The Amazing Race... with kids.

It's been a while since I last wrote and it is only due to the craziness that our life has been in the past two weeks. A few weeks ago Rob was asked to go to Ontario for an employee party for his new job. He had to go for a week, and if I decided to attend they would also pay for my plane ticket. So, being faced wit the decision to either stay home by myself with the two kiddos for the first time, or join him with the kids on the trip and meanwhile do some house hunting before our move, I decided I was still not confident enough to stay on my own with the kids. So we got all of us a plane ticket (luckily Emi still doesn't pay for a ticket because he is under 2, so we only needed to pay for Paulo's) and off we went to Ontario. We also took Nana, since she will possibly be moving with us and we thought it might be good for her to see the city and some houses with us, plus she could babysit for a couple of hours while we attended the company party.

Well, in retrospect I feel like a real idiot for dragging my whole family across the country just because I "wasn't ready" to take care of the kids on my own for a week. Man, was that an exhausting trip. I can honestly say that now, at barely 3 days after our arrival, I am just beginning to feel rested.

We were very lucky that once the grandparents left, Paulo was back to his usual self and has since been behaving very well, like he used to. But I can't begin to explain how exhausting it is to travel with two kids and a grandma. To start with, Emi was only 3 weeks old when we flew to Ontario. So that meant I was carrying him the whole time in the sling, and although he weighs close to nothing compared to Paulo and he pretty much slept the whole way there, it is so not fun to change diapers in the tiny airplane bathroom, or to have a screaming, hungry baby while you are standing in the line for security. As if that weren't enough, add to that the whole 2-year-old factor. THAT is what I call challenging. We had to work around Paulo's nap times and get him to fall asleep in a crowded airplane full of people and noise. And the cherry on top, the 85 year-old grandma, plus tons of lugagge (and car seats), plus it is Winter, and having to load up a van in -20C weather while carrying a newborn is not fun at all, if not just plain impossible (thanks to my lovely husband who had to bust his butt doing this while I just watched from indoors with the kids).

 

Despite all this and in trying to see the silver lining, I did get to see a bit of the city and Rob was able to do some house hunting and found the perfect house -- which we later found out we could not rent because the owners wanted to try and sell it first... bummer.

 

Finally, on our way back, our 6 a.m. flight got cancelled, so you can imagine the ordeal of staying at the airport another 3 hours trying to sort out our trip back, and then getting into a cab again back to a hotel, and then try again the same thing the next day... fun times people, fun times...

 

Now our trip to visit my family in Mexico is coming up in a couple of weeks and I can't really say that I am excited about getting on a plane again just yet. Not to event mention doing it all again in April when we are moving for real and we are carrying 3 times as much crap with us...we'll see how that goes.

 

For now, I'll just enjoy my peaceful little life at home with my 3 boys. One of which, by the way, has turned 1 month already (!!!). And here some pictures:

Emi- 4 weeks old

Emi's tiny feet

Emi and his big brother Paulo

Mother's Guilt.

Well, the 2nd week after Emi's birth was... challenging. To say the least. The reason being that Paulo has been a complete MONSTER for the whole week. I mean, Paulo has just turned two, and granted, he's been sick with a bad cold (for the millionth time) and had pink eye, and stopped going to daycare (which he loved) ... oh, and yes, he also just got a little brother and got his world turned upside down. So I understand he has had enough reasons to be grumpy, angry, rebellious, whatever. But seriously, is this behaviour normal??? He has turned the word "NO" into pretty much all the vocabulary he has used in days. And when he doesn't get his way (which is whatever the opposite is of what we ask or want) he just fully BLOWS UP. And by blow up I mean scream and cry, bites his own hand, throws himself on the floor and looses control for waaay too long. Like, I think he forgets what he's fussing about and there is no stopping him, convincing him, bribing him, or ANYTHING one can do to calm him down.

 

Whenever he has done this at home it is not such a big deal, since once we realize there is literally nothing we can do to calm him down we just let him be and walk away until he is ready for a hug or a cuddle and slowly comes back to normal. However it just terrified me to think he could pull one of these when I took him out with the baby and then what would I do?? well, soon enough it happened, and it wasn't pretty.

 

Our day was going so well. I had managed both kids at breakfast pretty much on my own. Managed to put them both down for naps. And then came the afternoon. I felt pretty confident that I could take them both to the park by myself. The day was warm and sunny, they were both well rested. Well, to make the long story short, we made it to the park with smiles on our faces, Emi wrapped up in the sling and Paulo in his balance bike. And then hell broke lose. I will not waste time on the details (I think it still makes me sweaty to remember it), but basically it finished with me trying to drag Paulo across the street on our way back home, with the baby in the sling, the bike in one hand and a fighting Paulo on the other. He eventually threw himself on the ground in front of me, I tripped on him, slipped in the ice, and fell flat on my front. Yes, with the baby wrapped on me. Needless to say, the baby hit himself in the ice, squealed in horror, and I was so terrified at what happened that I don't even want to remember whether I really landed on top of the baby or not. I was so scared to think the baby might be hurt, and soooo increadibly angry at Paulo for causing that. I got up in tears, left the bike where it was, and just grabbed Paulo by the wrist (he was still in full on tantrum mode, screaming and crying) and pretty much dragged him home.

 

 

The little daredevil on his balance bike - pre-tantrum.

Once we got home I checked Emi, who had stopped crying, and couldn't see anything obviously wrong with him, so I calmed down a bit that he wasn't hurt. But man, that scene was just.not.pretty. Paulo was still going insane, and probably was scared because of what happened too. But I was totally shaken, and I felt guilty too. I know that part of me acting that way was because I thought Emi could be hurt. But I also recognize that I completely lost my cool and that I had never acted so desperate and angry at Paulo before... I don't think. He just got the worst of me and I keep wondering if there was anything I could have done to handle things differently...

