Here is what I have discovered over the past 3 months with 3 kids in our house. Those people (and you know who you are) who said going from 2 kids to 3 kids was not nearly as hard as going from 1 kid to 2 kids were LYING. It is most certainly as hard, if not harder! Ok, so maybe this is not something that can be generalized, but the thing is, that Vivian is a really good baby (knock on wood) and so it's not her individually that has made things harder, I think it's more that there is less of me to go around and my coping ability is slightly strained.
Mornings are the worst and on any given morning someone is upset/screaming/whining/having a tantrum. The increased number of children make it less likely for the stars to align and have every person be in a good mood and capable of handling themselves with decorum. This morning it was mostly Avery who was being difficult and so I'll use today as an example of how it often goes.
Vivian woke up around 6:30, she is the only person in the house (other than me, of course) who wakes up smiling and I love to look over at her in the co-sleeper and see her beaming at me. Andy soaked up some of her good vibes before he walked out the door at 6:45 for an early meeting at work. Ah, bliss and happiness for 15 minutes as she smiled and nursed. And then the good feeling was gone as I heard whimpering from the floor by the foot of the bed (where Asher has been sleeping for the past 2 weeks), "uuuuuggghhhh, I have to go poooooop," to which I respond, "well, get up and go in the bathroom," and he replies, "uuuuuuggghhhhh, it's too dark!" and I calmly say, "you'll need to turn on the lights then." And this continues back and forth for 5 minutes until he finally can't hold it any longer and makes his way to the bathroom, and then after awhile I hear, "mommy, please wipe me." Well, given the long discussion of getting him there in the first place I gave in to this part, I mean, he DID say please (Avery had this skill mastered by 3 1/2 so I assume this is a boy thing). I get back in bed and try to feed the baby some more but the whimpering continues; his pull-up is twisted and stuck in his pajamas and he can't get them back on. I tell him to just go pantless. He doesn't like that answer, AND he wants to go downstairs and watch TV. I don't really want him to do that because I don't want to wake up Avery quite yet. So I get out of bed again to help him with his pants (which he still wasn't happy with and took off anyways) and turn on the TV in the bathroom to PBS kids. He doesn't want to watch that, and from the bed I say with a note of irritation in my voice, "it's that, or nothing." I don't get a response so I assume he's watching. I doze off for 5 minutes but am awoken because he is now whimpering that he is hungry. No escaping this one! So we head downstairs to his bedroom to get his clothes on for the day, and since Asher is incapable of reducing the loudness of his voice for any occasion he ends up waking up Avery, and I hear whimper-sobs coming from her bed, "He, he, HE woke me up!" And I ineffectively but calmly try to talk her out of being angry with him because it was time to get up anyways. I change Viv's diaper and clothes while they both whine about having to put on their clothes to which I calmly reply, "fine, wear nothing, that will go over well at school." (I think I have said that same phrase hundreds of times so far in their lifetime).
Before we get upstairs to the dining room Avery begins to worry about something for school. You see, it's her "share week" (which only happens once a year where she gets to bring in a show-and-tell item one day this week), and to help the students make the most of their singular sharing experience presenting in front of the class her teacher prepared a handout to help them organize their thoughts on what they're going to say. Most kids probably don't have a problem with this but Avery starts to cry because there is only room on the sheet for 3 sentences, and she wants to include more detail than that. Her frustration is obvious in the tears dripping all over face and she is begging me to help her. I take the party line (the current one at our house) which is that I know she can do this and that I'm not going to tell her how to do her homework. That illicits more tears. She begs me to give her some guidance, so against my better judgement (it's hard to make decisions when your kids are crying) I tell her that I don't think she needs to include the detail, she can add that when she is actually talking about it. In response to that reasonable idea she throws herself on the floor screaming, "I'll NEVER remember the details if I don't write them down!" And I say, "well, then write them down, you'll have to write really small to make them fit but I bet you can do it." And she says, "NO I CAN'T, I JUST CAN'T." And then I'm like, "Ok, well then don't do it, just turn it in blank, or you could work on it later, you still have 2 days to do it, and you REALLY need to eat breakfast, now." (throughout all of this we had made our way to the dining room and I had poured Asher his cereal and milk, made a bottle for the baby and started to feed her).
