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2008-02-02 - 11.34pm previous entry next entry
Three children, aged three and under!
It's 11pm. I am really happy right now. My cute, snuggly newborn is 20 days old - he's 3 weeks old tomorrow. He is sleeping on his daddy's chest in the armchair. I have a precious, intelligent, difficult 3-year-old who is sleeping in a big co-sleeping floor bed upstairs. And a scrumptious, funny, mischievous 19-month-old who has woken totally inconsolable this evening and taken half our "adult" evening to resettle.
I know my husband is home from work all the time. I know I get to take a morning nap when I have been up half the night breastfeeding. I know I have it easy right now, as far as support and practical help goes. I know that pretty soon (we hope!) Neil will get a job and I'll be looking after 3 children aged 3 and under all day, every day (except weekends!) without an ounce of help. That should scare me silly! It DID, a couple of days ago.
But today, I don't know. I feel so confident. I really really believe I can DO this. And more.
Okay, so I am listening to Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" on repeat at YouTube - I just LOVE that song for some reason! I was 7 years old when it was released and it was played EVERYWHERE. I remember going swimming and it was playing while I was in the pool, MANY weekends running (we used to go swimming as a family every Sunday). I am pretty sure it was playing at my 8th birthday party, which was a swimming party (I think it was that year anyway...). I have a ton of fond memories of life while that music was around! Also I just love the song. It�s catchy and bouncy and 80s-ish, and I LOVE it! It cheers me up on a bad day, anytime. Today is not even a bad day! So perhaps that accounts for my upbeat mood?!
Anyway. I know this is temporary. Even a Super-Mummy is going to have BAD BAD days and feel despairing and overwhelmed. I know I will have them, and I will be back here before I know it, writing about how it�s impossible to cope with 3 kids at once, so young, and I will never survive the day, etc, etc. I know those days are coming. But I also know I can do this.
I feel so excited about my situation! I feel so proud of what I am doing with my life. I am a Mummy, like I always wanted to be. But I NEVER for a nanosecond thought I would ever have kids so close together! Ever. My children are 3 years and 2 months, 19 months, and almost 3 weeks old! I have 3 aged 3 and under! I know I am in the hardest season of parenting, right now. Maybe it could get more difficult actually, when I still have 3 aged 3 and under, but all 3 are mobile and I�m trying to potty train two of them? Anyway. This is the hardest season. I have been reading things about having lots of little ones close together, and how it�s a season. It FEELS long and drawn-out, but it�s fleeting. Then you miss it, even the hard parts. Maybe this is helping my perspective right now?
If you are out there with a 2 year old and a baby, and expecting another, and you haven�t already read Amy�s Humble Musings (I have already, shamefully, forgotten which wonderful person gave me the link to this blog in my comments here once � but thank you, so much!), I wholeheartedly recommend her series on living with three under three. It�s been so encouraging to me (there are 8 parts so far). Amy has 6 children aged 9 and under. The best parts are actually in the comments � there are soooo many, from other mothers who have weathered the many-young-children phase, and they give some great advice. It has blessed me so much that I am going to post a link to each of Amy�s parts to her series:
Living with 3 under 3: Part One
Living with 3 under 3: Part Two
Living with 3 under 3: Part Three
Living with 3 under 3: Part Four
Living with 3 under 3: Part Five
Living with 3 under 3: Part Six
Living with 3 under 3: Part Seven
Living with 3 under 3: Part Eight
I�m just so encouraged to be reminded that this IS the most difficult part of parenthood, it�s not just the way it feels to me. I don�t quite have three under three, but near enough. Arthur only turned 3 two months ago. I think if I ever ACTUALLY have three under three, it will be harder than this! Especially since I will also be homeschooling the older ones! But anyway. It�s not easy! Most of the mothers say that adding a fourth, fifth or sixth child is easy as pie in comparison, which is another encouragement to me, since that�s what I�m hoping to do! :) Anyway, this hard stage is just a season, and I WILL survive it. And my children will too. And will not be traumatised for the experience! I will learn patience and grace and a good many other things that I am SURE that God is waiting to teach me on this journey. Things I reeeeally need to learn!