 

The truth is, I felt (and still feel) really guilty for what happened. Paulo is only 2, he is going to a great deal of changes and I think I have to really understand that and be SUPER EXTRA patient with him. I really do think my children are such amazing, precious gifts of God, and although partly justified because I DO have to discipline him and I should not give in to that behaviour (especially if it puts any of us in danger), that is not the way to handle such a precious gift. And to add to that, I fell really, really short from the type of mother I'd like to be.

 

Eventually Paulo got over the tantrum and we huged and kissed and I tucked him to bed and we were back to normal. But my scar was still there and the whole thing just had me really upset. At the end of the day, I felt so emotionally drained... all I wanted to do was to go to bed and start from zero again the next day.

 

The last few days I have been trying my best to just avoid tantrums as much as possible and give Paulo as much attention as I can. I think he has improved a little and although he has still had a tantrum pretty much every day, it has been at most one and they haven't been such massive meltdowns.

 

However, that feeling from the other day has still managed to linger, and that just adds up to the guilt I feel for not being able to give Paulo 100% of my attention anymore, and to have to split myself between him and his little brother. Funny, how a mother decides to give her first born a brother so they can have each other's back in life, and this very thing that you are doing, partly to make him a happier human being, sometimes ends up making you feel like you are falling short as a mother... Mother's guilt I guess... and this is just the beginning.Sigh....

1 week post partum: New baby, new normal.

It has already been a week since Emilio arrived and I can't believe it has already been that long since we've had Emi at home. 

 

 

Baby Emi at 1 week of age

 

Physically, my recovery has been amazing.  The baby came out so fast, that there was literally no time for any tears or pain really, so I didn't get any stitches and I didn't get exhausted like I did when I had Paulo. I can honestly say that after little over one week I physically felt close to a 100% back to normal.

 

Other than that, the first two or three days with Emi were so easy that I just KNEW things were going to change big time and all this peace and quiet would come back and bite me in the behind. The first day after birth, my mom brought me breakfast in bed, my dad and Rob took Paulo to daycare (he would be done at the end of January) and we spent the rest of the day just watching the baby sleep the day away. It is funny thinking that two years ago this very same event seemed to cause chaos in our lives and this time around it all seemed so... easy. The baby slept all day, didn't really cry much... Even slept most of the night.

The second night was also pretty manageable. I kind of feared this day because when I had Paulo we spent the second night awake all night because he wouldn't stop crying. Then the nurse came the following day and it turned out he had lost a lot of weight and we had to supplement with formula for a week until my milk came in. I felt like a loser feeding my son formula on his second day of life and not only did this make me miserable in a very postpartum depressive way, but I was also convinced that my husband was either going to leave us or die of a heart attack because he spent the day running around all day getting breast pumps,  sterilizing bottles, boiling water or mixing formula while I cried and tried feeding a baby fwith my cracked nipples and empty breasts (I must say that after a week everything worked out and I happily breastfed my son until 11 months of age).

 

Anyway, that was two years ago, but I was affraid the story would repeat itself this time. Thankfully, this time it all worked out great since the beginning and there was no such drama. My baby boy was feeding fine and although  he was cluster feeding tons on the second night, I could tell he was getting milk when he was eating. It did take some time to learn to feed a newborn again and to get my body used to that "abuse" again but I got over it pretty quickly. I am pumped though that my milk came in so quickly this time and I haven't seen a bottle anywhere near me sofar.

 

In sum, the first days were pretty normal and incredibly easy. I knew though, the other shoe would eventually drop. And man did a big, stinking boot ever slam me on the head... As it turns out, even though Paulo was being great with Emi-- kissing him all the time, looking at him with curiosity and giving him lots of attention, he was also starting to notice he didn't have anybody's full and undivided attention anymore... Not good. Soon enough he was in full on pissy mode and being not just a typical two year old, but just being plain rude, said "no" to literally EVERYTHING and just throwing the most terrible temper tantrums I've seen in him. I just didn't recognize him anymore. That behaviour is just so unlike Paulo. Added to that, he got a terrible cough and he got pink eye -- I'm kind of hoping that his feeling crappy is to blame for all that craziness, or maybe the terrible two's finallly hit him hard, but at this point I'm just not sure.  As if that wasn't enough, Rob put his back out and was completely unable to help with childcare.
 

Thankfully my parents were still here to help out lots. But man oh man were we ever tried in those few days. I think I was probably also feeling overly emotional from all the hormones and maybe some postpartum depression, because I found myself just balling every five minutes over the chaos, feeling overwhelmed and the fact that my two year old was resenting all this change and I just couldn't give him all the attention he was used to. I also started getting really stressed thinking that once my parents left I would be on my own  and I just.do.not.know how tI'm going to handle two kids on my own.
 

I have to admit at this point I am still not sure what I will do come mid February when my parents are gone and Rob is back to work in his new job, Paulo is not going to daycare anymore, and I am left to my own devices to deal with both kiddos - including a crazy toddler. But at least at this point Paulo is starting to feel better from his cold, Rob is slowly recovering and I am starting to get my head around some strategies to organize my day with both kids. I know things will work themselves out eventually, but I just really have to keep it together before Rob gets all worried that he can't just go to work and do his best.
 

For now I will just try to take advantage of all the help I have, and do my best to come up with a "survival" plan. I know this is all part of getting used to a new "normal" for ALL of us and we'll probably all feel stressed and angry at each other many times before we can settle in our new life. so wish me luck and if you have any tips on how to make this transition easier send them my way!