Where have I been for the last year?
Welcome to the show. Or more accurately, the circus. Because that is how we’ve been adjusting to life with three kids.
Don’t ask me how many weeks old the baby is, because I don’t know. I don’t know what day of the week it is or what I’m going to do over the weekend. The days are long, but blend together so effectively that I don’t know if I took a shower yesterday or two weeks ago. Don’t even get me started on how often (or never) the baby gets bathed. But that’s ok, right? It’s not like newborns get dirty.
I think now is a good starting point to resurrect the blog. After all, I’m going back to school to pursue my dream of being a writer once and for all, so I need a launchpad to practice the craft. You’re welcome.
It has taken me 2 months to write this post before publishing it – because mom life.
How my third pregnancy differed from the first two.
Let’s go back to the beginning. How did we end up with three kids? Long story short, in December of 2020 I got sick and thought I might have COVID. Turns out I just had pregnancy. No biggie. We had always planned on a third baby, so it didn’t matter much that it was happening sooner rather than later.
Although I somehow avoided the hyperemesis that plagued my second pregnancy, this pregnancy wrecked my body in ways I couldn’t imagine. It was my first pregnancy in my 30’s, and I should have known it would be different. The nausea and vomiting seemed to come and go, but I was in almost constant physical pain throughout the pregnancy. My back and hips felt like they were being pricked with a knife. I tried everything from pain medicine, to yoga, to a heating pad, to eventually going to a chiropractor 2-3 times a week. Nothing alleviated the pain until I gave birth, and I still have lingering pain that hasn’t fully gone away. Because of the pain, I couldn’t work out during my pregnancy, so I’ve become possibly the most out of shape I’ve been in my entire adult life.
Life with a newborn, toddler, and pre-teen.
When the baby was born, Roman promptly decided that was the opportune moment to stop sleeping. So in addition to a newborn that woke up every 30 minutes to 2 hours at night, we dealt with Roman’s bedtime process taking 2-3 hours and him waking periodically throughout the night for the first time since infancy. In addition to that, his behavior has taken a giant turn for the worse. He’s regressed in sleep, social skills, potty training, and more. We are working through it but basically every family member had their own therapist by the end of 2021. Even our cat is on anxiety medication! So fun!
Dominic was born perfect in every way, my biggest baby, and yet he has been a little slow when it comes to weight gain – up until recently. He is also my first baby to not need formula at all, so I am very happy about that. He also takes a bottle easily and sometimes uses a pacifier to soothe himself to sleep, so he is already much easier than Roman was in that respect.
However, the universe has blessed me with the world’s clingiest baby. He literally will not let me put him down. He screams at the top of his lungs whether I leave for him for 10 minutes to put away some laundry, or 10 seconds to pee. It’s the same level of trauma for him. He spent almost the entire first 3 months of his life being held or worn in a baby carrier. Thank God for companies like KeaBabies and Ergo! Dominic is now almost 5 months old and finally beginning to play on his own for 10-15 minutes at a time. I can now treat myself to a shower or use the bathroom or braid my hair…you know, self care.
He has also not been the best sleeper until recently, so he was waking every 30 minutes to 2 hours all night, every night, for months. Through process of elimination, I had to figure out that he didn’t love certain swaddles, didn’t like his bassinet, preferred co-sleeping, and then preferred his crib. He needs his mattress warmed with a heating pad, his sound machine on loud, and likes wearing a sleep sack over being swaddled. Again, all of these are different than his older brothers’ preferences.
Wait, have I mentioned the pre-teen? I guess not, which isn’t surprising. Due to his little brothers’ constant chaos, he’s been hiding out in his bedroom most days playing video games and talking to his friends on the phone. The pandemic isolation has been tough on my outgoing boy. Hopefully better days are ahead for him and his peers.
The bright side: working toward a routine.
But again, he is perfect. He makes me laugh every day and he’s finally started laughing too. He smiles constantly, loves talking and being talked to, and playing with his toys. All I have to do is look at him and he grins from ear to ear. He’s even got a cute little upper cheek dimple – something I’ve never seen! He is very social and loves interacting with his brothers. He is definitely a mama’s boy, but he is becoming less clingy as he grows. I don’t blame him; as a pandemic baby, it’s not surprising that his stranger danger sense is strong.
Now that I’m getting more than 40 minute chunks of sleep at night, I can start planning how I want this next year to go. I’m going to go back to school, hopefully extend my part time workload, and get back into shape. I don’t have any help with the baby, so he is just an extension of my body at this point and I’m learning to cope with that. He usually won’t nap unless he is touching me. I don’t get breaks, except every once in a while when my parents come over to visit for the day, during which time I run around like a crazy person working through weeks of to-do lists during the short time they spend at our house.
I enjoy being a stay at home mom, but I do look forward to the day I can do things for myself, too, even if that’s just taking a 30 minute shower instead of a 10 minute one. I also look forward to the day when all three children sleep like little angels, which might not be until they’re teenagers. Each day is an adventure, with one of the boys throwing a new curveball at us, but thankfully I have a good teammate in this parenthood journey.
