I Had to Learn

Jade NEVER cried. Any mother who met Jade made it a point to tell me that she was not a typical child. She went down for every nap without a peep and woke up happy exactly an hour and a half later. So on this special day, day number one by myself, I expected everything to be the same. Why wouldn't it? I laid Jade down and went back downstairs to get Ruby, who had already started fussing at this point. She was hungry. I picked her up and headed upstairs to feed her but by the time I made it to the top of the stairs she was screaming! I mean like lip-quivering, out of breath, red-face, sounds like something is attacking her screaming! What the heck? I ran to the rocker in my room and tried to start feeding her but she was so worked up that she couldn't latch on. Then while she was crying so hard that she had no voice I heard another cry that was even worse than Ruby's. Was that Jade?? I threw (gently) Ruby on the bed and bolted over to Jade's room where I found her in her crib in hysterics! I scooped her up and frantically examined her to see what was going on. Nothing. She didn't calm down right away and I bounced up and down and shushed her for the first time in her little four month life. With Jade in my arms I hurried back to my room where Ruby continued to scream on the bed. Jade had slowed her crying by this point so I tried to lay her down so I could pick up Ruby but that caused her crying to escalate all over again. Who was this child? Were they playing a joke on me? Both of my girls were inconsolable and needed 100% of me at that moment. What was I to do? Couldn't they have tried this at any point over the past three weeks when I had constant help? I guess that wouldn't have been as fun. I grabbed a girl in each arm (that sounds WAY easier than it actually was) and went to the recliner, got us situated, and attempted to calm them both. I wish that you could see what the next half hour looked like.

Jade's behavior was so abnormal that I couldn't put her down and the only way to calm Ruby down was to feed her. So I supported Jade with my left arm and rhythmically bounced it causing her head to bob and her eyes to eventually grow drowsy. In the meantime I laid Ruby on my lap and contorted my body in such a way that she could eat without being held. Basically I hung the goods over her. Of course being large on top to begin with and then being filled with milk I could have suffocated the poor thing so I had to use my right hand to keep that from happening. So with my right arm stuck out like a chicken wing, my left constantly bouncing up and down, my torso twisted and bent over in the most awkward way, my whole body started to burn! In that moment I couldn't believe how much my life had changed. I looked at my situation and I laughed to stop myself from crying. I couldn't imagine how I looked in that moment, twisted and bouncing all over the place. The burning in my body was worsening by the second. But I realized that I was a lot quicker to tap out of a Last Chance Workout when my body burned like that and I had a trainer yelling down at me and cameras all around than I was when I was trying to console my daughters. That's when I knew I was really in love. (Wow, and I just said daughterS. I have DAUGHTERS. I have children. I am a mommy. Never gets old.)

Ruby was three weeks old, Jade was three months old and that was three months ago. The next two months forced me to grow more than I had ever anticipated. I felt anxiety every night to the point where my chest would tighten and I'd become short of breath knowing what the night held for me. Ruby was difficult. She didn't sleep like a typical newborn; she was awake most of the day and most of the night. She cried all the time and I had no idea how to help her. Jade went through a phase when Ruby was born where she started waking up in the night, causing me to bounce back and forth between babies and sleeping less than four, sometimes three hours a night. Jason was always willing to help but if he was out helping a baby I could still hear them cry and what mother can actually fall asleep when they can hear their baby crying? So waking him up to help just meant that we both weren't sleeping. This was frustrating but nothing was as bad as 7:30 am. I dreaded this time every morning and I found myself panicking the closer it got to kissing Jason goodbye and hearing the garage door close behind him. I would be alone again and have a whole day ahead of me of trying to care for the needs of both girls and hold myself together. I'm not going to lie, it was hard! I loved my girls more than anything and I was so happy to be a mom but learning how to juggle both babies was SO challenging! But that's just it, I had to learn. I learned that sometimes one baby is just going to have to cry until I am finished helping her sister. I learned that it is impossible for me to keep my house clean and care for my babies at the same time and I am learning to be okay with that. I learned that I have to wash my feet almost as much as I wash my hands because sometimes there is nothing else I can do but pick up a pacifier with my toes and stick it in a baby's mouth or wipe spit up off a face with my foot because my arms are totally unavailable. Don't judge me till you've been there! =) I learned that it is worth it to be late and calm down a crying baby before putting her in the car than to be on time and have her scream the whole way. I learned to let things go. I learned how to shower in three minutes flat. I mastered the messy bun. I now know how to work off of very little sleep.

I have only been a mom for seven months. I have so much more to learn and I can't wait!