Piya's Perspective

Below is a post that I wrote back in March that I apparently never published…I figure I wrote it, may as well post it.

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I will admit I was quite nervous about child number 3.  Many days I felt I could barely control two kids…and now I was adding another?  And then I would remember how it was when Sister was born, with Big Brother climbing all over me.  “Really?  You want to do that all over again?!” I would ask myself.

Then, I babysat my niece for a weekend before Little Brother was born, and saw how Ari and I could divide and conqour.  One would take two kids and the other would take one…and it wasn’t as impossible as my mind was making it.  I was still quite nervous, though.  One weekend with a one-year old is very different than daily.

But as we settle into life with three kids, I find it is not nearly as bad as my imagination was leading me to believe.

Part of it is Little Brother’s personality.  Just as with the others, he’s pretty mellow and happy – only crying when he needs to inform us of a specific problem.  We are also pretty lucky that he very quickly settled into a nightly bedtime and final morning wakeup time, which coincidentally is the same time as the older kids (woot!!).  And infancy is, in my opinion, easier than toddlerdom – they can’t move, they don’t have much in the way of opinions and they aren’t testing your breaking point.

Part of it also is the age of the older kids.  When Sister was born, Big Brother was just over 2.  He was in pullups, or maybe even diapers still.  He still needed help getting dressed.  In general he was not very independent.  But now, Big Brother is 7 and Sister is 5…it may take a few dozen times of telling them to go do something, but they will eventually do it and they can do it without hand holding.  They also love having a little brother and want to help.  I can’t tell you how helpful it is to be able to ask them to entertain Little Brother so he will stop crying and I can I get something done.  As soon as Big Brother or Sister show up and start playing with him, he gets a big smile on his face — even if sometimes it doesn’t last very long.  And Big Brother is still interested in helping with diaper changes, so eventually I may even be able to hand that job to him sometimes.

Am I getting a lot of sleep?  No. [1]

Are there days where Little Brother can’t be satisfied? Sure.

But this time around it’s just easier…so far.  With older kids, it’s like having a first born again but knowing what to do.  It’s not as scary to take all the kids out by myself as it was with one and two.  And when Little Brother cries, I’m pretty good and figuring out which problem from the checklist to try solving first.

There won’t be a fourth (much to the dismay of my daughter who would love a little sister), but I am definitely comfortable with three.  Though ask me again a year from now…

[1] Often I fall asleep waiting for Caitlyn to run out of excuses for leaving her bed or wanting us in her room. But when I wake in the middle of the night, I have lunches to prep, a baby boy to feed, and a snoring husband to tune out[2], sometimes even some work to get done.  I am still getting more sleep than the last two months of my pregnancy though…

[2] After talking with other moms at birthday parties, I’m finding the snoring husband is quite a common problem.

Up until the moment I turned off my light to go to sleep last night, I thought the day went pretty well – well, other than forgetting my laptop power supply.

Picked up the kids from school at 3pm and took them swimming.  After last week, I made sure to repeatedly talk to the kids about listening to the teacher and the consequence if they didn’t.  They did great.  We then went back to Eton school where the kids went to clubhouse while I sat in on a Q&A with a candidate for the headmaster position.  Everything was still going well on the way out, and I picked up Wendy’s for dinner — chicken nugget and french fry happy meal to go.

Unsurprisingly, Caitlyn fell asleep on the way home, so I took her right to bed – around 7:15pm.  Simeon, not only got some play time, but he chose to watch Monday Night Football as his bedtime show[1].  5 minutes after the game was over, he was asleep on the couch.  Having taken show time as an opportunity to prepare the next day’s lunch, I decided to go to bed early myself.  9:30ish and my light was off.  About 10pm, I hear Caitlyn.  Get her tucked into bed again and try to do the same myself.

By 10:30 I hear a strange sound and crying.  I run over to her room and she tells me she’s sick.  Sure enough, she’s thrown up all over her blanket and shirt.  The next hour and a half is spent changing her sheets, washing her hair, being there and doing what I can as she leans over the porcelain throne a couple more times, starting laundry[2], changing her clothes (twice) and just staying with her as she gets back to sleep.  I kept myself awake for a bit and sure enough around midnight or 1:00am she woke again and asked to sleep in my bed.  I don’t usually allow this, but she needed sleep and comforting, so I helped her into Ari’s spot of the bed.