The other day, Neil had to go out for a few hours to pick up our BIG family car (it�s a Chrysler Grand Voyager, an MPV with 7 seats! I feel so.... awed , that I have enough children to warrant an MPV, hehe!). We won it at eBay. Now, you�ll think we�re crazy (we are, I�m afraid), but we got it so cheap that we�re going to sell it :) The night after we won this Chrysler Grand Voyager (in totally yucko colours inside and out), we decided to bid on another! We won as well! The second one we won is in even better condition (though the first is also in brilliant condition). It has lower mileage and is a pale silvery purple with grey leather inside. It�s GORGEOUS :) There is about �100 worth of minor damage to the side of the first one we bought, and we plan to have that fixed, clean it up well (it wasn�t cleaned prior to selling), and re-sell it. We are hoping to get at least �500 profit. We are also selling the car we�ve been driving since Matthew was almost due, and that should fetch us about �1000 more than we paid for the first Chrysler, so HOPEFULLY when we�ve finished selling two cars and we�ve got the second Chrysler that we won, we�ll have a great family car AND �1000 - �1,500 in the bank. That would reeeally help us right now. Now that we�ve bought two large cars (!!), we need to sell asap. Neil is getting the Ford ready to sell this week, and hopefully it will sell quite quickly. We are expecting to pick up the second Chrysler next week, and as soon as we�ve put the kids� car seats in it, we�ll get the first Chrysler ready to sell and try to get it sold quickly.
Anyway, bit of an aside there! So Neil had to go into London to pick up the car. I came over kind of cold and clammy at the thought of him LEAVING ME for more than 10 minutes, haha! Seriously though, I did. I knew I had to get used to it though, so a couple of hours would be GOOD practise. I was sooooooo nervous as we waved him off down the road! It�s so silly of me! They�re my own children, and there really isn�t anything to be scared of! But yeah.
It went okay! I surprised myself! I found that I could discipline a child whilst holding a tiny baby. And multi-task in general waaaay more than I realised. Matthew napped at his normal time, though Neil was here when he went down for his nap, so I didn�t manage that on my own! But then Nathan went to sleep, and I took him upstairs and put him asleep on the big floor bed. I covered him with his blanket and left him there! It was an �a-ha!� moment, because I realised I needed to put him to bed when he had fallen asleep, and be okay with walking away and going to another part of the house without him! It�s so alien to me to be physically separated from Nathan yet. He should still be in my tummy after all! But it was FINE. Nathan and Matthew slept an hour at the same time. It didn�t really hit me until I was downstairs with Arthur and we had some one-on-one time, which felt really comfortable and familiar as though I had stepped back in time to before I had Nathan. It was a strange but lovely feeling, and I�m sure Arthur enjoyed it too! A bit later on, Arthur was making a ton of noise (making siren sounds, and so on!) and I asked him to be a little quieter, because �the two little ones are asleep upstairs� � and the moment I said it, I kind of sat back in shock at the realisation! I hadn�t really realised how the moment has ARRIVED � I really have three little children, and I can say, �the two little ones� without meaning ALL my children!! It�s soooo surreal. And also, it�s something I feel sooo incredibly happy and proud about!
It got slightly hairier after the little ones woke up, and I could NOT get to make dinner for the kids, no matter how I tried I could not get further than getting a couple of dishes out and putting them on the surface! I had a baby in my arms or in the sling (need to find a place to put him safely when he�s down with us and awake), and the other two would not stop climbing furniture or headbutting each other, or screaming fit to burst each others� ear drums, etc. So I had to keep stopping, and I realised I could NOT cook a meal. Thankfully I knew Neil would be home in time to help me before they got toooo late for their dinner! I need to figure something out about that, for when Neil is working again and ISN�T home to help me make dinner! Hmmm!