Just to make sure I notice he's still there through all of this Asher pipes up, "Mommy, I'm being SUCH a good boy, aren't I? I'm not acting like Avery!" Which incites another round of crying and whispered mean remarks from the 8 year old mess on the floor. I ask her what cereal she would like and she responds that she doesn't want to eat breakfast. I'm now starting to get irritated from all the crying, and so with a big sigh I try to stuff the irritation down and say calmly, "Ok, well, it might be difficult for you to learn things this morning at school if you're hungry, but if you insist on not eating then that's your choice." And she says, "well, I'm going to tell my teacher that I was hungry but you wouldn't feed me because you're so mean to me!" And that's when I lost it and yelled, "You will NOT tell lies, that is unacceptable, and you will not even touch a horse, ever, if you lie to me or anyone else!" (current go-to threat involves revocation of horseback riding lessons which she is starting next month). Ok, so that was over the top, I mean, can't touch a horse, ever? Sometimes these things just spill out of my mouth.
She spends the next 5 minutes sitting at the table pouting. I pull my s**t together and give them both the 5 minute warning that they need to brush their teeth and put their shoes on and what does she say? "I'm hungry, I want to eat something, something little." So I tell her that we don't have much time but go ahead and pick out a bowl. So she picks a 2 oz ramekin. It barely holds a few cereal flakes but I go along with this ridiculous plan and carefully pour a tiny splash of milk in her tiny bowl and she eats it with her tiny spoon (and I roll my eyes). Then we proceed to teeth brushing, etc. (all this while I am carrying the baby, because every time I try to set her down this morning she cries). And I look outside and see it is snowing. Great. It hardly ever snows here (to where it sticks) and so I move quickly to get out boots and snow pants. Avery has finally recovered (mainly out of concern of being late to school, she hates being late, she hates the idea of even being close to late, so she moves quickly if that is a risk). And now Asher is freaking out about his boots, crying and rolling around on the floor because he can't get his pants inside his boots. I encourage him to use his words which results in more screaming. I'm trying to buckle the now screaming baby in her carseat and encourage him to either fix his boots himself or use his words and congratulating Avery on pulling it together and doing a good job with her boots. Asher says, "but you didn't tell me good job!" Then they start kicking each other. I can feel my blood pressure rising and all I can say is, "Out, please open the door and go out, out." So we get in the car, and I'm actually feeling pretty good, because everyone has their snow stuff and now no one is crying, but I look at the clock and realize that we're too late to drive Asher to preschool first (like we usually do) and we're too early to take Avery by about 20 minutes. And I have a moment, a real "aha" sort of moment where I think, "is this what I want them to remember about their days? This screaming crying mess of a morning? NO, I want them to have happy memories." I also realize at the same time I need coffee. So we go to our neighborhood coffee place and I get them hot chocolates and I get coffee and all of a sudden the morning is blissful again. Isn't it amazing how quickly that can turn around? And they are sharing! And being nice to each other! And the baby is not crying, and so cute!
We get back in the car in a much better mood. After everyone is finally buckled in Asher starts crying, his coat is bugging him (the way it's tucked under the seatbelt and rubbing on his neck). And the baby is crying because she was almost asleep and Asher startled her, and so I'm calming her and Avery is trying to help Asher take his coat off and rebuckle his seat belt. I take another deep breath, trying to hold on to the bliss that is slipping through my grasp. So finally, FINALLY, we drop Avery off at school, and she is even early! As she is giving me a hug goodbye she says, "sorry Mommy, I think I was just hungry." I want to cry for that is one of those sweet but painful moments I realize I just spent 30 minutes in motherhood hell for a lesson that she now recognizes but is going to completely forget about by next week when the same scenario is repeated. Then I drive Asher to his school, and we laugh at Lorenzo Llama together and it is all good feelings and I take him in and drop him off and I'm even a little bit proud of myself because I remembered his snow pants even in all of that commotion! I drive all the way back home (it's about 10 minutes, so not too far) and gaze at Viv's beautiful sleeping face as I take her car seat out of the car. And then I see a flash of green and crane my neck over her seat, and sure enough, Asher left his coat in the car. And all I can think is "that little mother .... UGH!" But instead of throwing a tantrum I called his teacher and was happy to hear that a lot of kids had not come to school prepared for snow, so they wouldn't be going outside today. Sometimes fate throws you a bone.
So I really wonder how people do this with EVEN MORE CHILDREN. 3 is maxing me out, for sure (as you can see by how easily I lose it!). 4 seems like it would be sheer torture. And more than 4, that is just plain insanity! Don't get me wrong, I would not trade in Viv, we love her to pieces, and I feel like having 3 kids was right for us, but if I had known I would have adjusted my expectations for a more difficult transition instead of the "oh, it's really hardly a change at all" line of b.s. (from all you crazies who said it was easy!).
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