The Life of Bon: April 2017

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

enya

he cries

we swaddle we bounce we swing.

he cries

we feed we burp we spit up

he cries

we swaddle and reswaddle

baby go to sleep.  just go to sleep.

he cries he cries he cries.  he writhes his stomach against mine.  he is uncomfortable.  he can't help it.  please baby go to sleep.

he cries

I come downstairs and turn all the lights out.  I find enya on my phone.  I hold him tight against me in the dark in the kitchen.

and we dance.

shhh shhhh shhh shhhh

we move slowly in the dark.  Steady, even, soothing.  Who can say where the rain goes?  Only time.

I feel his little twelve pound body heavy on mine.  He relaxes.  His neck drops.  His breathing slows.  The babe has fallen asleep.

the tears run down my face.  So grateful for this new baby.  So exhausted by this new baby.  I am so happy.  I am so sad.  

Monday, April 17, 2017

Two kids- it's a wild, wild world

Gosh.  It has been so long since I have written on this blog.  I feel like I think that every time I write.  Maintaining any type of consistency with blogging has proven to be such a challenge the past year.

And yet when I write it feels so good.  I pull up my blog, and it feels like I'm coming home.  My fingers go crazy with their click click clacking.  They yearn to write.  I yearn to write.

In the interest of full disclosure, having two kids is kicking our butts.  My butt.  Greg's butt.  All of the butts.  Welcoming June to our family was so easy and effortless.  It was like we had always been waiting for her to be a complete family unit.  She was literally the perfect baby.  Newborn June days were full of bliss.  (I was reading my journal from when June was born- she was sleeping through the night at two months!  WHAAAAA?!?  Hugh is almost three months and we consider it a huge victory if he ever sleeps more than a three hour stretch at night.)

Welcoming Hugh has been more challenging.  Everything about it.  The pregnancy was tougher, the delivery was more painful, and baby Hugh is not content on the level that June was.  I mentioned this on my instagram a few days ago, but he definitely seems to have reflux or something else that is bothering his stomach.  He demands to be held upright and he wants to be bounced, swung, shushed, the whole shebang.  He writhes, he spits up, he fusses, he must be held  ALL. THE.  TIME.  I love holding my babies!  Except for when I have serious shiz to do.  Then I get stressed.  You can't hold a baby for three months straight.  I guess you could, but then who would pay the bills?  And what would one eat?!?

Hugh and June are 31 months apart.  I *think* this will be a really great age gap.  Close enough to play together, far apart enough to have their own identities and keep my sanity.  Well.  That's what I *thought* anyway.  Maybe when Hugh gets a little older?  Right now it is just complete chaos.  They both feel like babies to me still, they both have baby needs, and yet somehow their needs are SO different. I can't double up on any of the work.  They have to be fed differently, bathed differently, put to sleep differently.  They are both demanding and needy, (through no fault of their own- they are babies!)  and I feel like I have neither the skill nor the energy to adequately care for all of those needs. How does any one in the world ever make it past two children?

After I had June I never wanted to go back to the days of not having kids.  I had thought I would.  But I didn't.  My heart was so ready for June, even though I didn't know it was.  She joined my life and there was no looking back.  And now I hate hate to say it, but sometimes I do long for the days of just one child.  The pre-Hugh days.  And then I look down at little Hugh, who through no fault of his own is being wished away, and I am filled with so much guilt that I rock and hold him for hours to make sure he never catches on that I sometimes think that.

I try to be gentle and patient with myself.  We are in such a hustle stage of life, and Hugh wasn't exactly part of our plans.  We are running a small business out of our home.  I am teaching part time at a high school.  I still make some attempt at professional blogging.  We eat and wear clean clothes (most days.)  And now we care for two small children.  It is alot!  Anyone would struggle with so much on their plates.  I'm exhausted and I have to keep telling myself that that's ok.  It is also ok if my house is a mess and the laundry unfolded.  (This week I am paying someone to come clean my house which feels like a failure in its own way- I do not even have it together enough to clean up after myself!)  And it's ok if we eat out more often than I cook.  And it is also ok if I fall asleep Friday night at 9:00 right in the middle of a movie night with Greg.  It's ok if I file my taxes literally the last possible day.  It's ok that we're not ok!

In other, happier, news- the jazz won their first playoff game since 2010 over the weekend.  June, Greg, and I stayed up late and snuggled in our king sized bed watching it.  Our cheers woke up the nearby sleeping Hugh when Joe Johnson's buzzer beater went in.  Normally I say there isn't anything in the world worth waking up our sleeping dragon, but that--- that was worth it.

And now some pictures from our spring break in Las Vegas.  These are hard times, but they are happy times, too.