As I laid back down, I thought about the night’s events and was amazed that it all took place in such a short amount of time.

I realize I have been quite lucky where illness is concerned.  The kids have been sick (and of course generally get physically ill when Ari is not able to help) but it’s not a regular occurrence.  The fact that everybody was again asleep by 1:30am and everybody was just fine this morning…could definitely have been a whole lot worse.

[1] He rooted for the Bears because “Daddy’s in Chicago”.
[2] Managed to get the first set of stuff washed and in the dryer and then start the sheets before going back to bed…not bad, if I do say so myself.

Want to get better about writing in my blog.  Been absolutely horrible about it for the last year or so.  While I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, figured I’d try posting to my Facebook account as well…

Let’s see how it looks…

I have wanted my blog to have some sort of theme for a long time.  I just never quite figured out what it should be.  I never quite felt I had the expertise in any field to share and impart my “wisdom” onto others.  Although those feelings have not changed all that much, I do find my kids are a tremendous source of knowledge.  The other day it dawned on me that maybe others would enjoy these lessons as well.  Whether the lesson is actually useful or just plain cute and amusing….

This past weekend, while at a picnic, my back decided to rebel.  A muscle spasm had me hurting for the rest of the evening and all next day.  I’m still hurting, but not nearly to the point of wondering if I need to see the doctor.

One of my biggest concerns was Saturday night / Sunday morning.  Generally, I’m the one that deals with kids who wake up at night and I’m the one they wake up first in the morning.  Thankfully, lack of naps and being out in the sun all afternoon was enough to knock them out on the drive home and not wake up until morning.  Come morning, when told my back still hurt and they needed to be gentle, they listened.  Caitlyn even offered me a paper bandaid she cut out for me.  Well, offered doesn’t seem to be quite the right word since she refused to take anything but acceptance and ‘thank you’ for an answer.

Later in the afternoon, I was feeling better and felt well enough to walk across the street and get our mail.  Caitlyn really wanted to come too and quickly grabbed a pair of shoes.  Still finding it difficult to bend over, I asked her to get my shoes then went and sat on the couch.  She not only brought them over, but sat down started to put them on my feet. 

Even Simeon is quite the helper.  I generally enlist his help when I’m busy and Caitlyn needs something – be it closing the screen door to the backyard or reaching a book for her in the backseat of the car.  More often than not, he replies to my request with “sure, sure” and off he goes. 

While it’s ‘easy'[1] to set a list of chores for the kids to do and consider it helping around the house, it’s another to see just how much they help with the little things that are so easy to be taken for granted.

[1] Easy to make the list…following through on that list is another matter.

The preschool that the kids currently attend bring somebody in every 6-8 weeks to do haircuts.  Yesterday was haircut day.  When I got there, Simeon was upset because he realized that meant he wouldn’t get to play outside – as you can see.  I really wanted to see it spiked up a bit, but he was a bit too angry with me so this was the best picture I could get. When we got outside to get Caitlyn, I asked if she got a haircut.

Me: Did you get a haircut today?
Caitlyn: yes.  Simi too.
Me: Yes, Simeon got a haircut too.  Do you like it?
Caitlyn: yes.  It’s pretty.

Wow, almost a year since I posted.  Let’s try again with short and sweet clips of life with my kids and the cuteness they can display.

Yesterday morning, Simeon came in to my bedroom holding his pirate ship and said he was going to put on a play.  He then asked for $6 and explained the show would be in his room.  Quite amused, I told him he should go talk to Daddy.  As he left our room, he asked me to bring Maggie (our cat) to the show as well, but she didn’t have to pay.  Upon arrival to his room, I was told “bum on the bed, feet on the floor and head up.”  Seems daddy had tried to watch the show laying on Simeon’s bed.

Then there’s Caitlyn.  Last week, I accompanied Caitlyn on a school field trip.  Since her favorite animal is the lion, I thought I should get a picture of her on one of the lion statues.  With the camera up, I asked her, “what do you say?”  Instead of the expected “cheese”,  I got “Roar!”  Definitely turned out to be better picture that way.