an earlier age. A six-year old in the Matsigenka tribe sweeps every day and catches and serves crustaceans for meals. Children in France eat adult meals rather than snacking constantly, behave well in restaurants, and don’t live in houses where toys have overtaken every room. Parents in America are too much at the whim of whatever their children want to eat or play with. They don’t discipline or say “no” often or well enough. They try to control and monitor every aspect of their children’s lives. Their kids must eat organic food, learn five instruments, and go to a top college.

There is a lot of truth to this, thus the emergence of books like “Bringing Up Bebe” and blogs like “Confessions of a Mean Mommy” (neither of which I’ve read completely but both of which I so far mostly agree with).

My parenting inclinations have been influenced a lot by my mom, and our own personalities. I ate sushi while pregnant (as I hear women in Japan all do?), and had the occasional glass of wine. Not to mention the fact that I chewed sugar-free gum and ate deli meat. We let both our babies cry it out (my mom says it’s good exercise). I expect E to be able to have a thirty-minute quiet time, help with simple chores and with her brother, and be polite. She knows she is not allowed to scream (she gave herself a time-out for this once) or throw.

At the same time, there are things I’m working on. I used to give her snacks during the commute to childcare back in Baltimore, and it took me a while to wean her, and myself, off the idea that she needed food in the car to stay quiet. I habitually held her in restaurants and stores until I realized I could expect her to sit quietly in grocery carts and high chairs. I sometimes do things for her that she ought to do herself, because it is easier and faster; my first instinct is often to mollify her, rather than expect her to accept a “no” without fussing.

On the one hand, parenting a certain way is a matter of ideology, of realizing what you believe, in the context of how you were raised and what society assumes. I don’t think my every action will determine her every outcome. I don’t think my giving in to every cry or demand shows her constant love; quite the opposite. I don’t think she is the one in charge of our lives or our moods, though she has obviously changed how we live. I believe the better I expect her to behave, the better she behaves. The more I teach her, the more she absorbs. The more I repeat positive things rather than nag her about negative ones, the more she repeats positive behavior. I don’t believe her worth is based on achievements or comparisons, any more than I believe mine is.

On the other hand, parenting is a matter of practical endurance. The strongest beliefs can be worn down, and following through with them requires time, energy, forethought, and a supernatural amount of patience. Otherwise you end up doing what is easier, which is often not what’s best.

So it’s good to read things, to get advice, to regularly remind myself of what I believe. It’s easy for parenting habits to succumb to societal trends or my own selfishness and laziness, like anything else that no one else is closely watching. But I suppose the things that no one else sees are often the things that are the most important in the end. Funny how life works like that.

Idiosyncracy

I suppose each stage with her has its challenges. I remember when she wanted me to repeat everything over and over. Singing “The Wheels on the Bus” ten times in a row in the car made me want to go bang my head against a wall, and it felt like that would never end, but it did.

The challenges now are her idiosyncratic demands. She wants me to sit here, not there. She wants to eat this, in this particular bowl, with this color spoon. She wants her food cut up to specific dimensions. She wants her cup next to the cup holder, not in it. She wants me to tuck her in along every spot of her sides and feet when she goes to bed—woe unto me if I’ve missed a single one. She wants to unscrew her toothpaste bottle herself but wants me to put the paste on; she wants to hold the toothbrush herself but wants me to make the brushing motions for her.

It’s plain exhausting. Fail to follow her particular wishes, and I get anything from a mild protest to screaming and crying. I spend some days picking my battles from minute to minute.

I think some of this is her desire for greater independence and control—it’s the inevitable tension between wanting to do something herself, yet sometimes not being able to, and therefore wanting to tell me exactly how to do it instead. It’s like a G-rated preview of the teenage years: I want it that way!

A lot of it is also her personality: she’s always been a sophisticated and precise communicator, sensitive to and observant of her environment, and concerned about the welfare of others. Her verbal skills have extended to giving a detailed rationale for everything: she can’t be polite because her boo-boo hurts and as a result she is unable to speak. She doesn’t want to swim anymore because she spotted a gnat in the pool five feet away. She wants me to change my seat because my butt is getting sore. She needs to go upstairs right now because her bunny is crying and needs to be picked up. She doesn’t want to wear shorts in 100-degree weather because she needs to cover up the boo-boo that she got two months ago that isn’t even visible anymore.

Maybe one day I’ll look back and find all this charming, but right now I mostly find it hard not to lose my patience. I navigate between explaining, distracting, bribing, ordering, and yielding. At least he doesn’t say much. He just sits staring, eyes big with wonder as he listens to her explanations: don’t eat that, dee-dee, you might choke. Don’t be scared of that bug; sister’s here with you. I won’t leave you, don’t worry. Mommy’s going to get rice cereal for you; she’ll be back. You should play with this toy, not that one…