Today Neil had to go out again for a bit, and that was fine too. A challenge, but fine. He took Arthur with him, so actually it wasn�t all that much of a challenge as it seems! Matthew woke up after his nap and was inconsolable (I hope he�s not coming down with something), and Nathan was awake and crying, so I put Nathan in Matthew�s cot, and carried Matthew downstairs to comfort him and get him a drink and a snack. Eventually Matthew calmed down and I went up to retrieve Nathan (who, thankfully, had not become hysterical in my absence � just puked a bit on Matthew�s sheets!). The funny thing (to me!) is that while I was dealing with the two little ones, I suddenly thought how much easier it was to handle two under two, than all three together. And then I remembered the early days/weeks when Matthew was tiny, and the many times I wrote here about being completely overwhelmed and unable to manage. And I said how it was surely IMPOSSIBLE to manage looking after two children under two � how on earth does anyone juggle their needs?! So it made me smile to have the �luxury� of only having my two littlest to watch, my �two under two�, and thinking how easy it was, hehe! I am sure when I have another baby that I�ll look back and think �only� having three little ones was easy in comparison!
Okay, Nathan is waking, so I need to finish this.
I am so broody again. I always am by this stage postpartum � by about 2 weeks after giving birth actually. It was 8 days this time ;) I can�t fathom ever having a girl, but right now that is fine and dandy with me. I think we are missing a Benjamin. I can�t seem to shake it actually. Neil is someone who has trouble with names. He is forever mixing up the boys� names! When Nathan was about a week old, Neil kept on calling him Benjamin, and saying to me that he couldn�t understand why he was calling him Benjamin! Benjamin is my next favourite boys� name, personally :) In fact, I had it in mind for the next boy after I had Matthew. I didn�t think of Nathan right away, and was thinking of Benjamin from early on in my pregnancy with Nathan. But I didn�t like Ben so much, so I went off it a bit, and then we discovered/remembered we both loved the name Nathan :) But I feel sure we are missing a Benjamin. I feel like he is coming next, and I�m already excited about meeting him and seeing who he�s like and what he looks like! I know I�m probably crazy. But oh well! :P
Don't worry. I haven't completely lost the plot! I KNOW I will have bad days and not be able to fathom having any more babies for the time being! And feel like a bad mummy, toooo bad to manage any more little ones. But I know that will just be because I'm overwhelmed, and I know that's normal, because other mothers are out there having the same challenges, and I take SUCH comfort knowing that THIS is the hardest part. Right now, I am busy enjoying my boys and snuggling my new baby, and letting the house BE a pigsty (for now - I am slowly starting up my FlyLady routines again, bit by bit). I do have a list that I made each day, of six things that need doing. I don't expect to do them all, but it helps me to have a list to work through. With the help of lists, just today and yesterday, I have changed Matthew's cot sheets, and Arthur's bed sheets. And phoned the dentist to make an appt (can't bite food on one side of my mouth for the last month or so, as one of my teeth is HURTING when I do, hmmm!), and the Registry Office to make an appt to go and register Nathan's birth. And yesterday I ran the dishwasher and did a dark load of laundry (those were pressing things). Today I used two ageing lemons to make four lemon sponge puddings - one that we ate for dessert after dinner tonight, and the other three are in the freezer :) So the lists are helping. The house is a tip, but I'm trying not to let it bother me. It's not the time to worry about it, and I'll get there eventually.
Nathan is looking like he needs some mummy milk, so I'm going to finish this and nurse my sweet tiny boy! I am breastfeeding all three of my lovely boys, and sooooo proud! On February 13th, I will have been pregnant or breastfeeding, or both, for exactly four years, as it will be four years to the day since I ovulated and Arthur was conceived! :)
I am sorry to have been away from this diary a bit lately, with all the newsy stuff in my pregnancy diary. I plan to update here more often, if I can, even if it's just bits of news. Ooh, talking of which - Neil has found a job to apply for (at last!), and we are really hoping he'll get it. It's based in London, and pays better than he's earned before. And he's actually interested in the job, so that's a bonus! We don't know what God has planned for us, but we DO know that we are about to be completely out of money (including credit card "funds") and still have a mortgage to pay and bills, and little mouths (mouthes?) to feed. So he MUST earn some money soon. We will have no more money to pay the mortgage after the end of February. We will have maxed out our credit cards by then. Please pray that God will bless us with an income soon! And even that he'll be successful in applying for this job in London. I know it might not be the one God has planned for him. But we just don't know! So we'll pray that he gets it all the same. If he doesn't, I know it's because God has something better planned. I just hope it's soon! In a month's time, if he doesn't have a job it will get very scary.
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Christmas Eve! - 2008-12-24
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